Chapter XIII (1)

1878-98

Lady Russell survived her husband nearly twenty years. From the time of Lord Russell's death in May, 1878, till 1890, she kept no diary, but not long before her death she wrote for her children a few recollections of some of the events during those twelve years.

In May, 1880, Lady Victoria Villiers died, leaving a widowed husband and many children. Her death was a great sorrow to Lady Russell, who wrote of her as "a perfect wife and mother."

In the summer of 1883 her son Rollo bought a place--Dunrozel--near Haslemere, and from this time till 1891 Lady Russell spent a few months every year at Dunrozel.[96] In 1891 and 1892 she took a house on Hindhead--some miles from Haslemere--for a few months. She enjoyed and loved the beautiful wild heather country, which reminded her of Scotland, but after 1892 she felt that home was best for her, and never again left Pembroke Lodge.

[96] They named it Dunrozel after Rozel in Normandy, supposed to be the original home of the Russells.

In 1885 the marriage of her son Rollo to Miss Alice Godfrey was a great happiness to her. But in little more than a year, soon after the birth of a son, Mrs. Rollo Russell died, and again Lady Russell suffered deeply, for she always found the sorrows of her children harder to bear than her own.

To retire more and more from the world of many engagements and important affairs was easy to her, easier than it proves to many who have figured there with less distinction. Playing a prominent part in that world does not make people happy; but, as a rule, it prevents them from being contented with anything else. It was not so with her; in the days most crowded with successes and excitements her thoughts kept flying home. She had always felt that a quiet, busy family life was the one most natural to her. When she was a girl at Minto, helping to educate her younger brothers and sisters, she had written in her diary:

_August_ 26, 1836

Chiefly unto children, O Lord, do I feel myself called; in them I
see Thy image reflected more pure than in anything else in this
sinful though beautiful world, and in serving them my love to Thee
increases.

Her wish was fulfilled to an unusual degree. One of a large family of brothers and sisters, she was still helping in the education of the younger ones when she married, and her marriage at once brought her the care of a young family; soon, too, children of her own; while her old age brought her the charge of successive grandchildren. During the lifetime of Lord and Lady Amberley their children often spent many months at Pembroke Lodge while their parents were abroad, and when both father and mother had died the two boys came to live with their grandparents. Ten years later her youngest son's boy was brought to her on the day of his mother's death, when he was two months old, and remained with her till her son's second marriage in 1891. The children of her stepdaughters were also loving grandchildren to her, and often came for long visits to Pembroke Lodge.

Lady Russell had sometimes thought that when days of leisure came, she would give some of her time to literary work, and write reminiscences of the many interesting men and women she had known and the stirring events she had lived through; but the unexpected and daily cares and duties which came upon her made this impossible. [97] She was one who would never neglect the living needs of those around her, and she gave her time and thoughts to the care of her grandchildren with glad and loving devotion.

[97] The only book Lady Russell published was "Family Worship"; a small volume of selections from the Bible and prayers for daily use. It was first published in 1876.

One of her greatest pleasures was to see her own ideals and enthusiasms reflected in the young; and next to the care of her family the prosperity of the village school at Petersham was perhaps nearest her heart. It grew and flourished through her devotion. In 1891 it was generously taken over by the British and Foreign School Society, but the change made no difference to her interest nor to the time she gave to it. The warm affection of the people of Petersham was a great happiness to her; after long illness and enforced absence from the village she wrote to her daughter: "You can't think what good it did me to see a village friend again."

The feeling among the villagers may be gathered from two brief passages in letters written after her death: a gardener in Petersham alluded to her as "our much-loved friend, Countess Russell," and another man--who had been educated at Petersham School--wrote: "She was really like a mother to many of we 'Old Scholars.'"

Lady Russell's letters will show that her interest in politics remained as keen as ever to the end; and she eagerly watched the changes which affected Ireland. To the end of her life she retained the fervour of her youthful Radicalism, and with advancing years her religious opinions became more and more broad. To her there was no infallibility in any Bible, any prophet, any Church. With an ever-deepening reverence for the life and teaching of Jesus, she yet felt that "The highest Revelation is not made by Christ, but comes directly from the Universal Mind to our minds." [98] Her last public appearance in Richmond was at the opening of the new Free Church, on April 16, 1896, which she had joined some years before as being the community holding views nearer to her own than any other.

[98] Rev. F.W. Robertson, of Brighton. Sermons, 1st Series.

There is a side of Lady Russell's mind which her letters do not adequately represent. She was a great reader, and in her letters (written off with surprising rapidity) she does not often say much about the books she was so fond of discussing in talk. Among novelists, Sir Walter Scott was perhaps the one she read most often; Jane Austen too was a favourite; but she also much enjoyed many of the later novelists, especially Charles Dickens and George Eliot.

In poetry her taste was in some respects the taste of an earlier generation; she could not join, for instance, in the depreciation of Byron, nor could she sympathize with the unbounded admiration for Keats which she met with among the young. Milton, Cowper, Burns, Byron, and Longfellow were among those oftenest read, but Shakespeare always remained supreme, and as the years went by her wonder and admiration seemed only to grow stronger and deeper with every fresh reading of his greatest plays; and the intervals without some Shakespeare reading, either aloud or to herself, were short and rare. She had not an intimate knowledge of Shelley, but in the later years of her life she became deeply impressed by the beauty and music of his poetry, which she liked best to hear read aloud.

