Chapter XV: Last Years with the Mother (1)

"Nothing but the infinite pity is sufficient for the infinite
pathos of human life."--JOHN INGLESANT.

"Never here, for ever there,
Where all parting, pain, and care,
And death, and time shall disappear--
For ever there, but never here!
The horologe of Eternity
Sayeth this incessantly,--
Forever--never!
Never--forever!"

--LONGFELLOW.

"Dic nobis ... Quid vidisti in via?
... Gloriam vidi Resurgentis."

--_From the Paschal Mass._

"C'est une âme qui se racconte dans ces volumes: '_Autrefois,
aujourd'hui_.' Un abîme les sépare, le tombeau."--VICTOR HUGO.

The autumn of 1868 was indeed filled for me with utter misery and "weariness of spirit." If it were not that my dear Mother had gone hand and hand with me through the terrible time of the trial and the weeks which followed, I could scarcely have survived them. To please her, I went away for a time, at the end of August, to our old friend Mrs. Francis Dawkins near Havant, and to Ripley Castle and Flaxton in Yorkshire; but I had no spirits to enjoy, scarcely to endure these visits.

It added to the complication of troubles that the poor Aunt Eleanor, for whose sake alone I had brought all the trouble upon myself, now began to take some perverted view,--_what_ I have never ascertained. She went to live with her brother George Paul, who had lately returned from America, and for ten years I never saw her to speak to.

]

I was most thankful when we left England for Italy on the 12th of October, and seemed to breathe freely when we were once more in our old travelling life, sleeping in the primitive inns at Joigny and Nuits, and making excursions to Citeaux and Annecy. Carlyle says, "My father had one virtue which I should try to imitate: _he never spoke of what was disagreeable and past_," and my Mother was the same; she turned her back at once upon the last months, which she put away for ever like a sealed volume. We spent several weeks at Florence in the Via della Scala, whence, the Mother being well, I went constantly to draw in the gallery of sketches by Old Masters at the Uffizi. But, in the middle of November, I felt already so ill, that I began to dread a possibility of dying where my Mother would not have any one to look after her, and on the 16th we hurried to Rome, where I had just time to look out lodgings for my Mother, and establish her and Lea in the Piazza Mignanelli, when I succumbed to a violent nervous fever. Most terrible are the sufferings which I recollect at this time, the agonising pains by day, and the nights of delirium, which were truly full of Coleridge's "pains of sleep," in which I was frequently haunted by the sardonic smile of the horrible Mrs. Dunlop, and otherwise by dreams which were, as Carlyle would say, "a constant plunging and careering through chaos and cosmos." In the second week of December I rallied slightly, and could sit with Mother in the sun on the terrace of Villa Negroni. By the 14th I was able to walk a little, and went, supported on each side, to the quiet sunny path by the Tiber which then existed opposite Claude's villa. Just in front of us a carter was walking by the side of his cart, heavily laden with stones. Suddenly the wheel of the cart went too near the steeply sloping bank of the Tiber and tipped over; the horse tried in vain to recover itself, but the weight of the stones was so great that it was dragged down, and slowly, slowly, screaming as only animals do scream, disappeared with the cart under the swollen yellow waters; while the driver stood helplessly upon the bank shrieking and wringing his hands.

Weak as I was, this terrible scene naturally brought back all my fever, which now turned to typhoid, and I soon became delirious. By the following Sunday my life was despaired of. But in the small hotel where we had stayed at Florence, we had met an American, Dr. Winslow, with his wife and daughters, to whom my Mother had shown kindness, and who had been struck with our entire union and devotion to each other. Dr. Winslow arrived in Rome when I was at the worst, and the first news he heard was that I was dying. He at once gave up his Roman sight-seeing and everything else, and devoted himself to me, coming many times a day and nursing me with such wonderful care, that I eventually recovered, though it was February before I was at all myself again. It was an unspeakable blessing that my Mother continued well during my long illness, and was so kindly looked after by Mrs. Woodward and Miss Wright that I had no anxiety about her; though in the spring, when we had moved to the Via Babuino, she had one of her strange illnesses, ending in a tranquil unbroken sleep which lasted two days and nights. It was about this time that she was called to bear a loss which in earlier years would have been utterly crushing, that of her sister-friend Lucy, who expired peacefully in her quiet home at Abbots-Kerswell, with only her faithful maid watching over her. In her hermit-life, my Aunt Lucy had become farther removed from us each year, but two years before my Mother had found great happiness in visiting her, and her beautiful letters were a constant enjoyment. Still it is a merciful dispensation that to those who are themselves on the border-land of heaven, bereavements fall less bitterly, separations seem so short; and, to my Mother, the loss of the dearest friend of her early life was only a quiet grief: she had "only gone from one room into the next." My Aunt Lucy Hare had never liked me, but I had none of the bitter feeling towards her which I had towards my Aunt Esther: she truly loved my Mother, and I could admire, though I could not enter into, the various graces of her character, which were none the less real because they were those of a Carmelite nun in Protestant form.

