Chapter II: Childhood (1)

1834-1843

"Sweete home, where meane estate
In safe assurance, without strife or hate,
Findes all things needfull for contentment meeke."--SPENSER.

"Is there not in the bosoms of the wisest and best some of the
child's heart left to respond to its earliest enchantments?"--C.
LAMB.

"I cannot paint to Memory's eye
The scene, the glance, I dearest love;
Unchanged themselves, in me they die,
Or faint, or false, their shadows prove."--KEBLE.

"Ce sont là les séjours, les sites, les rivages,
Dont mon âme attendrie évoque les images,
Et dont, pendant les nuits, mes songes les plus beaux
Pour enchanter mes yeux composent leurs tableaux."--LAMARTINE.

Maria Leycester had been married to my uncle Augustus Hare in June 1829. In their every thought and feeling they were united, and all early associations had combined to fit them more entirely for each other's companionship. A descendant of one of the oldest families in Cheshire, Miss Leycester's childhood and youth had been spent almost entirely in country rectories, but in such rectories as are rarely to be found, and which prove that the utmost intellectual refinement and an interest in all that is remarkable and beautiful in this world are not incompatible with the highest aspirations after a Christian and a heavenly life. Her father, Oswald Leycester, Rector of Stoke-upon-Terne in Shropshire, was a finished scholar, had travelled much, and was the most agreeable of companions. Her only sister, seven years older than herself, was married when very young to Edward Stanley, Rector of Alderley, and afterwards Bishop of Norwich, well known for the picturesqueness of his imaginative powers, for his researches in Natural History, and for that sympathy with all things bright and pleasant which preserved in him the spirit of youth quite to the close of life. Her most intimate friend, and the voluntary preceptor of her girlhood, had been the gifted Reginald Heber, who, before his acceptance of the Bishopric of Calcutta, had lived as Rector of Hodnet--the poet-rector--within two miles of her home.

One of the happy circle which constantly met at Hodnet Rectory, she had known Augustus Hare (first-cousin of Mrs. Heber, who was a daughter of Dean Shipley) since she was eighteen. Later interests and their common sorrow in Heber's death had thrown them closely together, and it would scarcely have been possible for two persons to have proved each other's characters more thoroughly than they had done, before the time of their marriage, which was not till Maria Leycester was in her thirty-first year.

Four years of perfect happiness were permitted them--years spent almost entirely in the quiet of their little rectory in the singularly small parish of Alton Barnes amid the Wiltshire downs, where the inhabitants, less than two hundred in number, living close at each other's doors, around two or three small pastures, grew to regard Augustus Hare and his wife with the affection of children for their parents. So close was the tie which united them, that, when the rich family living of Hurstmonceaux fell vacant on the death of our great-uncle Robert, Augustus Hare could not bear to leave his little Alton, and implored my father to persuade his brother Julius to give up his fellowship at Trinity and to take it instead.

"Having lived but little in the country, and his attention having
been engrossed by other subjects, Augustus Hare was, from education
and habits of life, unacquainted with the character and wants of
the poor. The poverty of their minds, their inability to follow a
train of reasoning, their prejudices and superstitions, were quite
unknown to him. All the usual hindrances to dealing with them, that
are commonly ascribed to a college life, were his in full force.
But his want of experience and knowledge touching the minds and
habits of the poor were overcome by the love he felt towards all
his fellow-creatures, and his sympathy in all their concerns. In
earlier days this Christ-like mind had manifested itself towards
his friends, towards servants, towards all with whom he was brought
in contact. It now taught him to talk to his poor parishioners and
enter into their interests with the feeling of a father and a
friend.... He had the power of throwing himself out of himself into
the interests and feelings of others; nor did he less draw out
their sympathies into his own, and make them sharers in his
pleasures and his concerns. It was not only the condescension of a
superior to those over whom he was placed, it was far more the
mutual interchange of feeling of one who loved to forget the
difference of station to which each was called, and to bring
forward the brotherly union as members of one family in Christ,
children of the same Heavenly Father, in which blessed equality all
distinctions are done away. Often would he ask their counsel in
matters of which he was ignorant, and call upon their sympathy in
his thankful rejoicing. His garden, his hayfield, his house, were
as it were thrown open to them, as he made them partakers of his
enjoyment, or sought for their assistance in his need.... The one
pattern ever before his eyes was his Lord and Master Jesus Christ;
the first question he asked himself, 'What would Jesus Christ have
me to do? What would He have done in my place?'

"Perfect contentedness with what was appointed for him, and deep
thankfulness for all the good things given him, marked his whole
being. In deciding what should be done, or where he should go, or
how he should act, the question of how far it might suit his own
convenience, or be agreeable to his own feelings, was kept entirely
in the background till all other claims were satisfied. It was not
apparently at the dictate of duty and reason that these thoughts
were suppressed and made secondary: it seemed to be the first, the
natural feeling in him, to seek first the things of others and to
do the will of God, and to look at his own interest in the matter
as having comparatively nothing to do with it. And so great a dread
had he of being led to any selfish or interested views, that he
would find consolation in having no family to include in the
consideration--'Had I had children I might have fancied it an
excuse for worldly-mindedness and covetousness.' His children truly
were his fellow-men, those who were partakers of the same flesh and
blood, redeemed by the same Saviour, heirs of the same heavenly
inheritance. For them he was willing to spend and be spent, for
them he was _covetous_ of all the good that might be obtained....
He was never weary in well-doing, never thought he had done enough,
never feared doing too much. Those small things, which by so many
are esteemed as unnecessary, as _not worth while_, these were the
very things he took care not to leave undone. It was not rendering
a service when it came _in_ his way, when it occurred in the
natural course of things that he should do it; it was going _out_
of the way to help others, taking every degree of trouble and
incurring personal inconvenience for the sake of doing good, of
giving pleasure even in slight things, that distinguished his
benevolent activity from the common form of it. The love that dwelt
in him was ready to be poured forth on whomsoever needed it, and
being a free-will offering, it looked for no return, and felt no
obligation conferred."