Tennyson she loved, and latterly also Browning, with protests against his obscurity and his occasionally most unmusical English. The inspiration of his brave and optimistic philosophy she felt strongly. She was extremely fond of reading Dante, and she was better acquainted with German and Italian poetry than most cultivated women. But though she read much and often in the works of famous writers, this did not prevent her keeping abreast with the literature of the day. She was strongly attracted by speculative books, not too technical, and by the works of theologians whose views were broad and tolerant of doubt. In 1847 she mentions reading some of Dr. Channing's writings "with the greatest delight"; and some years afterwards she wrote: "Began 'Life of Channing'; interesting in the highest degree--an echo of all those high and noble thoughts of which this earth is not yet worthy, but which I firmly believe will one day reign on it supreme." In later years she was deeply impressed by the writings of Dr. Martineau, and read many of his books. But she was not interested in philosophical inquiry for its own sake; it was the importance of the moral and religious issues at stake in such discussions that attracted her. History and biography it was natural she should read eagerly, and it was characteristic of her to praise and condemn actions long past with an intensity such as is usually excited by contemporary events. Until a few years before her death she rose early to secure a space of time for reading and meditation before the duties of the day began. Unless ill-health could be pleaded, fiction and light reading were banished from the morning hours. She believed in strict adherence to such self-imposed sumptuary regulations, whether they applied to the body or to the pleasures of the mind.

In the course of her long life she became personally acquainted with nearly all the principal writers of the Victorian era, and some of them she knew well.

Among the earliest friends of Lord and Lady John Russell were Sydney Smith, Thomas Moore, and Macaulay. There is a note in verse written by Lady John to Samuel Rogers, which will serve at least to suggest how readily her fancy and good spirits might run into rhyme on the occasion of some family rejoicing or for a children's play.

_To Mr. Rogers, who was expected to breakfast and forgot to
come_

CHESHAM PLACE, 1843

When a poet a lady offends
Is it prose her forgiveness obtains?
And from Rogers can less make amends
Than the humblest and sweetest of strains?

In glad expectation our board
With roses and lilies we graced;
But alas! the bard kept not his word,
He came not for whom they were placed.

Sad and silent our toast we bespread,
At the empty chair looked we and sighed;
All insipid tea, butter, and bread,
For the salt of his wit was denied.

Now in wrath we acknowledge how well
He the "Pleasures of Memory" who drew,
For mankind from his magical shell
Gives the "Pains of Forgetfulness" too.

Rogers wrote in answer:--

CARA, CARISSIMA, CRUDELISSIMA,--If such is to be the reward for my
transgressions, what crimes shall I not commit before I die? I
shall shoot Victoria to-day, and Louis Philippe to-morrow.

But to be serious, I am at a loss how to thank you as I ought. How
I lament that I have hung my harp upon the willow!

Yours ever,

S.R.

In later years Thackeray and Charles Dickens were welcome guests, and the cordial friendship between Lord and Lady John and Dickens lasted till his death in 1870. Dickens said in a speech at Liverpool in 1869 that "there was no man in England whom he respected more in his public capacity, loved more in his private capacity, or from whom he had received more remarkable proofs of his honour and love of literature than Lord John Russell."

Among poets, Tennyson and Browning were true friends; Longfellow also visited Pembroke Lodge, and impressed Lady Russell by his gentle and spiritual nature; and Lowell was one of her most agreeable guests. With Sir Henry Taylor, whose "Philip van Artevelde" she admired, the intercourse was, from her youth to old age, intimate and affectionate.

Mr. Lecky, a faithful friend, gave a picture of the society at Pembroke Lodge, which may be quoted here:

For some years after Lord Russell's retirement from ministerial life he gathered around him at Pembroke Lodge a society that could hardly be equalled--certainly not surpassed--in England. In the summer Sunday afternoons there might be seen beneath the shade of those majestic oaks nearly all that was distinguished in English politics, and much that was distinguished in English literature, and few eminent foreigners visited England without making a pilgrimage to the old statesman. [99]

[99] "Life of Lord John Russell," by Stuart J. Reid, p. 351.

Mr. Frederic Harrison was one of Lady Russell's best friends in the last years of her life, and her keen interest in the Irish Question brought her into close and intimate intercourse with Mr. Justin McCarthy, who knew her so well in these days of busy and sequestered old age that his recollections, given in the last chapter of this volume, are valuable.

Among the men of science she knew best were Sir Richard Owen, a near neighbour in Richmond Park, Sir Joseph Hooker, and Professor Tyndall, one of the most genial and delightful of her guests.

There is a passage in Sir Henry Taylor's autobiography which speaks of her in earlier times, but it expresses an impression she made till her death on many who met her:

I have been rather social lately, ... and went to a party at Lord John Russell's, where I met the Archbishop of York.... A better meeting was with Lady Lotty Elliot, the one of the Minto Elliots who is now about the age that her elder sisters were when I first knew them some sixteen or eighteen years ago.... They are a fine set of girls and women, those Minto Elliots, full of literature and poetry and nature; and Lady John, whom I knew best in former days, is still very attractive to me; and now that she is relieved from the social toils of a First Minister's wife, I mean to renew and improve my relations with her, if she has no objection.... She is very interesting to me, as having kept herself pure from the world with a fresh and natural and not ungifted mind in the world's most crowded ways. I recollect some years ago going through the heart of the City, somewhere behind Cheapside, to have come upon a courtyard of an antique house, with grass and flowers and green trees growing as quietly as if it was the garden of a farm-house in Northumberland. Lady John reminds me of it.