To Roman antiquaries this spring was rendered important from the discovery of the site of the Porta Capena,--the site of which was long a vexed question,--by Mr. J. H. Parker, the Oxford publisher, who devoted much of his fortune to archæological pursuits. Pius IX. granted him permission to excavate without in the least believing anything would come of it. But when he came to inspect the discoveries he exclaimed, "Why, the heretic's right," and complained bitterly that his own archæologists, whom he paid highly, should have failed to find what had been discovered by a foreigner. Mr. Parker carefully marked all the pieces then found of the Servian Wall, and numbered them in red; but the _guardia_, seeing the red marks, thought they meant something revolutionary, and destroyed them. When he found them gone, Parker was furious. "Is it," he said, "due to the absurdities of an effete religion, or is it perhaps the insolence of some rival archæologist?" (meaning Rosa).

As we returned through France in the spring of 1869, we diverged to Autun and Nevers, the last of the pleasant expeditions the dear Mother and I made together in summer weather. The greater part of our summer was spent quietly at home, and was chiefly marked for me by the marriage of my dear friend Charlie Wood to Lady Agnes Courtenay.

_To_ MISS WRIGHT.

"_Holmhurst, July 10, 1869._--Your description made me see a
pleasant mental picture of the cousinhood assembled at your party.
For myself, I cannot but feel that all _social_ pleasures will
henceforward become more and more difficult for me, as the Mother,
though not ill, becomes daily more dependent upon me for all her
little interests and amusements, so that I scarcely ever leave her
even for an hour. It is an odd hermit-like life in the small
circuit of our little Holmhurst, with one or two guests constantly
changing in its chambers, but no other intercourse with the outside
world. At last summer has burst upon us, and looks all the brighter
for the long waiting, and our oak-studded pastures are filled with
gay groups of haymakers, gathering in the immense crop. The garden
is lovely, and my own home-sunflower is expanding in the warmth and
stronger and better than she has been for months past."

]

"_Holmhurst, August 1._--I cannot be away from home at all this
summer, partly because I cannot leave Mother, who (though very
anxious to promote my going away) is really becoming more dependent
upon my constant care and companionship; and partly because I
cannot afford the inevitable small expenses of going anywhere, our
finances having been completely prostrated by the Roman Catholic
robberies last year. Indeed, I have never been poorer than this
year, as I have had _nothing_, and when I put two threepenny bits
into the Communion plate to-day, felt exceedingly like the widow
with the two mites, for it was literally all that I possessed!
However, this is not so very dreadful after all, and I daresay
another year matters will come round."

In September, however, when Charlotte Leycester came to take care of my Mother, I did go to the North.

_To_ MY MOTHER.