I have copied these fragments from the portrait which Augustus Hare's widow drew of his ministerial life,[10] because they afford the best clue to the way in which that life influenced hers, drawing her away from earth and setting her affections in heavenly places. And yet, though in one sense the life of Augustus Hare and his wife at Alton was one of complete seclusion, in another sense there were few who lived more for, or who had more real communion with, the scattered members of their family. Mrs. Stanley and her children, with her brother Mr. Penrhyn[11] and his wife, were sharers by letter in every trifling incident which affected their sister's life; and with his favourite brother Julius, Augustus Hare never slackened his intellectual intercourse and companionship. But even more than these was Lucy Anne Stanley,[12] the life-long friend of Maria Hare, till, in the summer of 1833, the tie of sisterhood, which had always existed in feeling, became a reality, through her marriage with Marcus Hare, the youngest of the four brothers.

A chill which Augustus Hare caught when he was in Cheshire for his brother's marriage, was the first cause of his fatal illness. It was soon after considered necessary that he should spend the winter abroad with his wife, and it was decided that they should accompany Marcus and Lucy Hare to Rome. At Genoa the illness of Augustus became alarming, but he reached Rome, and there he expired on the 14th of February 1834, full of faith and hope, and comforting those who surrounded him to the last.

My father felt his brother's loss deeply. They had little in common on many points, yet the close tie of brotherhood, which had existed between them from early days at Bologna, was such as no difference of opinion could alter, no time or absence weaken. When Augustus was laid to rest at the foot of the pyramid of Caius Cestius, my father's most earnest wish was to comfort his widowed sister-in-law, and in the hope of arousing an interest which might still give some semblance of an earthly tie to one who seemed then upon the very borderland of heaven, he entreated, when I was born in the following month, that she would become my godmother, promising that she should be permitted to influence my future in any way she pleased, and wishing that I should be called Augustus after him she had lost.

I was baptized on the 1st of April in the Villa Strozzi, by Mr. Burgess. The widow of Augustus held me in her arms, and I received the names of "Augustus John Cuthbert," the two last from my godfathers (the old Sir John Paul and Mr. Cuthbert Ellison), who never did anything for me, the first from my godmother, to whom I owe everything in the world.

And his nurse Lucia Cecinelli.]

Soon afterwards, my godmother returned to England, with her faithful maid Mary Lea, accompanied by the Marcus Hares. She had already decided to fix her future home in the parish of Julius, who, more than any other, was a fellow-mourner with her. As regarded me, nothing more than the tie of a godmother had to that time been thought of; but in the quiet hours of her long return journey to England, while sadly looking forward to the solitary future before her, it occurred to Augustus Hare's widow as just possible that my parents might be induced to give me up to her altogether, to live with her as her own child. In July she wrote her petition, and was almost surprised at the glad acceptance it met with. Mrs. Hare's answer was very brief--"My dear Maria, how very kind of you! Yes, certainly, the baby shall be sent as soon as it is weaned; and, if any one else would like one, would you kindly recollect that we have others."

Yet my adopting mother had stipulated that I was to be altogether hers; that my own relations were henceforward to have no claim over me whatever; that her parents were to be regarded as my grandparents, her brother and sister as my uncle and aunt.

Meantime my father took his family for the hot summer months to one of the lovely villas on the high spurs of volcanic hill, which surround picturesque romantic Siena. They had none of the English society to which they had been accustomed at Lucca Baths and at Castellamare, but the Siennese are celebrated for their hospitality, and my father's talents, famous then throughout Italy, ensured him a cordial welcome amongst the really cultivated circle which met every evening in the old mediæval palaces of the native nobility. Of English, they had the society of Mr. and Mrs. Bulwer, who were introduced by Landor, while constant intercourse with Landor himself was one of the chief pleasures which the family enjoyed during this and many succeeding years. With Francis Hare he laid the plan of many of his writings, and in his judgment and criticism he had the greatest confidence. To this he alludes in his little poem of "Sermonis Propriora:"--

"Little do they who glibly talk of vrese
Know what they talk about, and what is worse,
Think they are judges if they dare to pass
Sentence on higher heads.

The mule and ass
Know who have made them what they are, and heed
Far from the neighing of the generous steed.
Gell, Drummond, Hare, and wise and witty Ward
Knew at first sight and sound the genuine bard,
But the street hackneys, fed on nosebag bran,
Assail the poet, and defame the man."

