Chapter VI: Oxford Life (3)

"_Jan. 3._--We accomplished a visit to the new school-mistress in
the midst of her duties. A bright sunny spring morning, every
little leaf looking up in gladness, and just that soft sighing
breeze in the garden, with a freshness of newly-watered earth and
dewy flowers, which is always associated with Lime in my mind. How
beautiful--how peaceful--is our little home! Circumstances often
prevent my enjoying it now, but if I left it, with what an
intensity of longing love should I look back upon days spent here.
In the afternoon I was very impatient of incessant small
contradictions, and in the evening felt as if I had not been quite
as loving or devoted to my mother as I might have been for the last
few days--not throwing myself sufficiently into every little
trivial interest of hers. Yet this I wish to do with all my heart;
and as for her wishes, they ought to be not only fulfilled, but
anticipated by me.... What I was reading in 'North and South'
perhaps made me more sensitive, and caused me to watch my mother
more intently this evening, and it struck me for the first time
that she suffered when her cheek was so flushed and her eyes shut,
and her hand moved nervously upwards. Perhaps it was only some
painful thought, but it has often made me turn from my book to
watch her anxiously when she was not looking."

"_Jan. 4._--We drove along the Ninfield road, fresh and open, with
the wind whistling through the oaktrees on the height, and then
went to the Rectory. Mother went to Uncle Julius first, and then
wished me to go. It was very difficult to find anything to say, for
his illness had made him even more impatient than usual, at any
word of mine, whatever it might be about."

When we went to the Stanleys' empty house in Grosvenor Crescent, we left Uncle Julius very feeble and ill at Hurstmonceaux. As soon as we reached London, my mother was attacked by severe bronchitis, and with this came one of her alarming phases of seeing endless processions passing before her, and addressing the individuals. Sometimes in the morning she was more worn than in the evening, having been what she called "maintaining conversation" all night long. In the hurry of after years, I have often looked back with surprise upon the stagnant _lull_ of life in these winters, in which I scarcely ever left my mother, and, beyond chafing her limbs, reading to her, preparing remedies for all phases of her strange malady, scarcely _did_ anything; yet always felt _numb_ with fatigue when evening came, from the constant tension of an undivided anxiety. It was very severe weather, and if I was ever able to go out, it was for a rush up Piccadilly and Regent Street, where I always enjoyed even the sight of human movement amongst the shivering bluenosed people after the intensity of my solitude; for of visitors we had none except Lady Frances Higginson and her daughter Adelaide,[101] who came every morning to see my mother. At this time Henry Alford, afterwards Dean of Canterbury, was preaching at Quebec Chapel, and I used to go to hear him on Sundays.

JOURNAL.

"_6 Grosvenor Crescent, Jan. 21._--The mother had fever again in
the night, and told Lea in the morning that she had been in the
Revelations, and she seemed indeed to have seen all that is there
described. She has talked much since of the Holy City and the
golden palace as of something she had looked upon. 'What a comfort
it is,' she said, 'that my visions do not take me to Hurstmonceaux:
I do not know how I could bear that.' It is indeed a comfort. She
seems always only to see things most beautiful, and more of heaven
than of earth.

"'After you left me last night,' she said, 'I heard on one side of
my bed the most beautiful music. Oh, it was most beautiful! most
grand!--a sort of military march it seemed--ebbing and rising and
then dying softly and gently away. Then, on the other side of my
bed, I saw an open cloister, and presently I saw that it was lined
with charity-school children. By-and-by Charlotte came out amongst
them. Now, I thought, I can see, by watching her, whether this is a
picture or whether it is a reality: but, as my eyes followed her,
she took out her handkerchief and did everything so exactly as
Charlotte really does, that I felt sure it was a reality.'

"This morning, as I have been sitting by my mother, I have
listened. As she lay dozing, she spoke in pauses--'I see the
sea--It is a very misty morning, a _very_ misty morning--There is a
white boat tossing in the distance--It is getting black, it is so
very misty--There is something coming--It is a great ship--They
have put up a sail--It is very misty--Now I can scarcely see
anything--Now it is all black.'"

"_Jan. 23, 1855._--Before I was up, John came and said he thought
there was a worse account from Hurstmonceaux. Soon Lea came, and I
asked eagerly what it was. 'It is over. He is gone. The Archdeacon
is dead!' One had always fancied one expected this, but the reality
is a different thing--that he who had always in one way or another
influenced daily thoughts and occupations had utterly passed out of
one's life--would never influence it again.

"My mother was very calm. She had taken it quite quietly and laid
down again to rest. When I went down, she cried, and also when
Charlotte came, but she was calm beyond our hopes. It was a long
painful day, in which it seemed almost sacrilegious to go about the
ordinary work of life. Personally, however, I have only the regret
for Uncle Julius which one feels for a familiar and honoured figure
passing out of life. It is only 'a grief without a pang.'"[102]

"_Jan. 29._--We reached home by midday. Mrs. Alexander came in the
afternoon, and described his last words as 'Upwards--upwards.' In
the evening Arthur Stanley and George Bunsen arrived."

"_Jan. 30._--I went to the Rectory with Arthur at eleven.... In the
midst of the library, amongst Uncle Julius's own books and papers,
all that was mortal of him was once more present. It lay in a black
coffin inscribed--'Julius Charles Hare. Born at Bologna. Died at
Hurstmonceaux.' But his spirit?--how I wondered if it was present
and saw us as we stood there.