"_Ridley Hall, Sept. 1, 1869._--Though I have got into a great
scrape with Cousin Susan by calling blackberry jelly, 'jam,' and
though I was _terribly_ scolded the other day for saying
'thanks,'--'such new-fangled vulgarity,'--this visit at Ridley has
been very pleasant. First, there never was more perfect ideal
weather, so fresh and bright, so bracing, and the colouring of the
woods and moorlands, and the glorious tumbling amber-coloured
rivers so beautiful. Then I feel much stronger and better than I
have done for two years past, and Cousin Susan, who thought me
most ghastly when I arrived, is quite satisfied with the results of
her grouse, pheasants, and sherry. On Wednesday Lady Blackett came
to spend the day, and, after she was gone, Cousin Susan and I made
a long exploring expedition far beyond the Allen Water, up into the
depths of Staward valley--most romantic little paths through woods
and miniature rocky gorges to a ruined bridge and 'Plankey Mill,'
and then up a steep wood path to the moor of Briarside. Cousin
Susan had never been so far since she lived here, and we were
walking, or rather climbing, for three hours, attended by the white
dogs. These have chairs with cushions on each side the fireplace in
her new sitting-room. One is in bad health, has medical attendance
from Hexham at half-a-guinea a visit, and uninitiated visitors must
be rather amazed when they see 'my poor little sick girl' whom
Cousin Susan is constantly talking of.... On Sundays there is only
service here in the morning: the clergyman giving as his curious
reason for not having it in the afternoon, that 'perhaps it might
annoy the Dissenters.' ... This evening it has thundered. Cousin
Susan, as usual on such occasions, hid herself with her maid under
the staircase (the safest place in case of thunderbolts), and held
a handkerchief over her eyes till it was over; but her nerves have
been quite upset ever since, and we are not to have the carriage
to-morrow for fear the storm should return."

_"Ford Castle, Sept. 8._--It was almost dark as I drove up the
beautiful new road over the high bridge to the renovated castle,
which is now all grand and in keeping. I found the beautiful
mistress of the house in her new library, which is a most
delightful room, with carved chimney-piece and bookcases, and vases
of ferns and flowers in all the corners and in the deep embrasures
of the windows. She is full of the frescoes in her school. 'I want
to paint "Josiah was eight years old when he began to reign." I
think he must be a little boy on a step with other children round
him--a very little boy, and he must have some little regal robes
on, and I think I must put a little crown upon his head.'"

]

"_Sept. 10._--Every day of a visit at Ford always seems to contain
more of charm and instruction than hundreds of visits elsewhere.
The great interest this time has been Lady Canning's drawings--many
hundreds of them, and all so beautiful that you long to look at
each for hours. All yesterday evening Lady Waterford read aloud to
us--old family letters, from old Lady Hardwicke and from Lady Anne
Barnard. 'My great-aunt, Lady Anne Barnard,' she says, 'wrote a
book very like your Family Memoirs, only hers was too imaginative.
She called all her characters by imaginary names, and made them all
quite too charming: still her book is most interesting. She was
very intimate with Mrs. Fitzherbert, and describes all her first
meetings with George IV. and the marriage, and then she went with
her on her famous expedition to Paris. She got possession of all
the real letters of the family and put them into her book, but she
embellished them. She got hold of a letter Uncle Caledon wrote to
my aunt when he proposed to her, but when Uncle Caledon read the
book and found a most beautiful letter, he said, "My dear, I never
wrote all this."--"No, my dear," she answered, "I know you did not,
but then I thought your real letter was not warm enough." Lady Anne
Barnard wrote "Auld Robin Gray," and she used to describe how some
one translated it into French, and how, when she went to Paris, she
saw every one looking at her, she could not imagine why, till she
heard some one say, "Voilà l'auteur du fameux roman de Robin
Gray.'"[392]

"_Sept. 10._--We have all been to luncheon at Carham, sixteen miles
off, and the latter part of the drive very pretty--close to the
wide reaches of the Tweed, with seagulls flitting over it, and
Cuyp-like groups of cattle on the shore, waiting for the ferryboats
to take them across to Coldstream Fair. Carham is one of the
well-known haunted houses: the 'Carham light' is celebrated and is
constantly seen. We asked old Mrs. Compton of eighty-three, who
lives there now, about the supernatural sights of Carham. 'Och,'
she said, 'and have ye niver heard the story of the phantom
carriage? We have just heard it this very morning: when we were
waiting for you, we heard it drive up. We are quite used to it now.
A carriage drives quickly up to the door with great rattling and
noise, and when it stops, the horses seem to paw and tear up the
gravel. Strange servants are terribly frightened by it. One day
when I was at luncheon I heard a carriage drive up quickly to the
door: there was no doubt of it. I told the servant who was in
waiting to go out and see who it was. When he came back I asked who
had come. He was pale as ashes. "Oh," he said, "it's only just the
phantom coach."