After another winter at Rome, the family went to Lausanne, and thence my father, with my beautiful Albanese nurse, Lucia Cecinelli, took me to meet Mrs. Gayford, the English nurse sent out to fetch me by my adopted mother from Mannheim on the Rhine. There the formal exchange took place which gave me a happy and loving home. I saw my father afterwards, but he seldom noticed me. Many years afterwards I knew Mrs. Hare well and had much to do with her; but I have never at any time spoken to her or of her as a "mother," and I have never in any way regarded her as such. She gave me up wholly and entirely. She renounced every claim upon me, either of affection or interest. I was sent over to England with a little green carpet-bag containing two little white night-shirts and a red coral necklace--my whole trousseau and patrimony. At the same time it was indicated that if the Marcus Hares should also wish to adopt a child, my parents had another to dispose of: my second brother William had never at any time any share in their affections.

On reaching England I was sent first to my cousin the Dowager Countess of Strathmore, and from her house was taken (in the coach) by Mrs. Gayford to my mother--my real only mother from henceforth--at Hurstmonceaux Rectory, which at that time was as much a palace of art, from its fine collection of pictures and books, as a country rectory could be.

My adopted mother always used to say that the story of Hannah reminded her of the way in which I was given to her. She believed it was in answer to a prayer of my uncle Augustus in the cathedral at Chalons, when he dropped some money into a box "pour les femmes enceintes," because he knew how much she wished to have a child. His eldest brother's wife was then _enceinte_, and I was born soon afterwards.

_From_ MY MOTHER'S JOURNAL.

"On Tuesday, August 26, 1835, my little Augustus came to me. It was
about four o'clock when I heard a cry from upstairs and ran up.
There was the dear child seated on Mary's (Mary Lea's) knee,
without a frock. He smiled most sweetly and with a peculiar
archness of expression as I went up to him, and there was no
shyness. When dressed, I brought him down into the drawing-room: he
looked with great delight at the pictures, the busts, and
especially the bronze wolf--pointed at them, then looked round at
Jule and me. When set down, he strutted along the passage, went
into every room, surveyed all things in it with an air of
admiration and importance, and nothing seemed to escape
observation. The novelty of all around and the amusement he found
at first seemed to make him forget our being strangers. The next
day he was a little less at home. His features are much formed and
an uncommon intelligence of countenance gives him an older look
than his age: his dark eyes and eyelashes, well-formed nose and
expressive mouth make his face a very pretty one; but he has at
present but little hair and that very straight and light. His limbs
are small and he is very thin and light, but holds himself very
erect. He can run about very readily, and within a week after
coming could get upstairs by himself. In talking, he seems to be
backward, and except a few words and noises of animals, nothing is
intelligible. Number seems to be a great charm to him--a great many
apples, and acorns to be put in and out of a basket. He has great
delight in flowers, but is good in only smelling at those in the
garden, gathers all he can pick up in the fields, and generally has
his hands full of sticks or weeds when he is out. He wants to be
taught obedience, and if his way is thwarted or he cannot
immediately have what he wants, he goes into a violent fit of
passion. Sometimes it is soon over and he laughs again directly,
but if it goes on he will roll and scream on the floor for
half-an-hour together. In these cases we leave him without
speaking, as everything adds to the irritation, and he must find
out it is useless. But if by _prevention_ such a fit may be avoided
it is better, and Mary Lea is very ingenious in her preventing."

"_Oct. 3._--Augustus improves in obedience already. His great
delight is in throwing his playthings into a jug or tub of water.
Having been told not to do so in my room, he will walk round the
tub when full, look at Mary, then at me, and then at the tub with a
most comical expression, but if called away before too long will
resist the temptation. He is very impatient, but sooner quiet than
at first: and a tear in one eye and a smile in the other is usually
to be seen. His great delight lately has been picking up mushrooms
in the fields and filling his basket."

It was in October that my mother moved from the Rectory to Lime--our own dear home for the next five-and-twenty years. Those who visit Hurstmonceaux now can hardly imagine Lime as it then was, all is so changed. The old white gabled house, with clustered chimneys and roofs rich in colour, rose in a brilliant flower-garden sheltered on every side by trees, and separated in each direction by several fields from the highroad or the lanes. On the side towards the Rectory, a drive between close walls of laurel led to the old-fashioned porch which opened into a small low double hall. The double drawing-room and the dining-room, admirably proportioned, though small, looked across the lawn, and one of the great glistening pools which belonged to an old monastery (once on the site of the house), and which lay at the foot of a very steep bank carpeted with primroses in spring. Beyond the pool was our high field, over which the stumpy spire of the church could be seen, at about a mile and a half distant, cutting the silver line of the sea. The castle was in a hollow farther still and not visible. On the right of the lawn a grass walk behind a shrubbery looked out upon the wide expanse of Pevensey Level with its ever-varying lights and shadows, and was sheltered by the immensely tall abele trees, known as "the Five Sisters of Lime," which tossed their weird arms, gleaming silver-white, far into the sky, and were a feature in all distant views of Hurstmonceaux. On the left were the offices, and a sort of enclosed court, where the dogs and cats used to play and some silver pheasants were kept, and where my dear nurse Mary Lea used to receive the endless poor applicants for charity and help, bringing in their many complaints to my mother with inimitable patience, though they were too exclusively self-contained to be ever the least grateful to her, always regarding and speaking of her and John Gidman, the butler, as "furriners, folk from the shires."