The charm of her company, apart from the kindliness of her manner, lay in an immediate responsiveness to all that was going on around her, and the sense her talk and presence conveyed of a life controlled by a homely, dignified, strenuous tradition. It was the spontaneity of her sympathy which all her life long drew to her defenders, dispirited or hopeful, of struggling causes, and so many idealists, confident or resigned, shabby or admired. Any with a cause at heart, an end to aim at beyond personal ends, found in her a companion who seemed at once to understand how bitter were the checks or how important the triumphs they had met, and to them her company was a singular refreshment and inspiration, amid the polite or undisguised indifference of the world. She could listen with ardour; and if this sympathy was there for comparative strangers, still more was it at the service of those who possessed her affection. She reflected instantaneously their joys and troubles; indeed, she made both so much her own that those she loved were often tempted at first to hide their troubles from her. Such natures cannot usually disguise their emotions, and though she could conceal her own physical sufferings so as almost to mislead those with whom she lived, her feelings were plainly legible. If anything was said in her presence which pained her, her distress was visible in a moment; and as a beautiful consequence of this transparent expressiveness, her gaiety was infectious and her affection shone out upon those she loved with tenderest radiance.

* * * * *

After Lord Russell's death political events can no longer be used as a thread to connect her letters and other writings together; but the following passages, chosen over many years, will, it is hoped, give to those who never knew her some idea of her as she is remembered by those who did.

On Lady Georgiana Peel's first birthday after the death of her father Lady Russell sent her the following verses:

To GEORGY

_For her Birthday, February 6, 1879._

TUNE: _"Lochnagar."_

What music so early, so gently awakes me,
And why as I listen these fast falling tears;
And what is the magic that so swiftly takes me
Far back on my road, o'er the dust of dead years?

Voice of the past, in thy sweetness and sadness
Thy magic enthralling, thy beauty and power,
Oh voice of the past! in thy deep holy sadness,
I know thee and yield to thee one little hour.

Once more rings the birthday with merry young laughter,
Our bairnies once more are around us at play;
Their little hearts reck not of what may come after,
As lightly they weave the fresh flowers of to-day.

Now to thy father's loved hand gaily clinging,
To ask for the kiss he stoops fondly to gi'e;
To his care-laden spirit once more thou art bringing
The freshness of thine, bonny winsome wee Gee![100]

Thy rosy young cheek to my own thou art pressing,
Thy little arms twining around me I feel.
And thy Father in Heaven to thank for each blessing,
I see thee beside me in innocence kneel.

When the dread shadow of sickness is o'er me,
I see thee, a lassie all brightness and bloom;
Still, still through thy tears strewing blossoms before me,
Still watching beside me through silence and gloom.

* * * * *

Hushed now is the music! and hushed be my weeping
For days that return not and light that hath fled.
No more from their rest may I summon the sleeping,
Or linger to gaze on the years that are dead.

Fadeth my dream--and my day is declining,
But love lifts the gloamin' and smooths the rough way;
And I hail the bright midday o'er thee that is shining,
And think of a home that will ne'er pass away.

[100] The name she was called by in her childhood.

Early in 1879 Lady Russell began again to have more intercourse with her friends in London, and in May she went with her son and daughter to the Alexandra Hotel for a short stay in town. She writes in her Recollections:

In May (1879) we spent ten days at the Alexandra Hotel, in the
midst of many kind friends and acquaintances. It was strange to be
once more in "the crowd, the hum, the shock of men" as of old--and
all so changed, so solitary within.... We there first saw Mr.
Justin McCarthy--he has since become a true friend, and his
companionship and conversation are always delightful; as with so
warm a heart and so bright an intellect they could not fail to be.

In April, 1880, when Mr. Gladstone's candidature in Midlothian was causing the greatest excitement and enthusiasm, Lady Russell received this letter from Mrs. Gladstone.

120, GEORGE STREET, EDINBURGH, _April_ 4, 1880

MY DEAR LADY RUSSELL,--We are so much touched by your letter and
all the warmth and kindness you have shown to ourselves and Mary
and Herbert. How can I thank you enough? I see in your letter all
the memories of the past, and that you can throw your kind heart
into the present moment lovingly. The old precious memories only
make you more alive to what is going on, as you think of _him_
who had gone before and shown so noble an example to my husband. No
doubt it did not escape you, words of my husband about Lord
Russell.... All here goes on splendidly; the enthusiasm continues
to increase, and all the returns have thrown us into a wild state
of ecstasy and thankfulness. It is, indeed, a blessing passing all
expectations, and I look back to all the time of anxiety beginning
with the Bulgarian horrors, all my husband's anxious hard work of
the past three or four years--how he was ridiculed and
insulted--and now, thank God, we are seeing the extraordinary
result of the elections, and listening to the goodness and
greatness of the policy so shamefully slandered; righteous
indignation has burst forth.... I loved to hear him saying aloud
some of the beautiful psalms of thanksgiving as his mind became
overwhelmed with gratitude and relieved with the great and good
news. Thank you again and again for your letter.

Yours affectionately,

CATHERINE GLADSTONE

_Sir Mount Stuart Grant Duff [101] to Lady Russell_

_June_ 8, 1883

As to the public questions at home--alas! I can say nothing but
echo what you and some other wise people tell me. One is far too
much _out_ of the whole thing. I do not fear the Radical, I
greatly fear the Radical, or crotchet-monger.... Your phrase about
the division on the Affirmation Bill [102] rises to the dignity of
a _mot,_ and will be treasured by me as such. "The triumph of
all that is worst in the name of all that is best."

[101] At that time Governor of Madras.