"'And then there is the Carham light. That is just beautiful! It is
a large globe of fire in the shape of a full moon: I have seen it
hundreds of times. It moves about in the woods, and sometimes
settles in one place. The first time I saw it I was driving from
Kelso and I saw a great ball of fire. I said to the driver, "What
is that?"--"Oh, it's just the Carham Light," he said. When
Dick[393] came in, he said he did not believe it--he had never seen
it; but that night it came--bright as ever. All the gentlemen went
out into the woods to examine it; but it moved before them. They
all saw it, and they were quite convinced: it has never been
explained.'

"We had tea with the charming old lady. 'I've just had these cakes
made, Lady Waterford,' she said, 'because they were once very weel
likit by some very dear to you; so I thought you would like them.'

"Lady Waterford sends you a riddle:--

'Mon premier est un tyran, mon second une horreur,
Mon tout est le diable lui-même.
Mais si mon premier est bon, mon second ne fait rien,
Et mon tout est le bonheur suprême.'"[394]

"_Foxhow, Ambleside, Sept. 12, 1869._--How lovely the drive into
Foxhow from Windermere; but, after the grand ideas of my childhood,
how small everything seems, even the lake and the mountains! We
drove in at the well-remembered gate by Rotha Cottage, and along
those lovely Swiss pasture-meadows. It was like a dream of the past
as one turned into the garden, all so exactly the same and so well
remembered, not only from our last brief visit, but from that of
twenty-six years ago. Dear Mrs. Arnold is little altered, and is so
tenderly affectionate and charming, that it is delightful to be
with her. She likes to ask all about you and Holmhurst, and says
that her power of producing mind-pictures and dwelling upon them
often brings you before her, so that she sees you as before, only
older, in your home life. It is quite beautiful to see the intense
devotion of her children to their mother and her happiness in them,
in Fan especially. All the absent ones write to her at least three
times a week.

"We have just been in a covered car to Rydal Church: how beautiful
the situation! How well I remembered being sick as a child from the
puggy smell of its hideous interior. It was just as puggy to-day,
but I was not sick. There was a most extraordinary preacher, who
declared that the Woman on the seven mountains was Rome on her
seven hills--'allowed to be so by all authorities, Jewish, and even
Romanist,'--that the dragon was only the serpent in its worshipped
form, and that both were identical with the Beast and represented
the pagan religion; that the Woman flying into the wilderness
before the Beast was Early Christianity flying from pagan
persecution, and that when she came back, to St. John's
astonishment she was seated _on_ the Beast, _i.e._, she had adopted
all the pagan attributes, the cross, the mother and
child--well-known objects of worship at Babylon, and Purgatory--a
tenet of pagan Rome!"

"_Foxhow, Sept. 14._--My Mother will have thought of this pouring
weather as most unpropitious for the Lake Country, but in reality
it has not signified very much, as each day it has cleared for a
few hours, and the lights and shadows have been splendid. On
Sunday afternoon Edward (Arnold) and I went up Loughrigg. All the
little torrents were swollen by the storms, and the colours of the
dying fern and the great purple shadows on Helm Crag and Bow Fell
were most beautiful. It is a most picturesque bit of mountain, and
it all strikes me, as I remember it did in 1859, as more really
beautiful than anything in Switzerland, though so contracted.

"Yesterday afternoon we walked to Grasmere, and I stayed looking at
the interesting group of Wordsworth tombs, whilst Edward paid a
visit. Afterwards the lake looked so tempting, that Edward rowed me
down it, sending the boat back by a boy. We landed at the outlet of
the Rotha on the other side, and had a beautiful walk home by a
high terrace under Loughrigg. If one remained in this country, one
could not help becoming fond of Wordsworth, his descriptions are so
exact. Edward has repeated many of his poems on the sites to which
they apply, and they are quite beautifully pictorial. Mrs. Arnold
is very happy in the general revival of interest in his poetry....
Nothing can be more enjoyable and united than the family life here,
the children and grandchildren coming and going, and so many
interesting visitors. Truly dear Mrs. Arnold's is an ideal old age,
so hedged in by the great love and devotion of her
descendants."[395]