"Through the open door of the drawing-room I saw all the bearers
come in, in their white smock-frocks and crape bands, and go out
again, carrying him for the last time over his own threshold. On,
on they passed, into the snowy drive, with the full sunshine
falling upon the pall, while the wind caught its white edges and
waved them to and fro. Then some one called us, and I followed with
Uncle Gustavus Hare immediately behind the coffin, six clergy who
had been especially valued by Uncle Julius carrying the pall, and
Arthur Stanley, Orby Shipley,[103] the Bishop of St. David's, and
a number of other friends following, and then a long
procession--clergy, schools, parishioners.

"On, down the shrubbery, with the snow still glittering on the
evergreen leaves, to the gate, where many more people fell into the
ranks behind. The wind was shrill and piercing, and, fresh from a
sick-room, I felt numbed with the cold and fatigue. At Gardner
Street all the shutters were shut, and the inmates of every house
stood at their doors ready to join the procession. Amongst those
waiting in front of the blacksmith's was old Edward Burchett.
Strange to think that he should have known my great-grandfather,
and lived in Hurstmonceaux Castle (where he was 'clock-winder') in
its palmy days, and that he should be living still to see the last
Hare 'of Hurstmonceaux' carried to his grave.

"More crowds of people joined from Windmill Hill and Lime Cross; it
was as if by simultaneous movement the whole parish came forward to
do honour to one who had certainly been as its father for
twenty-two years. As the procession halted to change bearers at the
bend of the road, I knew that my mother was looking out and could
see it from her window. An immense body of clergy joined us at
Hurstmonceaux Place, and many very old and familiar people--old
Judith Coleman led by a little girl, old Pinnock on his crutches,
and others. At the foot of the church hill three black-veiled
figures--Aunt Esther and her sisters--were waiting.

"The effect was beautiful of passing through the churchyard with a
pure covering of untrodden snow into the church lighted by full
sunshine, and looking back and seeing the hill and the winding
road filled with people as far as the eye could reach.

"The coffin was laid before the altar; the clergy and people
thronged the church. I seemed to hear nothing but the voice of
Arthur Stanley repeating the responses at my side.

"Then we went out to the grave. There, around the foot of the
yew-tree, by the cross over the grave of Uncle Marcus, were grouped
all the oldest people in the parish. Mr. Simpkinson read, the
clergy standing around the open grave responded; and, as with one
voice, all repeated the Lord's Prayer, which, broken as it was by
sobs, had a peculiar solemnity, the words 'Thy will be done'
bringing their own especial significance to many hearts."

The weeks which succeeded my uncle's funeral were occupied by hard work at the Rectory for his widow, chiefly making a catalogue of the fourteen thousand volumes in the library, which she gave for the most part to Trinity College. Uncle Julius had intended them as a provision for her, to whom he had very little money to bequeath; but she chose thus to dispose of them, and it was useless to contend with her. In the same way she decided upon giving away all the familiar pictures and sculptures, the former to the Fitzwilliam Museum at Cambridge. My mother felt parting as I did with all these beautiful inanimate witnesses of our past lives--the first works of art I had known, the only ones which I then knew intimately. They have not been much valued at Cambridge, where the authorship of most of the pictures has been questioned; but whoever they were by, to us, who lived with them so much, they were always delightful.

JOURNAL.

"_Feb. 14, 1855._--Mother and I were standing on the steps of the
Rectory greenhouse when the carriage came to take me away (to
return to Oxford). I shall always remember that last moment. The
warm air fragrant with the flowers: the orange-trees laden with
golden fruit: the long last look at the Roman senator and his wife
sitting in their niche: at the Raffaelle, the Luini, the
Giorgione--and then the place which had been the occasional
interest and the constant misery of my childhood existed for me no
longer."

_To_ MY MOTHER (from Oxford).

"_March 13._--Your letter was the first thing to greet the opening
of my twenty-first year. Being of age is a great thing, I am told,
but really it makes no difference to me. Only I hope that each year
will help me to be more of a comfort and companion to you, and then
there will be some good in growing old. In the evening my birthday
was celebrated here by a 'wine,' at which there was a good deal of
squabbling as to who should propose my health--the senior
collegian, the senior scholar, or an old Harrovian; but it ended in
the whole company doing it together, with great cheering and
hurrahing, and then Coleridge proposed that they should give 'He's
a jolly good fellow,' with musical honours--and a fine uproar there
was. I had a number of charming presents from college
friends--books, prints, and old china."

I was so anxious about my next public examination--"Moderations"--that, as my mother seemed then tolerably well, I had begged to be allowed to pass most of the Easter vacation in Oxford, studying uninterruptedly in the empty college. This examination was always the most alarming of all to me, as I had been so ill-grounded, owing to Mr. R.'s neglect, and grammar was the great requirement. Indeed, at more than double the age I was then, the tension and anxiety I was in often repeated itself to me in sleep, and I woke in an agony thinking that "Moderations" were coming on, and that I was not a bit prepared! One day, in the midst of our work, I went in a canoe down Godstowe river, accompanied by a friend (who had also "stayed up") in another canoe, as far as the ruin, and we dined at the little inn. The spring sun was peculiarly hot, and I remember feeling much oppressed with the smell of the weeds in the river, being very unwell at the inn, and reaching college with difficulty. Next day I was too ill to leave my bed, and when the doctor came he said I had the measles, which soon developed themselves (for the second time) with all violence. I was so ill, and so covered with measles, that the doctor said--the ground being deep in snow--that it was as much as my life was worth to get up or risk any exposure to cold. Ten minutes afterwards a telegram from Lime was given to me. It came from Mrs. Stanley (evidently already summoned), and bade me come directly--my mother was seriously ill.

