Chapter III: The Children Are Brought to England (3)

Amongst the remarkable people we knew were the Desanges family, who had a phenomenon in the house. A voice seemed to come out of it of the very richest volume, and every one thought it was a woman's. It really belonged to Master Louis, who afterwards made for himself so great a name for battle-scenes (The Desanges' Crimea and Victoria Cross Gallery) and also for portraits.[3] The voice did not recover itself thoroughly after breaking, but sufficient remained for admirable comic songs, and no man who ever heard them came away from "Le Lor Maire" and "Vilikens et sa Dinah" without aching sides. There was another learned widow of the name of Graves, whose husband had been a kinsman of my father. Her daughter prided herself upon the breadth of her forehead and general intellectuality. She ended by marrying the celebrated historian Von Ranke. Intellectual Englishwomen used to expect a kind of intellectual paradise in marrying German professors. They were to share their labours, assist in their discoveries, and wear a kind of reflected halo or gloria, as the moon receives light from the sun; but they were perfectly shocked when they were ordered to the kitchen, and were addressed with perhaps "Donner--Wetter--Sacrament" if the dinner was not properly cooked.

These little colonies like the "Baths of Lucca" began to decline about 1850, and came to their Nadir in 1870. Then they had a kind of resurrection. The gambling in shares and stocks and loans lost England an immense sum of money, and the losses were most felt by that well-to-do part of the public that had a fixed income and no chance of ever increasing it. The loss of some five hundred millions of pounds sterling, rendered England too expensive for a large class, and presently drove it abroad. It gained numbers in 1881, when the Irish Land Bill, soon to be followed by a corresponding English Land Bill, exiled a multitude of landowners. So the little English colonies, which had dwindled to the lowest expression, gradually grew and grew, and became stronger than they ever did.

[Sidenote: _The Boys get too Old for Home._]

It was evident that the Burton family was ripe for a break up. Our father, like an Irishman, was perfectly happy as long as he was the only man in the house, but the presence of younger males irritated him. His temper became permanently soured. He could no longer use the rod, but he could make himself very unpleasant with his tongue. "Senti come me li rimangia quei poveri ragazzi!" (Hear how he is chawing-up those poor lads!) said the old Pisan-Italian lady's-maid, and I do think now that we were not pleasant inmates of a household. We were in the "Sturm und drang" of the teens. We had thoroughly mastered our tutor, threw our books out of the window if he attempted to give a lesson in Greek or Latin, and applied ourselves with ardour to Picault Le Brun, and Paul de Kock, the "Promessi Sposi," and the "Disfida di Barletta." Instead of taking country walks, we jodelled all about the hillsides under the direction of a Swiss scamp. We shot pistols in every direction, and whenever a stray fencing-master passed, we persuaded him to give us a few hours of "point." We made experiments of everything imaginable, including swallowing and smoking opium.

The break-up took place about the middle of summer. It was comparatively tame. Italians marvelled at the Spartan nature of the British mother, who, after the habits of fifteen years, can so easily part with her children at the cost of a lachrymose last embrace, and watering her prandial beefsteak with tears. Amongst Italian families, nothing is more common than for all the brothers and sisters to swear that they will not marry if they are to be separated from one another. And even now, in these subversive and progressive days, what a curious contrast is the English and the Italian household. Let me sketch one of the latter, a family belonging to the old nobility, once lords of the land, and now simple proprietors of a fair Estate. In a large garden, and a larger orchard of vines and olives, stands a solid old house, as roomy as a barrack, but without the slightest pretension of comfort or luxury. The old Countess, a widow, has the whole of her progeny around her--two or three stalwart sons, one married and the others partially so, and a daughter who has not yet found a husband. The servants are old family retainers. They consider themselves part and parcel of the household; they are on the most familiar terms with the family, although they would resent with the direst indignation the slightest liberty on the part of outsiders. The day is one of extreme simplicity, and some might even deem it monotonous. Each individual leaves his bed at the hour he or she pleases, and finds coffee, milk, and small rolls in the dining-room. Smoking and dawdling pass the hours till almost mid-day, when _déjeuner à la fourchette_, or rather a young dinner, leads very naturally up to a siesta. In the afternoon there is a little walking or driving, and even shooting in the case of the most energetic. There is a supper after nightfall, and after that dominoes or cards, or music, or conversazione, keep them awake for half the night. The even tenor of their days is broken only by a festival or a ball in the nearest town, or some pseudo Scientific Congress in a City not wholly out of reach; and so things go on from year to year, and all are happy because they look to nothing else.