"_Dalton Hall, Lancashire, Sept. 17._--I always enjoy being here
with the Hornbys. Yesterday we drove in the morning to Yealand, a
pretty village so called from the Quakers who colonised it. In the
afternoon we went to Levens. It is a lovely country, just upon the
outskirts of the Lake District, with the same rich green meadows,
clear streams, and lanes fringed with fern and holly. We passed
through Milnthorpe, and how well I remembered your shutting me up
and making me learn a Psalm in the inn there, instead of letting me
go out to draw! The country is very primitive still. An old
clergyman who officiated till lately in the neighbouring church of
Burton Moss had only three sermons, one of which was laid in turn
on the pulpit desk by his housekeeper every Sunday morning. When he
had finished, he used to chuck it down to her out of the pulpit.
One of these sermons was on 'Contentment,' and contained--apropos
of discontent--the story of the Italian nobleman whose tombstone
bore the words, 'I was well, I wished to be better, and now I am
here.'"

It was a great pleasure this autumn to see again in London the New Zealand Sir George Grey. I remember his saying how he wished some one would write a poem on Pharaoh pursuing the Israelites to the Red Sea, from the point of view that in pursuing them he was pursuing Christianity; that if the Israelites had perished, and not Pharaoh, there would have been no Redemption.

JOURNAL (The Green Book).

"_Holmhurst, Oct. 13, 1869._--After the storms of last year, this
summer has been peaceful and quiet. My sweet Mother, though often
ailing, has been very gently and quietly happy. She seems older,
but age has with her only its softening effects--casting a brighter
halo around her sweet life, and rendering more lovable still every
precious word and action.... We are more than ever to each other
now in everything."

We left home in 1869 on the 14th of October, intending to cross the Channel at once, but on arriving at Folkestone, found such a raging sea, that we retreated to Canterbury to wait for better weather. This enabled us to pay a charming visit to Archdeacon and Mrs. Harrison, who had been very familiar to us many years before, when the Stanleys lived at Canterbury. It was the last visit my Mother ever paid, and she greatly enjoyed it, as it seemed almost like a going back into her Hurstmonceaux life, a revival of the ecclesiastical interests which had filled her former existence. Whenever any subject was alluded to, Archdeacon Harrison, like Uncle Julius, went to his bookcase, and brought down some volume to illustrate it. Thus I remember his reading to us in the powerful sermons of Bishop Horsley. One of the most remarkable was upon the Syro-Phœnician woman. Another is on the French Nuns, in defence of their institution in England, saying, with little foresight, how unlikely they were to increase in number, and how very superior they were to those women "who strip themselves naked to go out into the world, who daub their cheeks with paint, and plaster their necks with litharge."

Apropos of the proverb about Tenterden Steeple and Goodwin Sands, Archdeacon Harrison described how it was in allusion to two things totally disconnected. Tenterden Steeple and Goodwin Sands are very far apart, and of course have no connection whatever: yet perverse persons used to say that Tenterden Steeple was the cause of Goodwin Sands, as money which ought to have been used to prevent the accumulation of Goodwin Sands was diverted to the building of Tenterden Steeple. The place where you may hear most about it is "Latimer's Sermons." Latimer is inveighing against the persons who denounced the study of the Bible as the cause of the misfortunes of the time, and says that they had as much connection as Tenterden Steeple and Goodwin Sands, and so forth.

_To_ MISS WRIGHT.

"_Munich, Nov. 1, 1869._--We made it four days' journey from Paris
to Strasbourg. First we went to Bar-le-duc. I had longed to see it,
from a novel I read once, and it is well worth while--the old town
rising above the new like the old town of Edinburgh--tall grey
houses pierced with eight or ten rows of windows, a river with a
most picturesque bridge, and in the church 'Le Squelette de Bar,' a
wonderful work of Richier, the famous sculptor of S. Mihiel,
commemorating the Princes of Bar (Henri I., II., III., &c.),
sovereigns of whom I wonder if you ever heard before: I never did.