My decision was made at once. If I exposed myself to the cold, I should _perhaps_ die; but if I stayed still in the agony of anxiety I was in, I should _certainly_ die. I sent for a friend, who helped me to dress and pack, summoned a fly and gave double fare to catch the next train. It was a dreadful journey. I remember how faint I was, but that I always sate bolt upright and determined not to give in.

I recollected that my mother had once said that if she were very ill, her cousin Charlotte Leycester must not be prevented coming to her. So as I passed through London I called for her, and we went on together. It was intensely cold, and my measles were all driven in; they never came out again--there was not time. There was too much to think of; I could not attend to myself, however ill I felt. I could only feel that my precious mother was in danger. John met me at the door of Lime--"You are still in time." Then Aunt Kitty and Lea came down, Lea very much overcome at seeing me--"I can bear anything now you are here."

My mother lay in still, deep stupor. She had not been well during the last days which Aunt Esther spent at the Rectory, feeling too acutely for her. When Aunt Esther left the Rectory finally and moved to Lime with Mrs. Alexander, my mother was ready to welcome them. But it was a last effort. An hour after they arrived she collapsed. From that time she had lain rigid for sixty hours: she seemed only to have an inner consciousness, all outward sense was gone. We knew afterwards that she would have spoken if she could--she would have screamed if she could, but she could not. Still Dr. Hale said, "Whilst that inner consciousness appears to last there is hope."

When I went to her, she lay quite still. Her face was drawn and much altered. There was no speculation in her eyes, which were glassy and fixed like stone. One cheek alone was flushed and red as vermilion. I went up. She did not notice me. There was no gleam, no significance, no movement, but when they asked if she knew I was come, she articulated "Yes."

I could not sleep at night and listened through the dressing-room wall. Suddenly I heard her cry out, and John Gidman stood by my bedside sobbing violently--"You must be told she is worse." I went into the room. She was in violent delirium. Aunt Kitty was trying to calm her with texts of Scripture; Lea was kneeling in her dressing-gown at the foot of the bed. I was determined she should not die. I felt as if I were wrestling for her life. I _could_ not have spared her then. But God had mercy upon my agony. She became calmer. Suddenly, in the morning, as I was sitting by her, she said, "Augustus, fetch me a piece of bread." I did. She ate it. From that time gradually--very gradually--she dawned back into life from her sixty hours' trance, whilst I was watching over her every minute. Four days afterwards came Easter Eve. When I went in that morning, she was quite herself. "What a beautiful quiet morning," she said; "it is just such a day as Easter Eve ought to be. To me this is the most solemn day of all the year, for on it my Saviour was neither on earth nor in heaven, at least in his bodily form.... I am so glad that I learnt Wesley's hymn ("All blessing, glory, honour, praise") before I was ill: I can say it now." I see in my journal that on that afternoon of my darling mother's restoration I walked to the Rectory, and the garden was bright and smiling as ever, in the oak-walks it seemed as if the shadow of him who paced it so often must sometimes be walking still. There was no furniture left in the house except bookcases, and I was astonished then to realise for the first time how bare walls cannot speak to one; it is the objects which they have enclosed that have the human interest.

JOURNAL.

"_April 8, 1855._--The mother has greeted me with 'A blessed Easter
to you, darling--Christ is risen.' Last night tears came into her
eyes as she remembered that Uncle Julius would never say those
words to her again, but to-day she is bright and smiling, and the
sunshine outside seems reflected from her. The others have been to
church, so I have been alone most of the day in her sick-room."

"_April 9._--In my mother's room most of the day. My Oxford work is
sadly hindered; but that is not my first duty."

"_April 14._--The dear mother came downstairs for the first time
since her illness, and was delighted with the flowers--the heaths
and cinerarias in the window recesses, and the masses of violets in
the garden. There was much to be told that was new to her, of all
that had happened since she went upstairs, but which had to be told
very cautiously, for fear of over-excitement. Arthur Stanley, who
has been here some days, examined me in my work, and in the
afternoon we had a delightful walk through the woods to the
farmhouse of the Hole."

"_April 15._--Arthur preached in the church on the spies bringing
back to the Israelites the fruits of the promised land--going on to
describe how the fruits of _our_ promised land were given us in the
lives of those who were gone before--that these were the fruits of
the Spirit spoken of in three verses of the Bible--verses better
known perhaps and more loved than any others by the people of
Hurstmonceaux. The first was written on the distant grave of one
whom many of them had never seen, but whom all of them had heard
of--Augustus, whose fruit was 'gentleness, and meekness, and long
suffering.' The second was the verse inscribed on the older of the
crosses under their own yew-tree: 'righteousness and truth' were
the especial points which Marcus bore. The third was written on the
latest and most loved cross: it told of 'wisdom'--that was Julius's
fruit."

"_April 16._--I left my darling mother to return to my work at
Oxford. I remained with her till John tapped at the door to say the
carriage was there. 'God bless you, my own darling--God bless you,
dearest'--and I was gone, leaving my sweetest one looking after me
with a smile upon her face. Oh, what a blessing it has been to
leave her thus! How different this leaving Lime might have been,
with no sense of home remaining, except in the shadow of the
yew-tree and by the crosses in the churchyard!"

I might write of my mother as Chalmers of the Duchesse de Broglie: "Her prayers poured forth in her domestic circle, falling upon my ears like the music of Paradise, leave their fragrance behind them, and sweet is their remembrance."