[102] In the April of 1881 Gladstone gave notice of an Affirmation Bill, to enable men like Mr. Bradlaugh to become members of Parliament without taking an oath which implied a belief in a Supreme Being. But it was not till 1883 that the Bill was taken up. On April 26th Gladstone made one of his most lofty and fervid speeches in support of the Bill, which, however, was lost by a majority of three.

_Lady Russell to Lady Agatha Russell_

PEMBROKE LODGE, _June,_ 1883

... I have been regaling myself on Sydney Smith's Life and
Letters--the wisdom and the wit, the large-hearted and wide-minded
piety, the love of God and man set forth in word and deed, and the
unlikeness to anybody else, make it delightful companionship.... I
long to talk of things deep and high with you, but if I once began
I should go on and on, and "of writing of letters there would be no
end." That is a grand passage of Hinton's [on music]. I always feel
that music means much more than just music, born of earth--joy and
sorrow, agony and rapture, are so mysteriously blended in its
glorious magic.

_Lady Russell's Recollections_

In July, 1883, I went with Agatha to see Dunrozel for the first
time ... I was simply enchanted--it was love at first sight, which
only deepened year after year.... We had a good many pleasant
neighbours; the Tennysons were more than pleasant, and welcomed us
with the utmost cordiality, and we loved them all.

At that time Professor Tyndall and Louisa [103] were almost the
only inhabitants of Hindhead. They were not yet in their house, but
till it was built and furnished lived in their "hut," where they
used to receive us with the most cheering, as well as cheerful,
friendliness.

[103] Mrs. Tyndall.

_Lady Russell to Miss Lilian Blyth_ [104] _[Mrs. Wilfred
Praeger]_

DUNROZEL, HASLEMERE, _November_ 16, 1883

Your letter is just like you, and that means all that is dear and
good and loving.... Indeed, past years are full of happy memories
of you all, not on marked days only, but on all days. At my age,
however, it is better to look forward to the renewal of all earthly
ties and all earth's best joys in an enduring home, than to look
back to the past--to the days before the blanks were left in the
earthly home which nothing here below can ever fill, and this it is
my prayer and my constant endeavour to do. We go home to dear
Pembroke Lodge next Tuesday ... going there must always be a
happiness to us all, yet this lovely little Dunrozel is not a place
to leave without many a pang.

[104] Daughter of the Rev. F.C. Blyth, for many years curate at Petersham.

_Lady Russell to Miss Bühler_ [105]

PEMBROKE LODGE, _December_, 1883

... I find my head will not bear more than a certain amount of
writing without giddiness and dull headache ... and there are so
_many_ correspondents who must be answered; friends,
relations, business people, that I am often quite bewildered; ...
so, please, understand that I shall always write _when I can_,
but not nearly always when I _would like_ to do so. Go on
letting yourself out whether sadly or happily, or in mingled
sadness and happiness, and believe how very much I like to see into
your thoughts and your heart as much as letters can enable me to do
so.... As for Scotland, oh! Scotland, my own, my bonny Scotland! if
you associate that best and dearest of countries with your present
_ennui_ and unhappiness, I shall turn my back upon you for
good and all and give you up as a bad job! So make haste and tell
me that you entirely separate the two things, and if you don't
admire "mine own romantic town" and feel its beauty thrill through
and through you, you must find the cause in anything rather than in
Edinburgh itself! Such are my commands.... In the meantime let it
be a consolation and a support to you to remember that it is by
trials and difficulties that our characters are raised, developed,
strengthened, made more Christ-like.... Good-bye, good-bye. God
bless you.

[105] Miss Bühler (who died some years ago) had been governess to Lady Russell's grandson Bertrand. She was Swiss, and only nineteen when she came, and Lady Russell gave her motherly care and affection.

_Lady Russell to Sir Henry Taylor_

_February_ 29, 1884

I have just been reading with painful interest "Mémoires d'un
Protestant condamné aux Galères" in the days of that terribly
little great man Louis XIV. I ask myself at every page, "Did man
really so treat his fellow-man? or is it all historical nightmare?"
I never can make the slightest allowance for persecutors on the
ground that "they thought it right to persecute." They had no
business so to think.

_Mr. Gladstone to Lady Russell_

_December_ 14, 1884

I thank you for and return Dr. Westcott's interesting and weighty
letter.... A very clever man, a Bampton lecturer, evidently writing
with good and upright intention, sends me a lecture in which he
lays down the qualities he thinks necessary to make theological
study fruitful. They are courage, patience, and sympathy. He omits
one quality, in my opinion even more important than any of them,
and that is reverence. Without a great stock of reverence mankind,
as I believe, will go to the bad....

During the strife and heat of the controversy on Home Rule, Lady Russell received the following letter from Mr. Gladstone:

10, DOWNING STREET, WHITEHALL,

_June_ 10, 1886

MY DEAR LADY RUSSELL,--I am not less gratified than touched by your
most acceptable note. It is most kind in you personally to give me
at a critical time the assurance of your sympathy and approval. And
I value it as a reflected indication of what would, I believe, have
been the course, had he been still among us, of one who was the
truest disciple of Mr. Fox, and was like him ever forward in the
cause of Ireland, a right handling of which he knew lay at the root
of all sound and truly Imperial policy. It was the more kind of you
to write at a time when domestic trial has been lying heavily upon
you. Believe me,

Very sincerely yours,

W.E. GLADSTONE

_Lady Russell to Lady Agatha Russell_

DUNROZEL, HASLEMERE, _August_ 30, 1886

... Our Sunday, mine especially, was a peaceful, lovely
Sabbath--mine especially because I didn't go to any church built
with hands, but held my silent, solitary worship in God's own
glorious temple, with no walls to limit my view, no lower roof than
the blue heavens over my head. The lawn, the green walk, the Sunday
bench in the triangle, each and all seemed filled with holiness and
prayer--sadness and sorrow. Visions of more than one beautiful past
which those spots have known and which never can return, were there
too; but the Eternal Love was around to hallow them....