"We slept next at Toul, where there is a fine huge dull cathedral,
a beautiful creche by Ignace Robert, and a lovely convent cloister
of flamboyant arches. Living at Toul is wonderfully cheap; our
rooms for three were only four francs, and dinner for three four
francs.[396] We wonder people do not emigrate to Lorraine instead
of to Australia; it would be far cheaper, and infinitely more
amusing. If it had been warmer, we should have gone to Domremy and
S. Mihiel, but we feared the cold. We were a day at Nancy: how
stately it is! At Strasbourg we found that the storks had left, and
we thought it the least interesting place on the road, yet most
people stay only there.

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"We had three days at Carlsruhe, and found dear Madame de Bunsen
most bright and well and charming, with much to tell that was worth
hearing, and the fullest sympathy and interest in others.
Generally one feels that conversation weakens the mind; with the
Bunsens it never fails to strengthen it. Madame de Bunsen talked
much of the difficulties which had crowded round her when she
herself was to begin the Memoir of her husband. Bunsen had said to
her, 'You must tell the story of our common life; you are able to
do it, only do not be afraid.' Thus to her the work was a sacred
legacy. First, as material, her son George brought her Bunsen's
letters to his sister Christiana, which she had given to him, and
which he had fortunately never given to his father for fear he
should destroy them. Then she had written to Reck, the early
Göttingen friend and confidant of all Bunsen's early life, and had
been refused all help without any explanation! Then Stockmar,
Brandeis, &c., sent all their letters; thus the work grew. But
there were no journals, she had made no notes, there was only her
recollection to fall back upon. Madame de Bunsen regretted bitterly
the destruction of Uncle Julius's letters by his widow, especially
those written in his early life to his brother Augustus, which
would have been 'the history of the awakening of a new phase of
opinions.' I made quantities of notes from the intensely
interesting reminiscences Madame de Bunsen poured forth of her own
life.[399]

"We were one day at Stuttgart, which I had never seen, and was
delighted with--so handsome, really a beautiful little capital, and
we reached Munich in time to have one day for the International
Exhibition of Paintings, which was well worth seeing--finer, I
thought, than ours. The German artists have surely far more
originality than the artists of other nations. Three pictures
especially remain in my mind--'The Chase after Luck,' a wild
horseman with Death riding behind him in pursuit of Luck, a
beautiful figure scattering gold and pearls whilst floating on a
bladder, full speed across a bridge which ends in a rotten plank
over a fathomless abyss: 'The Cholera in Rome,' the Angel of Death
leading the Cholera--a hideous old woman--down the street under the
Capitol by moonlight, and showing her the door she is to knock at:
'L'Enfant qui dort à l'ombre du lit maternel, et les Anges qui
savent d'avance le sort des humains, et baissent avec larmes ses
petites mains.' It is interesting to see how familiar the German
common people are with their artists: the great names of Kaulbach,
Henneberg, &c., are in every mouth; how few of our common people
would know anything of Landseer or Millais!"

"_Vicenza, Nov. 14._--The descent into Italy by the Brenner was
enchanting--the exchange of the snow and bitter cold of Germany for
vineyards and fruit-gardens, still glorious in their orange and
scarlet autumnal tints. We were greatly delighted with Botzen,
where the delicately wrought cathedral spire against the faint pink
mountains tipped with snow is a lovely subject.

[400]

"At Verona we spent several days, thinking it more captivating than
ever. Mother was able to enjoy the Giusti gardens, and I went one
day to Mantua. It is wonderful. The station is two miles off, and
the drive into the town across an immense bridge over the lake is
most striking[401]--the towers all reflected in the still waters,
and the fishing-boats sailing in close under the houses. Then, in
the town, the intense desolation of one part--courts and corridors
and squares all grass-grown and utterly tenantless--is a striking
contrast to the other part, teeming with life and bustle. The
Palazzo del Té is marvellous--only one story high, gigantic rooms
covered with grand frescoes opening on sunny lawns with picturesque
decaying avenues. I wandered over the vast ducal palace with three
American ladies, who 'guessed' that 'when Mantua was in its prime,
it must have been rather an elegant city.'"