On my way back to Oxford, I first saw the beautiful Empress Eugenie on her passage through London to Windsor with the Emperor Napoleon III. They had a most enthusiastic reception, the streets were thronged everywhere, and it was a very fine sight. Almost immediately after reaching college I was "in the Schools" for "Moderations," but did very well, as I had employed every available moment in preparing myself. Nevertheless, I was too anxious to go to fetch my own _testamur_, and vividly recall the feeling of ecstasy with which, from my high oriel window, I saw my friend Milligan come waving it round the corner of the High Street. A delightful feature of this term, which I always remember with pleasure, was an excursion by rail to Evesham and its abbey, just when the apple-orchards, with which the whole vale is filled, were in bloom like a great garden. As summer approached, we were frequently on the river. George Sheffield generally "punted" me, and Milligan floated alongside in a canoe. Another expedition of very great interest to me was that to Chalfont St. Giles in Buckinghamshire, where I saw the Vatche, the home of my great-great-grandfather, Bishop Hare, who married its heiress, a very attractive and charming place, which was sold by my great-grandfather. The "Hare Mausoleum," a hideous brick building, was then standing, attached to the church, and there Bishop Hare and many of his descendants were buried, the last funeral having been that (in 1820) of Anna-Maria Bulkeley, daughter of my grandfather's sister. The minute descriptions, with which I was familiar, in the letters of Bishop Hare and his widow, gave quite a historic charm to the scenes at Chalfont--the window where Mary Hare sate "in her great house, much too big and good for her, with as few servants as she could make shift with," and watched her "deare lord carried to church"--the steep lane down which the stately procession, in which "there were no bishops for pall-bearers because it was too cold for them to come into the country," passed with such difficulty--the manor pew, where Mary Margaret Hare complained over "Laurentia and all the troublesome little children"--the almshouses, built and endowed by the Robert Hare who married Miss Selman.

The installation of Lord Derby as Chancellor and the reception of Disraeli (then still a dandy in ringlets, velvet waistcoat, and prominent gold chains) made the "Commemoration" of this year especially exciting; though my pleasure in it was damped by the sudden news of the failure of Sir John Paul's[104] bank in the Strand, and fear for its effect upon my "real mother" and sister, who lost about two thousand a year by this catastrophe, though it was not this cause which involved them in the irretrievable ruin that afterwards befell them.

The longer I lived at Oxford, the more I learnt how little I could believe anything I heard there. Connected with a college of which many of the members belonged to the _lower_ upper classes of society, I had peculiar opportunities for observing how often young men thought it worth while to pretend to a position and acquaintances which did not belong to them. One instance of this is too extraordinary to be omitted. From the very beginning of February, certain men in Hall (the great place for gossip and scandal) had spoken constantly of a certain Mrs. Fortescue, who had come to reside in Oxford, an exceedingly clever person and very highly connected. The subject did not interest me in the least, but still I heard of her so often, that I could not help being familiar with her name. Gradually her acquaintance seem to extend; men said, "I don't _exactly_ know Mrs. Fortescue, but my family do"--or "my friend so and so means to introduce me," and so on. Mrs. Fortescue's witty sayings also were frequently repeated and commented upon. After some months it was said that Mrs. Fortescue was going to give a ball, for which there was anxiety to procure invitations--some men "had them, but did not mean to go,"--others were "sure to have them." As I did not wish to go, the subject was of very slight importance to me.

Within a week of the alleged date of Mrs. Fortescue's ball, my friend P. came late at night to see me. He said, "I have a dreadful thing to tell you. I have a secret to reveal at which you will be aghast.... _I am Mrs. Fortescue!_" Early in the year, observing how apt men were to assume intimacies which they did not possess, he and one or two other friends had agreed to talk incessantly of one person, a wholly imaginary person, and, while "making her the fashion," see if, very soon, a number of men would not pretend to be intimate with her. Dozens fell into the trap. In a certain class of men, every one was afraid of being behind his neighbour in boasting of an intimacy, &c., with one who was praised so highly. They even pretended to have received invitations to the imaginary ball. But the trick had assumed much greater dimensions than ever was intended at first; many people had been duped whose fury at the discovery would be a serious matter; many Oxford ladies had been asked to the ball, and, in fact, there was nothing to be done _now_ but to go through with the whole drama to the end--the ball must take place! P. was quite prepared for the emergency of having to represent Mrs. Fortescue, but positively refused to go through it alone. His object was to implore me to help him out by appearing in some assumed character. This I for a long time refused, but at length assented to get up all the statistics of the neighbouring great house of Nuneham, and to arrive as Miss Harcourt, an imaginary niece of Lady Waldegrave, just come from thence. I was well acquainted with the best Oxford dressmaker, with whom one of my friends lodged, and she undertook to make my dress; while various styles of hair were tried by another person, who undertook that department, to see which produced the most complete disguise.