No description can give an idea of the complete seclusion of the life at Lime, of the silence which was only broken by the cackling of the poultry or the distant threshing in the barn, for the flail, as well as the sickle and scythe, were then in constant use at Hurstmonceaux, where oxen--for all agricultural purposes--occupied the position which horses hold now. No sound from the "world," in its usually accepted sense, would ever have penetrated, if it had not been for the variety of literary guests who frequented the Rectory, and one or other of whom constantly accompanied my uncle Julius when he came down, as he did every day of his life, to his sister-in-law's quiet six-o'clock dinner, returning at about eight. Of guests in our house itself there were very few, and always the same--the Norwich Stanleys; Miss Clinton, a dear friend of my mother; after a time the Maurices, and Mr. and Mrs. Pile--an Alton farmer of the better class, and his excellent wife: but there was never any variety. Yet in my boyhood I never thought it dull, and loved Lime with passionate devotion. Even in earliest childhood my dearest mother treated me completely as her companion, creating interests and amusements for me in all the natural things around, and making me so far a sharer in her own spiritual thoughts, that I have always felt a peculiar truthfulness in Wordsworth's line--

"Heaven lies about us in our infancy."

If my mother was occupied, there was always my dear "Lea" at hand, with plenty of farmhouse interests to supply, and endless homely stories of country life.

_From_ MY MOTHER'S JOURNAL.

"_Lime, Oct. 23, 1835._--My little Augustus was much astonished by
the change of house, and clung to me at first as if afraid of
moving away. The first evening he kissed me over and over again, as
if to comfort and assure me of his affection."

"_Nov. 21._--Augustus has grown much more obedient, and is ready to
give his food or playthings to others. Some time ago he was much
delighted with the sight of the moon, and called out 'moon, moon,'
quite as if he could not help it. Next day he ran to the window to
look for it, and has ever since talked of it repeatedly. At
Brighton he called the lamps in the streets 'moon,' and the
reflection of the candles or fire on the window he does the same.
He is always merriest and most amiable when without playthings: his
mind is then free to act for itself and finds its own amusement;
and in proportion as his playthings are artificial and leave him
nothing to do, he quarrels or gets tired of them. He takes great
notice of anything of art--the flowers on the china and plates, and
all kinds of pictures."

"_Stoke Rectory, Jan. 7, 1836._--During our stay with the Penrhyns
at Sheen, Baby was so much amused by the variety of persons and
things to attract attention, that he grew very impatient and
fretful if contradicted. Since we have been at Stoke he has been
much more gentle and obedient, scarcely ever cries and amuses
himself on the floor. He is greatly amused by his Grandpapa's
playful motions and comical faces, and tries to imitate them. When
the school children are singing below, he puts up his forefinger
when listening and begins singing with his little voice, which is
very sweet. He will sit on the bed and talk in his own way for a
long time, telling about what he has seen if he has been out: his
little mind seems to be working without any visible thing before
it, on what is absent."

"_Alderley, March 13._--My dear boy's birthday, two years old. He
has soon become acquainted with his Alderley relations,[13] and
learnt to call them by name. He has grown very fond of 'Aunt
Titty,' and the instant she goes to her room follows her and asks
for the brush to brush the rocking-horse and corn to feed it. His
fits of passion are as violent, but not so long in duration, as
ever. When he was roaring and kicking with all his might and I
could scarcely hold him, I said--'It makes Mama very sorry to see
Baby so naughty.' He instantly stopped, threw his arms round my
neck, and sobbed out--'Baby lub Mama--good.' When I have once had a
struggle with him to do a thing, he always recollects, and does it
next time."

"_Lime, June 13._--On the journey from Stoke to London, Baby was
very much delighted with the primroses in the hedgerows, and his
delight in the fields when we got home was excessive. He knows the
name of every flower both in garden and field, and never forgets
any he has once seen.... When he sees me hold my hand to my head,
he says, 'Mama tired--head bad--Baby play self.'"

"_July 9._--Baby can now find his way all over the house, goes up
and down stairs alone and about the lawn and garden quite
independently, and enjoys the liberty of going in and out of the
windows: runs after butterflies or to catch his own shadow: picks
up flowers or leaves, and is the picture of enjoyment and
happiness. Tumbling out of the window yesterday, when the fright
was over, he looked up--'Down comes Baby and cradle and all.' He
tells the kitten 'not touch this or that,' and me 'not make noise,
Pussy's head bad.'"

"_Sept. 28._--The sea-bathing at Eastbourne always frightened Baby
before he went in. He would cling to Mary and be very nervous till
the women had dipped him, and then, in the midst of his sobs from
the shock, would sing 'Little Bo Peep,' to their great amusement.
He was very happy throwing stones in the water and picking up
shells; but above all he enjoyed himself on Beachy Head, the fresh
air and turf seemed to exhilarate him as much as any one, and the
picking purple thistles and other down flowers was a great
delight.... His pleasure in returning home and seeing the flowers
he had left was very great. He talks of them as if they were his
playmates, realising Keble's--'In childhood's sports, _companions_
gay.'"