_Lady Russell to Miss Bühler_

PEMBROKE LODGE, _November_ 24, 1886

MY DEAREST DORA,--I am afraid you will say that I have forgotten
you and your most loving and welcome birthday letter, but as I know
you will not _think_ it, I don't so very much mind. Nobody at
seventy-one and with many still to love and leave on earth, can
hail a birthday with much gladness.... The _real_ sadness to
me of birthdays, and of all marked days, is in the bitterly
disappointing answer I am obliged to make to myself to the
question: "Am I nearer to God than a year ago?" ... I never answered
your long-ago letter about your doubts and difficulties and
speculations on those subjects which are of deepest import to us
all, yet upon which it sometimes seems that we are doomed to work
our minds in vain--to seek, and _not_ to find--to exult one
moment in the fullness of bright hope and the coming fulfilment of
our highest aspirations, and the next to grope in darkness and say,
"Was it not a beautiful dream, and only a dream? Is it not too good
to be true that we are the children of a loving Father who
stretches out His hands to guide us to Himself, who has spoken to
us in a thousand ways from the beginning of the world by His
wondrous works, by the unity of creation, by the voices of our
fellow-creatures, by that voice, most inspired of all, that life
and death most beautiful and glorious of all, which 'brought life
and immortality to light,' and chiefly by that which we feel to be
immortal within us--_love_--the beginning and end of God's own
nature, the supreme capability which He has breathed into our
souls?" No, it is _not_ too good to be true. Nothing
perishes--not the smallest particle of the most worthless material
thing. Is immortality denied to the one thing most worthy of it?

I sent you "The Utopian," because I thought some of the little
essays would fall in with all that filled your mind, and perhaps
help you to a spirit of hopefulness and confidence which
_will_ come to you and abide with you, I am sure. You will
soon receive another book written by several Unitarians, of which I
have only read very little as yet, but which seems to me full of
strength and comfort and holiness.... Good-bye, and God bless you.

Your ever affectionate,

F. RUSSELL

_Lady Charlotte Portal to Lady Russell_

_January_ 26, 1887

DEAREST FANNY,--I wonder if you are quite easy in your conscience,
or whatever mechanism takes the place with you of that rococo old
article. Do you think you have behaved to me as an elder ought?--to
me, a poor young thing, looking for and sadly requiring the
guidance of my white-headed sister? Our last communications were at
Christmas-time--a month ago. Are you all well? Are you all entirely
at the feet of the dear baby boy? [106] Or have your republican
principles begun to rebel against his autocratic sway? ... I have
been amusing myself with an obscure author named William
Shakespeare, and enjoying him _immensely_. Amusing myself is
not the right expression, for I have been in the tragedies only. I
had not read "Othello" for ages. How wonderful, great, and
beautiful and painful it is (oh dear, why is it so coarse?). Then I
also read "Lear" and "Henry VIII," and being delightfully ignorant
I had the great interest of reading the same period (Henry VIII) in
Holinshed, and in finding Katharine's and Wolsey's speeches there!
Then I have tried a little Ben Jonson and Lord Chesterfield's
letters. What a worldling, and what a destroyer of a young mind
that man was. Can you tell me how the son turned out? I cannot find
any information about him. The language is delightful, and I wish I
could remember any of his expressions.... Now give me a volume of
Pembroke Lodge news in return for this. Public matters, the fear of
war, the arming of all nations, make me sick at heart. How
wonderful and admirable the conduct of that poor friendless little
Bulgaria has been. Then Ireland, oh me! but on that topic I won't
write to the Home Ruler!

Your affectionate sister,

C.M.P.

[106] Arthur, son of Mr. Rollo Russell.

_Lady Russell to Lady Charlotte Portal_

PEMBROKE LODGE, _January_ 27, 1887

DEAREST LOTTY,--It was but yesterday that there rose dimly to my
memory the vision of a lady with the initials--C.M.P., and who
knows how long I might have remained in the dark as to who and what
she might be but for this letter, in which she claims me as a
sister! and moreover an elder and a wiser sister! one therefore
whose doings and not-doings, writing and not-writing, must not be
questioned by the younger....

We have imagined ourselves living in a state of isolation from our
fellow-creatures, but yours far exceeds ours and makes it almost
into a life of gaiety. I'm most extremely sorry to hear of it,
though most extremely glad to hear that your minds to you a kingdom
are. What good and wholesome and delightful food _your_ mind
has been living on. Isn't that Shakespeare too much of a marvel to
have really been a man? "Othello" is indeed all you say of it, and
more than anybody can say of it, and so are _all_ the great
plays. I am reading the historical ones with Bertie.... Alas,
indeed, for the coarseness! I never can understand the objections
to Bowdlerism. It seems to me so right and natural to prune away
what can do nobody good--what it pains eyes to look upon and ears
to hear--and to leave all the glories and beauties untouched....
The little Autocrat is beginning to master some of the maxims of
Constitutional Monarchy--for instance, to find out that we do not
always leave the room the moment he waves his hand by way of
dismissal and utters the command of "Tata." I waste too much time
upon him, in spite of daily resolutions to neglect him.... I don't
at all know whether Lord Chesterfield succeeded in making his son
like his own clever, worldly, contemptible self, but will try to
find out. _Have_ you read "Dean Maitland"? [107] Now, Fanny,
do stop, you know you have many other letters to write....