When the evening of the ball arrived, I took care to reach "Wyatt's Rooms" very early. Only a number of men and a very few ladies were there, when "Miss Harcourt--Miss Amy Leighton" were shouted up the staircase, and I sailed up (with another undergraduate, who represented my somewhat elderly companion) in a white tulle dress trimmed with a little gold lace and looped up with blue cornflowers, a wreath (wreaths were worn then) of the same, and a blue opera-cloak. Mrs. Fortescue, an elderly handsome woman, quite on the _retour_, dressed in crimson satin, came forward to meet me and kissed me on both cheeks, and I was introduced to a lady--a _real_ lady--by whom I sate down. It is impossible to detail all the absurdities of the situation, all the awkward positions we were thrown into (Mrs. Fortescue had engaged her servants, being then in morning toilette, days before). Suffice it to say that the guests assembled, and the ball and the supper afterwards went off perfectly, and gave boundless satisfaction. I only refused to dance, pretending to have sprained my ankle in coming down in the train some days before; but I limped round the room on the arm of my own doctor (who never discovered me) between the dances, and examined the pictures on the walls. Mrs. Fortescue was inimitable. The trick was never discovered at the time, and would still be a secret, but that a friend, to whom I had revealed the story on promise of _strict secrecy_, repeated it long afterwards to P.'s elder brother. In June my mother visited me at Oxford, on her way to West Malvern, where we had delightful rooms overlooking the Herefordshire plains, in the house of "Phœbe Gale," who had long been a valued servant in the family. We much enjoyed delightful drives with the Leycesters in the neighbourhood; also frequently we went to see the Miss Ragsters, two remnants of one of the oldest families in Worcestershire, who, in a great age, were living, very poor, in a primitive farmhouse, with their one servant Betty--"the girl" they always called her, who still wore a pinafore, though she had been in their service forty-seven years. Their life had never varied: they had never seen a railway, and had never even been to Little Malvern. They gave a curious account of the poet Wordsworth coming to luncheon with them.

From Malvern I went to the Wye with Willie Milligan. "Never," as I wrote to my mother, "was there a companion so delightful, so amusing, so charming and good-natured under all circumstances--and his circumstances were certainly none of the most brilliant, as he lost all his luggage at the outset, and had to perform the whole journey with nothing of his own but a comb and a tooth-brush." Wherever we went, he made friends, retailing all the local information gained from one person to the next he met, in the most entertaining way. Especially do I remember one occasion at Chepstow. I was drawing the castle, surrounded by about a hundred little children, and he made himself so charming to them, and was so indescribably entertaining, that one after the other of the little things succumbed, till at last the whole party were rolling on the ground in fits of uncontrollable laughter. On this visit to Chepstow I remember the touching incident of our walking in the churchyard late at night, and seeing a woman bring a number of glow-worms to put upon her child's grave, that she might still see it from the window of her cottage. We saw Tintern, Raglan, Goodrich (the great collection of "Meyrick's Ancient Armour" was there then), and Ross, with its old market-house, still standing, owing to the recent defence of the market-women, who had positively refused to enter a new one which had been built for them. A shorter expedition from Malvern was one which I made with Emma Leycester to Worcester, which resulted in a story I published in a magazine years afterwards--"The Shadows of Old Worcester." In one of the passages of the china manufactory we saw a figure of "Tragedy"--a magnificently handsome woman with a wreath of laurel on her head. Was it Mrs. Siddons? "No," said the guide, "it was modelled from a poor girl who used to work here, and who was murdered by her lover _last night_."

From Malvern we drove through the rose-fringed lanes by Ledbury to Hereford, and then went to stay at Tickwood, in Shropshire, with my uncle's old friend Mr. Hull, and Mrs. Butler, my mother's early instructress, who lived there to take care of his only child by his second wife (Miss Rowe)--Rowna--whose great wealth was her only fault in her father's eyes. Afterwards we went to meet our old friends, the Tayleurs of Buntingsdale, at the quaint old Raven Inn at Shrewsbury, and thence proceeded to Llangollen and Valle Crucis. Plas Newydd, the house of "the ladies of Llangollen,"[105] was still in existence--a very ridiculous little place; and "the ladies" had had successors, Miss Andrews and Miss Lolly!--of whom Miss Lolly still survived. A beautiful varied drive by Corwen and Bettwys y Coed took us to the Penrhyn Arms at Capel Curig, where my mother had often been in her childhood, and where, at the bottom of the garden, is the noble view of Snowdon across lake and moorland, so well known from pictures innumerable. From Llanberis I ascended Snowdon, which in my recollection is--from its innate picturesqueness, not its views--the only mountain in Europe worth ascending, except Soracte. Afterwards we went to the William Stanleys[106] at Penrhôs in Anglesea, and it was a very pleasant visit, as Mrs. William Stanley was a most kind and amusing person, good-natured to young people, and exceedingly pleased with my delight over all she showed me, especially over the rocks--so glorious in colour--near the South Stack lighthouse. It recalls oddly the extreme poverty as to pocket-money in which I spent my youth, when I remember that the sum of £2 which my Aunt Lucy gave me at Penrhôs was at twenty-one the largest present in money that I had ever yet received in my life. I spent it in the purchase of Lord Lindsay's "Christian Art."

After visiting Penrhyn Castle, we went to take lodgings near the Albert Ways at Conway, of which I recollect nothing remarkable except the exemplification of "cast not your pearls before swine" in the frantic eagerness the pigs at Towen showed to get at the mussels from which the tiny pearls found there (and sold at two shillings an ounce) were being extracted by the pearl-fishers. Our next visit was to Bodelwyddelan, the fine place of Sir John and Lady Sarah Williams. We went afterwards to Alton Towers, Ham in Dovedale, Matlock, and Rowsley--whence I saw Chatsworth and spent several days in drawing the old courts of Haddon Hall.

All through the past winter the Crimean War had been an absorbing interest, people had sobbed in the churches when the prayer for time of war was read, and even those not immediately concerned had waited in agonised expectation for the news from the Alma, Inkermann, the Redan. While we were at Lichfield came the news of the capture of Sebastopol, announced by the bells of the cathedral, followed by all the churches, and every town and village became gay with flags from every window.