"_Hôtel de Londres, Pisa, Dec. 7._--From Verona we went to Vicenza,
where we stayed nearly a week in the old-fashioned palazzo which is
now turned into the Hôtel de la Ville. We found some old Roman
acquaintances there--Mrs. Kuper and her daughter, great Italian
travellers, famous linguists, and excessively amusing companions.
With them I went many delightful walks in the lovely country near
Vicenza, which is quite the ideal Italy one reads so much of and so
seldom sees--splendid mountain background with snowy peaks; nearer
hills golden with decaying chestnuts and crimson with falling
vine-leaves; old shrines and churches half hidden in clematis and
vine, and a most interesting town with a fine
picture-gallery--Montagna (not Mantegna) being the great master. I
took to the plan of trying to make ever so slight sketches from
pictures, and find them, bad as they are, far more interesting than
photographs. We had permission to walk in the lovely gardens of the
old Marchese Salvi, close to the hotel, a great pleasure to the
Mother.

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"The Kupers preceded us to Padua and engaged comfortable rooms for
us there, to which we followed. Here was another kind of interest
in the quaint churches; the Prato della Valle with its stone
population; the University, where we went to hear a lecture and saw
the 3000 students assembled; and the society of some pleasant young
Paduans--M. Fava and Count Battistino Medine, introduced by the
Kupers. But alas! Mother became very unwell indeed during the
latter part of our stay at Padua, and I was made very unhappy by
her constant cough and inability to take food. So I was thankful
when we were able to come on to this comfortable hotel, where Flora
and the faithful Victoire are incessant in their attentions. I am
still anxious about my sweet Mother, who is very ailing and unable
to go out; otherwise I always like staying at Pisa, with its clean
quiet streets and the interest of the Campo Santo, so full of
beautiful relics and memories. Many delightful hours have I spent
there, and what a school of art and history it is! And then the
Spina is always so graceful and striking against the crimson sunset
which turns the muddy Arno into a river of fire.[407] Then, only
think, I have made a new friend, and, strange to say, an American,
with the uninteresting name of Robert Peabody. I do not know when,
if ever, I have seen any one I like so much--so clever, so natural,
so unworldly, so large-minded, so good-looking. The Mother thinks
my sudden friendships most fantastic, but I have no doubt about
this one; and as Mother was much better last week, I went away with
him for four days to Siena and S. Gemignano, and we were entirely
happy together, though it poured cats and dogs the whole time, and
thundered and lightened as if the skies were coming down. I do not
think you have ever been half excited enough about Siena: it seems
to me such a sublime place--the way it rises out of that desolate
earthquake-riven country, the cathedral so grandly solemn, and such
a world of interest circling around all the scenes in S.
Catherine's life. I tried to draw the famous Sodoma, and longed to
stay months, but we only did stay two days, and then away we went
in a _baroccino_ over the hills to S. Gemignano. You must never
come to Italy again without going there: I am beginning now to
fancy that no one has seen Italy who has missed S. Gemignano. It is
a perfect sanctuary of art, the smallest town ever seen, but with
thirteen tall mediæval towers in fullest preservation, crowning the
top of the little hill like a huge group of ninepins, and with
churches covered with frescoes by Filippo and Simone Memmi,
Beccafumi, Ghirlandajo, and all that wonderful school. The great
saint of the place is Santa Fina--a poor girl, who had a spine
complaint, lay for years on a backboard, bore her intense
sufferings with great patience, and finally died a most peaceful
and holy death--perhaps the _one_ Roman Catholic saint whose story
is unspoilt by miracles. I first heard about her from Lady
Waterford, and had always longed to see her native place. The
Ghirlandajo fresco of her death is most touching and real,
portraying the bare cottage room, the hard-featured Tuscan nurse,
the sick girl on her backboard--all like a scene in a Tuscan
cottage now; and, above, the angels floating away with their
newly-gained sister. But the people of S. Gemignano forgot the
picture when they quaintly told us that 'all the little flowers and
shrubs were so enchanted with her exemplary patience, that they
began to sprout around her bed, and by her twenty-eighth year (when
she died) she was lying in quite a garden of beautiful flowers.'"

In recollection I feel grateful for this short absence from my Mother with Robert Peabody, as it procured for me my last tiny letter from her--cheerful and tender as all her letters were now. But after the beginning of December I seldom left her, and the next six weeks were spent entirely in her room, in watching and cheering her through a time of great suffering, whilst the rain never ceased to fall in torrents. I was often able to amuse her with stories of my companions at the _table-d'hôte_.