"_Oct. 17._--After dinner to-day, on being told to thank God for
his good dinner, he would not do it, though usually he does it the
first thing on having finished. I would not let him get out of his
chair, which enraged him, and he burst into a violent passion.
Twice, when this abated, I went to him and tried, partly by
encouragement, partly by positively insisting on it, to bring him
to obedience. Each time I took him up from the floor, he writhed on
the floor again with passion, screaming as loud as he could. After
a while, when I had left him and gone into the drawing-room, he
came along the walk and went back again two or three times as if
not having courage to come in, then at last came and hid his face
in my lap. I carried him back to the dining-room and put him in his
chair and talked to him about his dinner, did not he love God for
giving him so many good things, and I knelt by him and prayed God
to forgive him for being so naughty and to take away the naughty
spirit. All the time he was struggling within himself,
half-sobbing, half-smiling with effort--'I can't say it'--and then,
after a time, 'Mama thanks God for Baby's good dinner.' 'No,' I
said, 'Baby must do it for himself.' Still he resisted. At length
on getting down from the chair he said, 'Kneel down under
table'--and there at last he said, 'Thank God for Baby's good
dinner,' and in a minute all the clouds were gone and sunshine
returned to his face. The whole struggle lasted I suppose
half-an-hour. In a few minutes after he was calling me 'Mama dear'
and as merry as ever."

"_Stoke Rectory, Nov. 26._--Baby asks 'Who made the dirt? Jesus
Christ?' It is evident that he has not the slightest notion of any
difference between the nature of God and any man, or between Heaven
and London or any name of a place. Perhaps in this simplicity and
literality of belief he comes nearer the truth than we in the
sophistications and subtilties of our reasonings on such things:
but the great difficulty is to impress awe and reverence for a holy
and powerful Being, and to give the dread and serious sense of
being under His eye, without a slavish fear and distance.

"He always asks when he sees my Bible--'Mama reading about Adam and
Eve and Jesus Christ?'--a union of the two grand subjects, very
unconsciously coming to the truth."

"_Jan. 16, 1837._--Time is as yet a very indistinct impression on
Baby's mind. Going round the field, he gathered some buttercups. I
said, 'Leave the rest till to-morrow.' When we returned the same
way, he asked, 'Is it to-morrow now?' ... After a violent passion
the other day he looked up--'Will Jesus Christ be shocked?' He
comes often and says--'Will 'ou pray God to make little Augustus
good?' and asks to 'pray with Mama.'

"The other day he said--'My eyes are pretty.' 'Oh yes,' I said,
'they are, and so are Mama's and Na's.'--'And Grandpapa's and
Grannie's too?'--'Yes, they are all pretty, nothing so pretty as
eyes.' And I have heard no more of it.

"'Look, Mama,' he says, 'there is a bird flying up to God.'--'Where
have you been to, Baby?'--'To a great many wheres.' He visits all
the flowers in Grannie's garden, quite as anxiously as if they were
living beings, and that quite without any hope of possessing them,
as he is never allowed to gather any. He puts the different flowers
together--and invents names for them--Hep--poly--primrose, &c. He
also talks to animals and flowers as if they were conscious, and in
this way creates constant amusement for himself: but the illusion
is so strong he hardly seems to separate it from fact, and it
becomes increasingly necessary to guard against the confusion of
truth and error."

Children are said seldom to remember things which happen when they are three years old; but I have a distinct recollection of being at my mother's early home of Toft in Cheshire during this spring of 1837, and of the charm, of which children are so conscious, of the Mrs. Leycester ("Toft Grannie"--my mother's first cousin) who lived there. I also recollect the great dog at Alderley, and being whipped by "Uncle Ned" (Edward Stanley) at the gate of the Dutch garden for breaking off a branch of mezereon when I was told not to touch it. Indeed I am not sure whether these recollections are not of a year before, in which I distinctly remember a terrible storm at Lime, when Kate Stanley was with us, seeing a great acacia-tree torn up by the roots and hurled against the drawing-room window, smashing all before it, and the general panic and flight that ensued. Otherwise my earliest impressions of Hurstmonceaux are all of the primroses on the Lime bank--the sheets of golden stars everywhere, and the tufts of pure white primroses which grew in one particular spot, where the bank was broken away under an old apple-tree. Then of my intense delight in being taken in a punt to the three islets on the pond--Mimulus Island, Tiny and Wee; and of the excessive severity of Uncle Julius, who had the very sharpest possible way of speaking to children, even when he meant to be kind to them. Every evening, like clockwork, he appeared at six to dine with my mother, and walked home after coffee at eight. How many of their conversations, which I was supposed neither to hear or understand, have come back to me since like echoes: strange things for a child to remember--about the Fathers, and Tract XC., and a great deal about hymns and hymn-tunes--"Martyrdom," "Irish," "Abridge," &c.; for an organ was now put into the church, in place of the band, in which the violin never could keep time with the other instruments. Sir George Dasent has told me how he was at Hurstmonceaux then, staying with the Simpkinsons. Arthur Stanley was at the Rectory as a pupil, and he asked Arthur how he liked this new organ. "Well," he said, "it is not so bad as most organs, for it does not make so much sound." Uncle Julius preached about it, altering a text into "What went ye out for to hear."

A child who lives much with its elders is almost certain to find out what it is most intended to conceal from it. If possible it had better be confided in. I knew exactly what whispers referred to a certain dark passage in the history of the Rectory before Uncle Julius's time--"il y avait un crime"--and I never rested till I found it out. It was about this time that I remember Uncle Julius going into one of his violently demonstrative furies over what he considered the folly of "Montgomery's Poems," and his flinging the book to the other end of the room in his rage with it, and my wondering what would be done to me if I ever dared to be "as naughty as Uncle Jule."