In returning home this year, I felt even more anxious than before to improve and educate myself, and always got up for the purpose as early as I could, recollecting how Chevalier Bunsen, by always getting up four hours before other people, made his year into sixteen months instead of twelve. Beginning to think of colour in sketching now tended to make me even more observant than I had been of the wonderfully artistic elements of the scenery around our home--the long lines of the levels with their fleeting shadows, the delicate softness of the distant downs, the trees embossed in their dark green against the burnt-up grass of the old deer-park.

JOURNAL.

"_Sept. 24, 1855._--We have had a visit from Miss Rosam, the last
of the old Sussex family who once lived at Lime. She said when she
was here as a little child the old convent was still standing. She
remembered the deep massive Saxon (?) archway at the entrance and
the large dark hall into which it led.

"'Were there any stories about the place?' I asked.

"'Nothing but about the fish; of course you know that?'

"'No, I don't; do tell me.'

"'Well, I don't say that it's true, but certainly it is very
generally believed that the whole of the great fish-ponds were once
entirely filled with gold and silver fish, and the night my
grandfather died all the fish died too. And then perhaps you do not
know about the horse. My grandfather had a very beautiful horse,
which he was very fond of, and though it was so old and infirm that
it could scarcely drag its legs along, he would not have it made an
end of, and it still remained in the field. But the night my
grandfather died, a man saw the horse suddenly spring up and race
at full gallop over the field, and at the moment my grandfather
died the horse fell down and died too.'

"Just now we have a full moon, and the reflections in the pond are
so clear that you can see the fish dance in the moonbeams. The
mother says, 'It is difficult to realise that this same moon, ever
serene and peaceful, is looking down upon all the troubles and
quarrels of the earth.'"

"_Sept. 29._--We came in the morning to Eastbourne, which is much
altered and enlarged, only a few of the old familiar features left
as landmarks--Sergeant Bruce's house, No. 13--O _how_ I suffered
there!--Miss Holland's, outside which I used to wait in my agonies
of grief and rage--the beach where as a little child I played at
building houses."

"_Oct. 4._--In spite of threatening clouds, we drove to Wilmington,
whence I walked with Mr. Cooper to Alfriston, a most wild
out-of-the-way place, just suited for the beautiful 'effects' of
Copley Fielding. The cruciform church, with its battered shingled
spire, stands on a little hill, and, with a few wind-stricken
trees around it, is backed by a hazy distance of downs, where the
softest grey melts into the green. When we were there, all the
clouds were tossed into wild forms, with only a gleam of frightened
sunshine struggling through here and there."

"_Oct. 7._--I fear I rather distressed mother to-day by reverting
to the Rectory miseries, the recollection of which was aroused by
finding an old journal. I will never do it again. My darling mother
has been given back to me from the brink of the grave to love and
to cherish, and, whatever it costs me, can I ever say anything to
cause her even one flush of pain? My will is strong, I know, and it
shall be exercised in always ignoring my own troubles and
prejudices, and never forgetting to anticipate each thought, each
wish of hers. Henceforward I am determined to have no separate
identity, and to be only her reflection."

"_Oct. 25._--Went to see old Mrs. Pinnock. She was lying on her
rag-bed in her wretched garret, sadly changed now from the old
woman who, two years ago, would go in the spring-time to Lime Wood
that she might see the bluebells and listen to the nightingales.
Now her old husband sate by, pointing at her worn, dying form, and
exclaiming,'Poor cratur! poor cratur!' She fumbled her poor
shrunken hands over the bedclothes and murmured, 'God bless you,
sir; may God bless you.' They are probably the last words I shall
ever hear from her, and she has always been an object of interest.
As I read 'Shadows' this last evening to the mother, I could not
help feeling how like some of them my own home reminiscences must
some day become, so sad and so softened. But it is no use to think
about the future, for which only God can arrange. 'Good-night,
darling, comfort and blessing of my life,' mother said to me
to-night. 'I will try not to be too anxious. May you be preserved,
and may I have faith. Good-night, my own Birdie.'"

_To_ MY MOTHER.

"_Chartwell_ (Mr. Colquhoun's), _Oct. 18, 1855._--This is a
beautiful neighbourhood.... How every hour of the day have I
thought of my sweetest mother, and longed to know what she was
doing. We have been so much together this vacation, and so
uncloudedly happy, that it is unnatural to be separate; but my
darling mother and I are never away from one another in heart,
though we so often are in body. And what a blessing it is for me to
have left my mother so well, and to feel that she can still take so
much interest and be so happy in the old home, and that I may go on
cheerily with my Oxford work."

"_Harrow, Oct. 11, 1855._--No one is here (with the Vaughans)
except Mr. Munro, whom I find to be the author of 'Basil the
Schoolboy,' which he declares to be a true picture of Harrow life
in his time. A Mr. Gordon has called, who gave a most curious
account of his adventures after having been at school here three
days, and how his companions, having stoned their master's lapdog
to death, forced him to eat it uncooked!"[107]

"_Portishead, Nov. 10._--How often I have thought of my mother when
sitting here in the little bow-window, surrounded by the quaint
pictures and china, and the old furniture. Miss Boyle[108] is in
her great chair, her white hair brushed back over her forehead. The
Channel is a dull lead-colour, and the Welsh mountains are half
shrouded in clouds, but every now and then comes out one of those
long gleams and lines of light which are so characteristic of this
place. The day I arrived, a worn-out clockmaker and a retired
architect came to spend the evening and read Shakspeare, and Miss
Boyle made herself quite as charming to them as she has doubtless
been all summer to the archduchesses and princesses with whom she
has been staying in Germany. The next day we went to Clevedon, and
saw the old cruciform church above the sea, celebrated in 'In
Memoriam,' where Arthur Hallam and his brothers and sisters are
buried. From the knoll above was a lovely view of the
church--immediately below was a precipice with the white breakers
at the bottom, which beyond the church ripple up into two little
sandy bays: in the distance, the Welsh mountains, instead of blue,
were the most delicate green. We returned by Clapton, where, beside
an ancient manor-house, is a little church upon a hill, with a
group of old yew-trees."