Ever thine,

F.R.

[107] "The Silence of Dean Maitland," by Maxwell Grey.

_Lady Russell to Lady Georgiana Peel_

DUNROZEL, HASLEMERE, SURREY, _September_ 9 [1887]

... Your account of the Queen and her visit interested us much....
I often wish she could ever know all my gratitude to her and the
nation for the unspeakable blessing and happiness Pembroke Lodge
has been, and is; joys and sorrows, hopes fulfilled, and hopes
faded and crushed, chances and changes, and memories unnumbered,
are sacredly bound up with that dear home. Will it ever be loved by
others as we have loved it? It seems impossible....

_Lady Russell to Lady Charlotte Portal_

DUNROZEL, HASLEMERE, _September_ 12, 1887

DEAREST LOTTY,--I don't think I am writing because your clock is on
the stroke of Sixty-three, for these clocks of ours become
obtrusive, and the less they are listened to the better for our
spirits. I wonder whether it's wrong and unnatural not to rejoice
in their rapid movements as regards myself. I often think so. There
is so much, or rather there are so many, oh, so many! to go to when
it has struck for the last time, and the longing and the yearning
to be with them is so unspeakable--and yet, dear Lotty, I cling to
those here, not less and less, but more and more, as the time for
leaving them draws nearer. God grant you many and many another
birthday of happiness, as I trust this one is to you and your
home.... Your letter was an echo of much that we had been saying to
one another, as we read our novel--not only does nobody, man or
even woman, see every change and know its meaning in the human
countenance, and interpret rightly the slight flush, the hidden
tremor, the shade of pallor, the faint tinge, etc.; but we don't
think there _are_ perceptible changes to such an extent except
in novels.... I think a great evil of novels for girls, mingled
with great good, is the false expectation they raise that
_somebody_ will know and understand their every thought, look,
emotion.... How glad I am that you have a rival baby to
worship--ours is beyond all praise--oh, so comical and so lovely in
all his little ways and words....

Your most affectionate sister,

F.R.

_Lady Russell to Lady Georgiana Peel_

PEMBROKE LODGE, _November_ 28, 1887

... We have been having such a delightful visit from Lotty ... we
_did_ talk; and yet it seems as if all the talk had only made
me wish for a great deal more. Books and babies and dress and
almsgiving and amusements and the nineteenth century, its merits
and its faults, high things and low things, and big things and
trifles, and sense and nonsense, and everything except Home Rule,
on which we don't agree and couldn't spare time to fight. We did
thoroughly agree, however, as I think people of all parties must
have done, in admiration of a lecture, or rather speech, made at
our school by a very good and clever Mr. Wicksteed, a Nonconformist
(I believe Unitarian) minister on Politics and Morals. The
principle on which he founded it was that politics are a branch of
morals; accordingly he placed them on as high a level as any other
duty of life, and spoke with withering indignation of the too
common practice, and even theory, that a little insincerity, a
little trickery, is allowable in politics, whereas it would not be
in other matters. [108] We were all delighted.

[108] Lady Russell often quoted a saying attributed to Fox, "Nothing which is morally wrong can ever be politically right."

_Lady Russell to Lady Charlotte Portal_

PEMBROKE LODGE, _March_ 7, 1888

"Adam Bede" was as interesting a sofa companion as you could have
found; a very lovely book--wit and pathos almost equally good,
pathos quite the best though, to my mind. We are reading aloud
another charming book of Lowell's, "Democracy," and other essays in
the same volume; and I flutter about from book to book by myself,
and have still two books of "Paradise Lost" to read, and am
wondering what is going to happen to Adam and Eve. I was very
miserable when I found she ate the forbidden fruit. She had made
such fair promises to be good. Alas, alas! why did she break them?
That story of the Fall, though I suppose nobody thinks it verbally
true, is always to me most full of deep meaning, and seems to be
the story of every mortal man and woman born into this wondrous
world.

_Lady Russell to Lady Charlotte Portal_

DUNROZEL, HASLEMERE, _October_ 3, 1888

Agatha gone yesterday to Pembroke Lodge--Rollo gone to-day to join
her, so my wee bairnie and I are "left by our lone," as you used to
say. "Einsam nein, dass bin ich nicht, denn die Geister meiner
Lieben, Sie umschweben mich." [109] I think it's good now and then
to let the blessed and beautiful memories of the past have their
way and float in waking dreams before our eyes, and not be forced
down beneath daily duties and occupations and enjoyments, till the
pain of keeping them there becomes hard to bear. Yet, "act, act in
the living present" is very, very much the rightest thing; though I
don't think I quite like the past to be called the _dead_
past, when it is so fearfully full of keenest life.

[109] "Lonely--no, that am I not, for the spirits of my loved ones, they hover around me."

_Lady Russell to Lady Georgiana Peel_

DUNROZEL, HASLEMERE, SURREY, _October_ 8, 1888

... We have had Rollo's old Oxford friend, Dr. Drewitt, here for
two nights--the very cheerfulest of guests. He is head of the
Victoria Hospital for Children, and what with keen interest in his
profession, and intense love of nature, animate and inanimate, I
don't think he would know how to be bored. Hard-worked men have far
the best of it here below, although we are accustomed to look upon
"men of leisure" as those to be envied; but how seldom one finds a
man or woman, who lives a life in earnest, and who has eyes to see
and observe, taking a gloomy view of human nature and its
destinies. I wonder what you have been reading? I have taken up
lately that delightful book, Lockhart's "Life of Sir Walter Scott,"
and dipping into many besides.... Some of our pleasantest
neighbours have paid us good-bye visits; Frederic Harrisons, and
the charming and wonderful old Miss Swanwick [110]....