[Sidenote: _Schinznach and England._]

Our journey began in the early summer of 1840. My mother and sister were left at the Baths of Lucca, and my father, with Mr. Du Pré, and Edward and I, set out for Switzerland. We again travelled _vetturino_, and we lads cast longing eyes at the charming country which we were destined not to see again for another ten years. How melancholy we felt when on our way to the chill and dolorous North! At Schinznach I was left in charge of Mr. Du Pré, while my father and brother set out for England direct. These Hapsburg baths in the Aargau had been chosen because the abominable sulphur water, as odorous as that of Harrogate, was held as sovereign in skin complaints, and I was suffering from exanthémata, an eruption brought on by a sudden check of perspiration. These eruptions are very hard to cure, and they often embitter a man's life. The village consisted of a single Establishment, in which all nationalities met. Amongst them was an unfortunate Frenchman, who had been attacked at Calcutta with what appeared to be a leprous taint. He had tried half a dozen places to no purpose, and he had determined to blow his brains out if Schinznach failed him. The only advantage of the place was, its being within easy distance of Schaffhausen and the falls of the Rhine.

When the six weeks' cure was over, I was hurried by my guardian across France, and Southern England, to the rendezvous. The Grandmother and the two aunts, finding Great Cumberland Place too hot, had taken country quarters at Hampstead. Grandmamma Baker received us lads with something like disappointment. She would have been better contented had we been six feet high, bony as Highland cattle, with freckled faces, and cheek-bones like horns. Aunt Georgina Baker embraced and kissed her nephews with effusion. She had not been long parted from us. Mrs. Frank Burton, the other aunt, had not seen us for ten years, and of course could not recognize us.

We found two very nice little girl-cousins, who assisted us to pass the time. But the old dislike to our surroundings, returned with redoubled violence. Everything appeared to us so small, so mean, so ugly. The faces of the women were the only exception to the general rule of hideousness. The houses were so unlike houses, and more like the Nuremberg toys magnified. The outsides were so prim, so priggish, so utterly unartistic. The little bits of garden were mere slices, as if they had been sold by the inch. The interiors were cut up into such wretched little rooms, more like ship-cabins than what was called rooms in Italy. The drawing-rooms were crowded with hideous little tables, that made it dangerous to pass from one side to the other. The tables were heaped with nick-nacks, that served neither for use or show. And there was a desperate neatness and cleanness about everything that made us remember the old story of the Stoic who spat in the face of the master of the house because it was the most untidy place in the dwelling.

[Sidenote: _The Family break up._]

Then came a second parting. Edward was to be placed under the charge of the Rev. Mr. Havergal, rector of some country parish. Later on, he wrote to say that "Richard must not correspond with his brother, as he had turned his name into a peculiar form of ridicule." He was in the musical line, and delighted in organ-playing. But Edward seemed to consider the whole affair a bore, and was only too happy when he could escape from the harmonious parsonage.

In the mean time I had been tried and found wanting. One of my father's sisters (Mrs. General D'Aguilar, as she called herself) had returned from India, after an uninterrupted residence of a score of years, with a large supply of children of both sexes. She had settled herself temporarily at Cambridge, to superintend the education of her eldest son, John Burton D'Aguilar, who was intended for the Church, and who afterwards became a chaplain in the Bengal Establishment. Amongst her many acquaintances was a certain Professor Sholefield, a well-known Grecian. My father had rather suspected that very little had been done in the house, in the way of classical study, during the last two years. The Professor put me through my paces in Virgil and Homer, and found me lamentably deficient. I did not even know who Isis was! worse still, it was found out that I, who spoke French and Italian and their dialects like a native, who had a considerable smattering of Bearnais, Spanish, and Provençale, barely knew the Lord's Prayer, broke down in the Apostles' Creed, and had never heard of the Thirty-nine Articles--a terrible revelation!

[1] "The Sword," in three large works nobly planned out, when after the first part was brought out, death frustrated the other two.--I. B.

[2] There are three hundred and sixty-five of these pits, one for every day in the year.--I. B.

[3] In 1861 he painted Richard's and my portraits as a wedding gift.--I. B.