"_Oxford, Nov. 15._--On Monday, Miss Boyle came in my fly to
Bristol, her mission being to break a man she had met with of
drunkenness, having made a promise to his wife that she would save
him. She said that she had shut herself up for hours in prayer
about it, and that, though she did not know in the least how it was
to be done, she was on her way to Bristol to _do_ it. One day, as
we were walking, we met a woman who knew that she had seen her in a
drunken state. 'You will never speak to me again, ma'am,' said the
woman; 'I can never dare see you again.'--'God forbid,' answered
Miss Boyle. 'I've been as great a sinner myself in my time, and I
can never forsake you because you've done wrong: it is more reason
why I should try to lead you to do right.' I had an interesting
day at Bath with dear old Mr. Landor, who sent his best
remembrances to you--'the best and kindest creature he ever knew.'"

"_Oxford, Nov. 21._--I have been dining at New College and drinking
out of a silver cup inscribed--'Ex dono Socii Augustus Hare.'

"Yesterday I went to luncheon at Iffley with Miss Sydney Warburton,
authoress of 'Letters to my Unknown Friends,' and sister of the
Rector--a most remarkable and interesting person. She had been
speaking of the study of life, when the door opened and a young
lady entered. Miss Warburton had just time to whisper 'Watch
her--_she_ is a study indeed.' It was Mrs. Eliot Warburton,
uninteresting in her first aspect, but marvellously original and
powerful in all she said."

"_Nov. 26._--I have been a long drive to Boarstall Tower, which is
like an old Border castle, with a moat and bridge. It was defended
during the Civil Wars by a Royalist lady, who, when starved out
after some months' siege, made her escape by a subterranean
passage, carrying off everything with her. Afterwards it was always
in the hands of the Aubreys, till, in the last century, Sir Edward
Aubrey accidentally poisoned his only and idolised son there. The
old nurse imagined that no one knew what had happened but herself,
and she spent her whole life in trying to prevent Sir Edward from
finding out what he had done, and succeeded so well, that it was
years before he discovered it. At last, at a contested election, a
man in the opposition called out, 'Who murdered his own son?' which
led to inquiries, and when Sir Edward found out the truth, he died
of the shock.

"Mrs. Eliot Warburton and her sister-in-law have just been to
luncheon with me in college, and I am as much charmed with them as
before."

"_Dec. 3._--I have been to spend Sunday at Iffley with the
Warburtons."

I have inserted these notices of my first acquaintance with the Warburtons, because for some years after this they bore so large a share in all my interests and thoughts. Mrs. Eliot Warburton at that time chiefly lived at Oxford or Iffley with her two little boys. Her brother, Dr. Cradock, was Principal of Brazenose, and had married Miss Lister, the maid of honour, with whom I became very intimate, scarcely passing a day without going to Dr. Cradock's house. Miss Warburton died not long afterwards, but Mrs. Eliot Warburton became one of my dearest friends, and not mine only, but that of my college circle; for she lived with us in singular, probably unique intimacy, as if she had been an undergraduate herself. Scarcely a morning passed without her coming to our rooms, scarcely an afternoon without our walking with her or going with her on the river. It was a friendship of the very best kind, with a constant interchange of the best and highest thoughts, and her one object was to stimulate us onwards to the noblest aims and ambitions, though I believe she overrated us, and was mistaken in her great desire that her two boys should grow up like Sheffield and me. We gave her a little dog, which she called "Sheffie" after him. We often went to a distant wood together, where we spent whole hours amongst the primroses and bluebells or wandered amongst "the warm green muffled Cumnor hills," as Matthew Arnold calls them; in the evenings we frequently acted charades in Mrs. Cradock's house. Our intimacy was never broken while I stayed at Oxford. But I never saw my dear friend afterwards. In 1857 I heard with a shock of what it is strange that I had never for an instant anticipated--her engagement to make a second marriage. She wrote to tell me of it herself, but I never heard from her again. She had other children, girls, and a few years afterwards she died. Her death was the first great sorrow I had ever felt from death out of my own family. Her memory will always be a possession to me. I often saw her husband afterwards in London, but as I had never seen him with her, it is difficult for me to associate him with her in my mind.

JOURNAL.

"_Lime, Dec. 23, 1855._--I have found such a true observation in
'Heartsease'--'One must humble oneself in the dust and _crawl_
under the archway before one can enter the beautiful palace.' This
is exactly what I feel now in waiting upon my mother. When sensible
of being more attentive and lovingly careful than usual, I am, of
course, conscious that I must be deficient at other times, and so
that, while I fancy I do all that could be done, I frequently fall
short. A greater effort is necessary to prevent my mind being even
preoccupied when it is possible that she may want sympathy or
interest, even though it may be in the very merest trifles.

"The dear mother says her great wish is that I should study--drink
deep, as she calls it--in Latin and Greek, for the strengthening of
my mind. It is quite in vain to try to convince her that college
lectures only improve one for the worse, and that I might do myself
and the world more good by devoting myself to English literature
and diction, the one only thing in which it is ever possible that I
might ever distinguish myself. Oh, how I wish I could become an
author! I begin so now to thirst after distinction of some kind,
and of that kind above all others: but I know my mind must receive
quite a new tone first, and that my scattered fragments of sense
would have to be called into an unanimous action to which they are
quite unaccustomed.