_From_ MY MOTHER'S JOURNAL.

"_Lime, June 20, 1837._--Augustus was very ill in coming through
London.... Seeing Punch one day from the window, he was greatly
amused by it, and laughed heartily. Next day I told him I had seen
Punch and Judy again. 'No, Mama, you can't have seen Judy, for she
was killed yesterday.' On getting home he was much pleased, and
remembered every place perfectly. Great is his delight over every
new flower as it comes out, and his face was crimsoned over as he
called to me to see 'little Cistus come out.' At night, in his
prayers he said--'Bless daisies, bluebells,' &c.... I have found
speaking of the power exercised by Jesus Christ in calming the wind
a means of leading him to view Christ as God, which I felt the want
of in telling him of Christ's childhood and human
kindness,--showing how miraculous demonstration is adapted to
childhood."

I have a vivid recollection of my long illness in Park Street, and of the miserable confinement in London. It was just at that time that my Uncle Edward Stanley was offered the Bishopric of Norwich. His family were all "in a terrible taking," as they used to call that sort of emotion, as to whether it should be accepted or not, and when the matter was settled they were almost worse--not my aunt, nothing ever agitated her, but the rest of them. Mary and Kate came, with floods of tears, to tell my mother they were to leave Alderley. My Uncle Penrhyn met Mary Stanley coming down our staircase, quite convulsed with weeping, and thought that I was dead.

When I was better, in the spring, we went to my Uncle Penrhyn's at East Sheen. One day I went into Mortlake with my nurse Mary Lea. In returning, a somewhat shabby carriage passed us, with one or two outriders, and an old gentleman inside. When we reached the house, Lea asked old Mills, the butler, who it was. "Only 'Silly Billy,'" he said. It was King William IV., who died in the following June. He had succeeded to the sobriquet which had been applied to his cousin and brother-in-law, William Henry, Duke of Gloucester, who died in 1834.

John Sterling had been living at Hurstmonceaux for several years as my uncle's curate, and was constantly at Lime or the Rectory. I vividly recollect how pleasant (and handsome) he was. My mother used to talk to him for hours together and he was very fond of her. With Mrs. Sterling lived her sister Annie Barton, whom I remember as a very sweet and winning person. During this summer, Frederick Maurice, a Cambridge pupil of my uncle's, came to visit him, and confessed his attachment to her. There were many obstacles to their marriage, of which I am ignorant; but my mother was always in favour of it, and did much to bring it about. I recollect Annie Barton as often sitting on a stool at my mother's feet.

On our way to Stoke in the preceding autumn, we had diverged to visit Frederick Maurice at his tiny curacy of Bubnell near Leamington. With him lived his sister Priscilla, for whom my mother formed a great friendship, which, beginning chiefly on religious grounds, was often a great trial to her, as Priscilla Maurice, with many fine qualities and great cleverness, was one of the most exacting persons I have ever known. I am conscious of course now of what fretted me unconsciously then, the entire difference of class, and consequent difference in the measurement of people and things, between the Maurices and those my mother had been accustomed to associate with, and of their injurious effect upon my mother herself, in inducing her to adopt their peculiar phraseology, especially with regard to religious things. They persuaded her to join in their tireless search after the motes in their brother's eyes, and urged a more intensified life of contemplative rather than active piety, which abstracted her more than ever from earthly interests, and really marred for a time her influence and usefulness. The Maurice sisters were the first of the many so-called "religious" people I have known, who did not seem to realise that Christianity is rather action than thought; not a system, but a life.

It must have been soon after this that Frederick Maurice moved to London, and our visits to London were henceforth for several years generally paid to his stuffy chaplain's house at Guy's, where, as I could not then appreciate my host, I was always intensely miserable, and, though a truly good man, Frederick Maurice was not, as I thought, an attractive one. What books have since called "the noble and pathetic monotone"[14] of his life, which was "like the burden of a Gregorian chaunt," describes him exactly, but was extremely depressing. He maundered over his own humility in a way which--even to a child--did not seem humble, and he was constantly lost mentally in the labyrinth of religious mysticisms which he was ever creating for himself. In all he said, as in all he wrote, there was a nebulous vagueness. "I sometimes fancy," "I almost incline to believe," "I seem to think," were the phrases most frequently on his lips. When he preached before the University of Cambridge to a church crowded with dons and undergraduates, they asked one another as they came out, "What was it all about?" He may have sown ideas, but, if they bore any fruits, other people reaped them.[15] Still his innate goodness brought him great devotion from his friends. Amongst those whom I recollect constantly seeing at Guy's, a man in whose society my mother found much pleasure, was John Alexander Scott, whom Mrs. Kemble describes as being mentally one of the most influential persons she had ever known.

Priscilla Maurice henceforward generally came to Lime soon after our annual return from Shropshire, and usually spent several months there, arriving armed with plans for the "reformation of the parish," and a number of blank books, some ruled in columns for parochial visitation, and others in which the names of all communicants were entered and preserved, so as to make the reprobation of absentees more easy at Hurstmonceaux.