[110] Miss Anna Swanwick.

_Lady Russell to Lady Charlotte Portal_

PEMBROKE LODGE, _March_ 13, 1889

How could you, could you, could you think that my mental vow not to
write on the all-absorbing political catastrophe was because I sing
"God save, Ireland" in one sense, and you in another! The vow was
made because if once the flood-gates of my eloquence are let loose
on that subject, there is a danger that the stream will
Tennysonially "go on for ever." It is, however, a vow made to be
broken from time to time, when I allow a little ripple to flow a
little way and make a little noise, and then return to the usual
attitude towards non-sympathizers; and, like David, keep silence
and refrain even from good words, though it is pain and grief to
me, and my heart is hot within me. I am speaking of the mere
acquaintance non-sympathizers, or those known to be too bitter to
bear difference of opinion; but don't be afraid, or do be afraid,
as you may put it, and be prepared for total removal of the
flood-gates when _you_ come. Don't you often feel yourself in
David's trying condition, knowing that your words would be very
good, yet had better not be spoken? I don't like it at all.

_Lady Russell to Lady Charlotte Portal_

DUNROZEL, _September_ 4, 1889

DEAREST LOTTY,--It was nice to hear from you from Minto. What a
strange sensation it always gives me to write or to hear that word
of _Minto._ [111] I am sure you know it too--impossible to
define, but like something beautiful and holy, not belonging to
this world. I like to hope that such memories have been stored up
by the younger spirits who have succeeded us, while "children not
hers have trod our nursery floor." But in this restless, fly-about
age can they ever be quite the same? ... I see that luckily I have
no room to go on about lovely, lovable, sorrowful Ireland. Alas!
that England has ever had anything to do with her; but better times
are coming, and she will be understood by her conquerors at last,
and be the better for them. Hush! Fanny, no more; even that is too
much. God bless thee.

Ever thine,

F.R.

[111] Lady Russell had written in 1857 to her father about Minto: "I can well imagine the loveliness of that loveliest and dearest of places. There is now to us all a holy beauty in every tree and flower, in rock and river and hill that ought to do us good." Later, in a letter to her sister, Lady Elizabeth Romilly, she writes of "the Minto of old days, that happiest and most perfect home that children ever had."

In 1889 the "Life of Lord John Russell" by Mr. Spencer Walpole, was published.

_Mr. Gladstone to Lady Russell_

HAWARDEN CASTLE, CHESTER, _October_ 30, 1889

MY DEAR LADY RUSSELL,--The week which has elapsed since I received
from Mr. Walpole's kindness a copy of his biography has been with
me a busy one; but I have now completed a careful perusal of the
first volume. I cannot help writing to congratulate you on its
appearance. It presents a beautiful and a noble picture. Having so
long admired and loved your husband (and the political characters
which attract love are not very numerous), I now, with the fuller
knowledge of an early period which this volume gives me, both
admire and love him more. Your own personal share in the
delineation is enviable. And the biographer more than vindicates
the wisdom of your choice; his work is capital, but it could not
have been achieved except with material of the first order. O for
his aid in the present struggle, which, however, is proceeding to
_our_ heart's content. Believe me always most sincerely yours,
W.E. GLADSTONE

A little later Mr. Gladstone sent Lady Russell a proof copy of an article by him on the Melbourne Ministry, [112] from which the following passages are here quoted:

... He [Lord John Russell] brought into public life, and he carried
through it unimpaired, the qualities which ennoble manhood--truth,
justice, fortitude, self-denial, a fund of genuine indignation
against wrong, and an inexhaustible sympathy with human
suffering.... With a slender store of physical power, his life was
a daily assertion of the superiority of the spirit to the flesh.
With the warmest domestic affections, and the keen susceptibilities
of sufferings they entail, he never failed to rally under sorrow to
the call of public duty. There were no bounds to the prowess or the
fellow-feeling with which he would fling himself into the breach on
behalf of a belaboured colleague; ... in 1852 an attack upon Lord
Clarendon's conduct as Viceroy of Ireland stirred all the depths of
his nature, and he replied in a series of the noblest fighting
passages which I have ever heard spoken in Parliament ... At the
head of all these qualities stands the moral element. I do not
recollect or know the time in our own history when the two great
parties in the House of Commons have been led by men who so truly
and so largely as Lord John Russell and Sir Robert Peel identified
political with personal morality. W.E. GLADSTONE

[112] _Nineteenth Century_, January, 1890.

_Lady Charlotte Portal to Lady Russell, after reading Mr.
Walpole's "Life of Lord John Russell" December 26, 1889_

... I long that every one should know as we do what the
extraordinary beauty of that daily life was. I always think it was
the most perfect man's life that I ever knew of; and that could
better bear the full flood of light than any other.

In January, 1890, after nearly twelve years' break in her diary, Lady Russell began writing again a few words of daily record. On the 6th she mentions a "most agreeable" visit from Mr. Froude; the same day she received Mr. Justin McCarthy to dinner, and adds that the talk was "more Shakespeare than Ireland."