"The Talmud says 'that there are four kinds of pupils--the sponge
and the funnel, the strainer and the sieve; the sponge is he who
spongeth up everything; and the funnel is he that taketh in at this
ear and letteth out at that: the strainer is he that letteth go the
wine and retaineth the dross; the sieve is he that letteth go the
bran and retaineth the fine flour.' I think I have begun at least
to _wish_ to belong to the last.

"It has been fearfully cold lately, and it has told sadly upon the
mother and has aged her years in a week. But she is most sweet and
gentle--smiling and trying to find amusement and interest even in
her ailments, and with a loving smile and look for the least thing
done for her."

Soon after this was written we went to London, and the rest of the winter was spent between the house of Mrs. Stanley, 6 Grosvenor Crescent, and that of my Uncle Penrhyn at Sheen. At Grosvenor Crescent I often had the opportunity of seeing people of more or less interest, for my Aunt Kitty was a capital talker, as well as a very wise and clever thinker. She had "le bon sens à jet continu," as Victor Hugo said of Voltaire. She also understood the art of showing off others to the best advantage, and in society she never failed to practise it, which always made her popular; at home, except when Arthur was present, she kept all the conversation to herself, which was also for the best. Macaulay often dined with her, and talked to a degree which made those who heard him sympathise with Sydney Smith, who called him "that talking machine," talked of his "flumen sermonis," and declared that, when ill, he dreamt he was chained to a rock and being talked to death by Macaulay or Harriet Martineau. This year also I met Mrs. Stowe, whose book "Uncle Tom's Cabin" made at the time a more profound impression in England than any other book I ever remember. She was very entertaining in describing her Scotch visits. Inverary she had liked, but she declared with vehemence that she would "rather be smashed into triangles than go to Dunrobin again."

END OF VOL. I.

_Printed by_ BALLANTYNE, HANSON & CO. _Edinburgh and London_

THE STORY OF MY LIFE

VOL. II

From a portrait by Canaveri]

THE STORY OF MY LIFE

BY

AUGUSTUS J. C. HARE

AUTHOR OF "MEMORIALS OF A QUIET LIFE," "THE STORY OF TWO NOBLE LIVES," ETC. ETC.

VOLUME II

LONDON GEORGE ALLEN, 156, CHARING CROSS ROAD 1896 [_All rights reserved_]

_Printed by_ BALLANTYNE, HANSON & CO. _At the Ballantyne Press_

CONTENTS

PAGE

OXFORD LIFE 1
FOREIGN LIFE 32
WORK IN SOUTHERN COUNTIES 130
WORK IN NORTHERN COUNTIES 259
HOME LIFE WITH THE MOTHER 367

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

VOL. II

MARIA HARE. _From G. Canevari._ (_Photogravure_) _Frontispiece_
PAGE
DRAWING-ROOM, LIME 15
FROM THE DEAN'S GARDEN, CANTERBURY 24
LA MADONNA DEI. SASSO, LOCARNO 45
IN S. APOLLINARE NUOVO, RAVENNA 48
LORETO 51
MACERATA 53
CIVITA CASTELLANA 55
VALMONTONE 77
ROCCA JANULA, ABOVE SAN GERMANO 79
CAPRI 82
PÆSTUM 83
VALLOMBROSA 85
AUGUSTUS J. C. HARE. _From G. Canevari._
(_Photogravure_) _To face_ 96
PONTE ALLA MADDALENA, LUCCA 96
PIETRA SANTA 102
IL VALENTINO, TURIN 107
VILLAR, IN THE VAUDOIS 110
NOTRE DAME, PARIS 117
THE PONT NEUF, PARIS 124
PORT ROYAL 126
CATHERINE STANLEY. _From E. U. Eddis._
(_Photogravure_) _To face_ 132
CANON STANLEY'S HOUSE, OXFORD 136
HODNET CHURCH 159
GIBSIDE 181
OLD BEECHES, HURSTMONCEAUX PARK 227
THE ABELES, LIME 245
MENTONE 248
GRIMALDI 251
DOLCEACQUA 254
PEGLIONE 255
VENTIMIGLIA 257
AT DURHAM 262
ON ALLEN WATER, RIDLEY HALL 273
FORD CASTLE, THE TERRACE 281
VIEW FROM HOLMHURST. (_Full-page woodcut_) _To face_ 286
ENTRANCE TO HOLMHURST: "HUZ AND BUZ" 287
ALDERLEY CHURCH AND RECTORY 293
WARKWORTH, FROM THE COQUET 352
WINTON CASTLE 355
THE CHEVIOTS, FROM FORD 361
CARROZZA 371
ROMAN THEATRE, ARLES 378
HÔTEL DU MAUROY, TROYES 379
THE KING OF BOHEMIA'S CROSS, CRECY 380
S. FLAVIANO, MONTEFIASCONE 386
OSTIA 391
THEATRE OF TUSCULUM 392
AMALFI 397
COURMAYEUR 410
ANNE F. M. L. HARE. _From G. Canevari._
(_Photogravure_) _To face_ 416
ARS 421
TOURS 465
AT ANGOULÊME 467
PAU 471
BÉTHARRAM 481
BIARRITZ 489
THE PAS DE ROLAND 491
S. EMILION CATHEDRAL DOOR 494
AMBOISE 496