As she established her footing, she frequently brought one of her many sisters with her: amongst them Esther Maurice, who at that time kept a ladies' school at Reading. Priscilla, I believe, afterwards regretted the introduction of Esther, who was much more attractive than herself, and in course of time entirely displaced her in my mother's affections. "Priscilla is like silver, but Esther is like gold," I remember my mother saying to Uncle Julius. Of the two, I personally preferred Priscilla, but both were a fearful scourge to my childhood, and so completely poisoned my life at Hurstmonceaux, that I looked to the winters spent at Stoke for everything that was not aggressively unpleasant.

Little child as I was, my feeling about the Maurices was a great bond between me and my aunt Lucy Hare, who, I am now certain, most cordially shared my opinion at this time, though it was unexpressed by either. Otherwise my Aunt Lucy was also already a frequent trial to my child-life, as she was jealous for her little Marcus (born in 1836) of any attention shown to me or any kindness I received. I felt in those early days, and on looking back from middle life I know that I felt justly, that my mother would often pretend to care for me less than she did, and punish me far more frequently for very slight offences, in order not to offend Aunt Lucy, and this caused me many bitter moments, and outbursts of passionate weeping, little understood at the time. In very early childhood, however, one pleasurable idea was connected with my Aunt Lucy. In her letters she would desire that "Baby" might be allowed to gather three flowers in the garden, any three he liked: the extreme felicity of which permission that Baby recollects still--and the anxious questionings with himself as to which the flowers should be.

_From_ MY MOTHER'S JOURNAL.

"_Lime, July 24, 1837._--Augustus continually asks 'Why,' 'What is
the reason.' If it be in reference to something he has been told to
do, I never at the _time_ give him any other reason than simply
that it is my will that he should do it. If it refers to something
unconnected with practical obedience, it is right to satisfy his
desire of knowledge as far as he can understand. Implicit faith and
consequent obedience is the first duty to instil, and it behoves a
parent to take care that a child may find full satisfaction for its
instinctive moral sense of justice, in the consistency of conduct
observed towards him; in the sure performance of every promise; in
the firm but mild adherence to every command.

"He asks, 'Is God blue?'--having heard that He lived above the
sky."

"_Stoke Rectory, Jan. 1, 1838._--On Christmas Day Augustus went to
church for the first time with me. He was perfectly good and kept a
chrysanthemum in his hand the whole time, keeping his eyes fixed on
it when sitting down. Afterwards he said, 'Grandpapa looked just
like Uncle Jule: he had his shirt (surplice) on.'

"He has got on wonderfully in reading since I began to teach him
words instead of syllables, and also learns German very quickly.

"Having been much indulged by Mrs. Feilden (Mrs. Leycester's
sister), he has become lately what Mary (Lea) calls rather
'independent.' He is, however, easily knocked out of this
self-importance by a little forbearance on my part not to indulge
or amuse him, or allow him to have anything till he asks
rightly.... There is a strong spirit of expecting to know the
reason of a thing before he will obey or believe. This I am anxious
to guard against, and often am reminded in dealing with him how
analogous it is to God's dealing with us--'What thou knowest not
now, thou shalt know hereafter.' Now he is to walk by faith, not by
sight, not by _reason_."

"_Lime, May 14, 1838._--Yesterday being Good Friday, I read to
Augustus all he could understand about the Crucifixion. He was a
little naughty, and I told him of it afterwards. 'But I was good
all yesterday, won't that goodness do?' His delight over the
flowers is as excessive as ever, but it is very necessary to guard
against greediness in this."

"_August 10._--Being told that he was never alone, God and Jesus
Christ saw him, he said, 'God sees me, but Jesus Christ does
not.'--'But they are both one.'--'Then how did John the Baptist
pour water on His head, and how could He be crucified?' How
difficult to a child's simple faith is the union of the two
natures![16]

"Two days ago at prayers he asked what I read to the servants, and
being told the meaning of the Lord's Prayer, he said, 'I know what
"Amen" means. It means, "It is done."'

"_June 11._--Having knocked off a flower on a plant in the nursery,
Lea asked how he could have done such a thing--'What tempted you to
do such a thing?' He whispered--'I suppose it was Satan.'

"Yesterday he told us his dream, that a beast had come out of a
wood and eat him and Lea up; and Susan came to look for them and
could not find them; then Mama prayed to God to open the beast's
mouth, and He opened it, and they both came out safe.

"One night, after being over-tired and excited by the Sterlings, he
went to bed very naughty and screamed himself asleep. Next morning
he woke crying, and being asked why he did so, sobbed out, 'Lea put
me in bed and I could not finish last night: so I was obliged to
finish this morning.'

"Going up to London he saw the Thames. 'It can't be a river, it
must be a pond, it is so large.' He called the sun in the midst of
the London fog 'a swimming sun:' asked if the soldiers in the Park
were 'looking out for the enemy.' 'Does God look through the
keyhole?'

"Two days ago, having been told to ask God to take away the
naughtiness out of him, he said, "May I ask Jesus Christ to take
away the naughtiness out of Satan? then (colouring he said it, and
whispering) perhaps He will take him out of hell.'

"On my birthday he told Lea at night, 'They all drank her health
but Uncle Jule, and he loved her so much he could not say it.'"