_Lady Russell to Mr. Justin McCarthy_ [113]

_November_ 19, 1890

DEAR MR. MCCARTHY,--I hardly know why I write to you, but this
terrible sin and terrible verdict make us very, very unhappy, and
we think constantly of you, who have been among his closest
friends, and of all who have trusted him and refused to believe in
the charge against him. You must, I know, be feeling all the
keenness and bitterness of sorrow in the moral downfall of a man
whose claims to the gratitude and admiration of his country in his
public career nothing can cancel. It is also much to be feared that
the great cause will suffer, at least in England, if he retains the
leadership. It ought not, of course; but where enthusiasm and even
respect for the leader can no longer be felt, there is danger of
diminution of zeal for the cause. Were he to take the honourable
course, which alone would show a sense of shame--that of
resignation--his political enemies would be silenced, and his
friends would feel that although reparation for the past is
impossible, he has not been blinded by long continuance in
deception and sin to his own unworthiness, and to the fact that his
word can no longer be trusted as it has been, and as that of a
leader ought to be. I dare not think of what his own state of mind
must be; it makes me so miserable--the unlimited trust of a nation
not only in his political but in his moral worth must be like a
dagger in his heart. Were he to retire, the recollection of the
great qualities he has shown would revive, and the proof of remorse
given by his retirement would draw a veil over his guilt, and the
charity, which we all need, would not be withheld from him. I know
that numerous instances can be given of men in the highest
positions who have retained them without opposition in spite of
lives tainted with similar sin; but this has not been without evil
to the nation, and I think there is a stronger sense now than there
used to be of the value of high private character in public men, in
spite of a great deal of remaining Pharisaism in the difference of
the measure of condemnation meted out to different men. I think too
that the unusual and most painful amount of low deception in this
case will be felt, even more than the sin itself, by the English
people. Pray forgive me, dear Mr. McCarthy, for writing on this sad
topic; but I have got into the habit of writing and speaking freely
to you, even when it can, as now, do no earthly good to anybody.

There is one consolation in the thought that should he retire
Ireland is not wanting in the best and highest to succeed him. Pray
do not write if you prefer not, though I long to hear from you, or
still better see you.

Yours most sincerely,

F. RUSSELL

[113] Written after the Parnell O'Shea divorce case.

_Lady Russell to Mr. Justin McCarthy_

PEMBROKE LODGE, _November_ 22, 1890

DEAR MR. MCCARTHY,--I cannot rest without telling you how very
sorry I shall be if my letter gave you one moment's pain. I knew
how close and true a friend you were of Mr. Parnell, and how
unchanging your friendship would be; but I did not know which
course that unchanging friendship would lead you to take. Not a
doubt can ever cross our minds of the patriotism which has dictated
your action and that of your Irish colleagues. Do not allow any
doubt to cross yours or theirs, that it is the intensity of love
for the great cause which led many in England to wish for a
different decision. Nothing would be more terrible, more fatal,
than any coldness between the friends of Ireland on the two sides
of the Channel. May God avert such a misfortune, and whatever
happens, believe me always most sincerely yours,

F. RUSSELL

_Mr. Justin McCarthy to Lady Russell_

_November_ 24, 1890

DEAR LADY RUSSELL,--I ought to have answered your kind letter
before, for I value your sympathy more--much more--than I can tell
you in words. I am afraid the prospect is dark for the present. Mr.
Gladstone sent for me to-day and I had some talk with him. He was
full of generous consideration and kindness, but he thinks there
will be a catastrophe for the cause if Parnell does not retire. The
Irish members _cannot_ and _would not_ throw over
Parnell, but he may even yet decide upon retiring. All depends on
to-morrow, and we have not seen him. I have the utmost faith in his
singleness of public purpose and his judgment and policy, but it is
a terrible crisis.

With kindest regards, very truly yours,

JUSTIN MCCARTHY

_Lady Russell to Mrs. Warburton_

PEMBROKE LODGE, _November_ 23, 1890

MY DEAREST ISABEL,--... Yes, dearie, it _was_ a delightful
visit, leaving delightful memories of all kinds; chats gay and
grave trots long and short, drives, duets--will they ever come
again? I am very glad this heart-breaking Irish thunderclap did not
fall while you were here. It makes us so unhappy. Poor Ireland! her
hopes are always dashed when about to be fulfilled. Nothing can
palliate the fearful sin and almost more fearful course of
miserable deception; but he might, by taking the one right and
honourable course of resigning his leadership--if only for a
time--at least have given a proof of shame, and have saved England
and Ireland from the terrible pain of discussion and disagreement,
and from the danger to Home Rule which his retention of the post
must cause. His Parliamentary colleagues have done immense harm by
their loud protestations in his favour. There is much to excuse
them, but not him, for this course. Our poor Davitt is miserable,
and is braving a storm of unpopularity by writing strongly against
his (Parnell's) retention of the leadership. His whole thought is
for Ireland, and he knows that his advice is that of a true friend
to her--as well as to the wretched man himself....

Your ever affectionate,

MAMA

Mr. Michael Davitt had taken a house in Richmond, and was living there at this time. Some years earlier Lady Russell had read his "Prison Diary," and had written the following poem. She did not know him at that time.

_Written after reading Michael Davitt's "Leaves from a Prison Diary"_

DUNROZEL, _September,_ 1887

Man's justice is not Thine, O God, his scales
Uneven hang, while he with padlocked heart
Some glittering shred of human tinsel sees
Outweigh the pure bright gold of noblest souls,
Who from the mists of earth their eyes uplift
And seek to read Thy message in the stars.