I was now four years old, and I have a vivid recollection of all that happened from this time--often a clearer remembrance than of things which occurred last year. From this time I never had any playthings, they were all banished to the loft, and, as I had no companions, I never recollect a game of any kind or ever having played at anything. There was a little boy of my own age called Philip Hunnisett, son of a respectable poor woman who lived close to our gate, and whom my mother often visited. I remember always longing to play with him, and once trying to do so in a hayfield, to Lea's supreme indignation, and my being punished for it, and never trying again. My mother now took me with her every day when she went to visit the cottages, in which she was ever a welcome guest, for it was not the lady, it was the woman who was dear to their inmates, and, when listening to their interminable histories and complaints, no one entered more into George Herbert's feeling that "it is some relief to a poor body to be heard with patience." Forty years afterwards a poor woman in Hurstmonceaux was recalling to me the sweetness of my mother's sympathy, and told the whole story when she said, "Yes, many other people have tried to be kind to us; but then, you know, Mrs. Hare _loved_ us." Truly it was as if--

"Christ had took in this piece of ground,
And made a garden there for those
Who want herbs for their wound."[17]

Whilst my mother was in the cottages, I remained outside and played with the flowers in the ditches. There were three places whither I was always most anxious that she should go--to Mrs. Siggery, the potter's widow, where I had the delight of seeing all the different kinds of pots, and the wet clay of which they were made: to "old Dame Cornford of the river," by which name a tiny stream called "the Five Bells" was dignified: and to a poor woman at "Foul Mile," where there was a ruined arch (the top of a drain, I believe!) which I thought most romantic. We had scarcely any visitors ("callers"), for there were scarcely any neighbours, but our old family home of Hurstmonceaux Place was let to Mr. Wagner (brother of the well-known "Vicar of Brighton"), and his wife was always very kind to me, and gave me two little china mice, to which I was quite devoted. His daughters, Annie and Emily, were very clever, and played beautifully on the pianoforte and harp. The eldest son, George, whose Memoirs have since been written, was a pale ascetic youth, with the character of a mediæval saint, who used to have long religious conversations with my mother, and--being very really in earnest--was much and justly beloved by her. He was afterwards a most devoted clergyman, being one of those who really have a "vocation," and probably accomplished more practical good in his brief life than any other five hundred parish priests taken at random. Of him truly Chaucer might have said--

"This noble sample to his sheep he gave,
That first he wrought, and afterwards he taught."

From the earliest age I heartily detested Hurstmonceaux Rectory, because it took me away from Lime, to which I was devoted, and brought me into the presence of Uncle Julius, who frightened me out of my wits; but to all rational and unprejudiced people the Rectory was at this time a very delightful place. It is situated on a hill in a lonely situation two miles from the church and castle, and more than a mile from any of the five villages which were then included in the parish of Hurstmonceaux; but it was surrounded by large gardens with fine trees, had a wide distant view over levels and sea, and was in all respects externally more like the house of a squire than a clergyman. Inside it was lined with books from top to bottom: not only the living rooms, but the passages and every available space in the bedrooms were walled with bookcases from floor to ceiling, containing more than 14,000 works. Most of these were German, but there were many very beautiful books upon art in all languages, and many which, even as a child, I thought it very delightful to look at. The only spaces not filled by books were occupied by the beautiful pictures which my uncle had collected in Italy, including a most exquisite Perugino, and fine works of Giorgione, Luini, Giovanni da Udine, &c. I was especially attached to a large and glorious picture by Paris Bordone of the Madonna and Child throned in a sort of court of saints. I think my first intense love of colour came from the study of that picture, which is now in the Museum at Cambridge; but my uncle and mother did not care for this, preferring severer art. Uncle Julius used to say that he constantly entertained in his drawing-room seven Virgins, almost all of them more than three hundred years old. All the pictures were to me as intimate friends, and I studied every detail of their backgrounds, even of the dresses of the figures they portrayed: they were also my constant comforters in the many miserable hours I even then spent at the Rectory, where I was always utterly ignored, whilst taken away from all my home employments and interests.

Most unpleasant figures who held a prominent place in these childish years were my step-grandmother, Mrs. Hare Naylor, and her daughter Georgiana. Mrs. H. Naylor had been beautiful in her youth, and still, with snowwhite hair, was an extremely pretty _petite_ old lady. She was suspicious, exacting, and jealous to a degree. If she once took an impression of any one, it was impossible to eradicate, however utterly false it might be. She was very deaf, and only heard through a long trumpet. She would make the most frightful tirades against people, especially my mother and other members of the family, bring the most unpleasant accusations against them, and the instant they attempted to defend themselves, she took down her trumpet. Thus she retired into a social fortress, and heard no opinion but her own. I never recollect her taking the wisest turn--that of making the best of us all. I have been told that her daughter Georgiana was once a very pretty lively girl. I only remember her a sickly discontented petulant woman. When she was young, she was very fond of dancing, and once, at Bonn, she undertook to dance the clock round. She performed her feat, but it ruined her health, and she had to lie on her back for a year. From this time she defied the Italian proverb, "Let well alone," and dosed herself incessantly. She had acquired "l'habitude d'être malade;" she liked the sympathy she excited, and henceforth _preferred_ being ill. Once or twice every year she was dying, the family were summoned, every one was in tears, they knelt around her bed; it was the most delicious excitement.