JOURNAL.

"_Pisa, Nov. 27._--The chief interest here has been from travellers
in the hotel--a Mr. and Mrs. D., kind, vulgar people, who have
seldom been out of London, except to Paris, and who do not speak a
word of any foreign language; at least Mr. D. does speak certain
words, and uses them all together to all the foreigners he meets,
without any regard to their meaning--'Lait pain thé bongjour
toodyswee;'--a haughty pretty Polish girl and her governess, and a
clever pretty Polish Comtesse de M. with her young husband. The
last lady keeps the whole table alive with her stories, told with
the utmost naïveté, and in the prettiest manner.

"'I will tell you about my going to Ferrara. When I arrived I was
gasping with hunger. We drove up to the hotel. "Could we have any
dinner?"--"J'en suis désolé, Madame, but the cook is out." We drove
to another. "Could we have any dinner?"--"J'en suis au désespoir,
Madame, mais il n'y a pas de feu." We drove on. Another hotel. We
ordered our dinner, and when it was put on the table, it was so
dreadful, I gave one look and ran out of the room. And then the
sights of Ferrara! We went to the castle. It was horrible--a
ghastly dungeon with bare walls and chains and one glimmering ray
of light. "_This_," said the guide, "was the dungeon of Ugo and
Parisina; here they suffered and here they died." Oh, mon Dieu,
quel horreur! I wished to go somewhere else. They took me to a
convent--again a ghastly room, a fearful prison. "_This_, Madame,
was the prison of Tasso"--encore des horreurs! Oh, then I would
have a carriage. I asked the driver where he would take me. "Ma,
Signora, allo Campo Santo." Ah! quelle triste ville la ville de
Ferrare! But when we got to Bologna, and I asked where we should
go, c'était toujours la même chose--toujours au Campo Santo, and at
Pisa here, it is encore au Campo Santo!

"'At Ferrara, in the prison of Tasso, they show on the wall an ode
written by Lord Byron. The rest of the wall is white, but the place
where the ode is written is brown. "Why," I asked, "is that part of
the wall brown?"--"Ah!" said the custode, "that is the sweat of the
English. All the English will touch the writing of their
compatriot, and then they perspire from their hot fingers, and thus
it is brown." In the same room is a great hole; the wall has
crumbled away: it is gone: the room will fall. "And what is that?"
I asked. "Ah! that is made by the English, who all insist upon
taking away a morsel of the prison of Tasso." And thus it was at
Verona; when I saw Juliet's tomb, they told me it was only an
imitation; for as for the real one, the English ladies had chopped
it all up and were wearing it in bracelets. Oh, comme c'est
ennuyant de voyager, il faut tourner la tête pour regarder les
tableaux, et on casse le cou par ici: il faut regarder par la
fênetre pour voir la vue, et on casse le cou par là: il faut
regarder au plafond pour voir les fresques, et on casse le cou de
tous les côtés à la fois. And then the journey to Switzerland!
Mais aller en Suisse, jamais! What do you want to see mountains
for? to admire their height? Ah! then how stupid to go up! Why, of
course they become shorter every step you go. No, you should go
into the depths to see the mountains. Les plaines pour moi!...
Jusqu'à mon mariage je ne suis jamais sortie à pied, mais depuis
mon mariage je suis devenue ... raisonable.'

"I asked the Polish ladies if the language they spoke was Russian.
It was like throwing a bomb into the camp. They detest the
Russians, and would not speak to a pleasant Countess Boranoff,
_née_ Wasilikoff, who has been staying here.... But of all my Pisan
acquaintance there is none like Robert Peabody! He has been at an
atelier in Paris for two years studying as an architect, and had a
charming life there with his fellow-students, making walking tours
in France, &c. When he first went to Paris, he did not know a word
of French, and made out his washing bills by drawing little
pictures, socks, shirts, drawers, &c., and the washerwoman put the
prices opposite them."

On December 10 occurred the terrible floods of the Arno.

_To_ MISS LEYCESTER.

"_Pisa, Dec. 11, 1869._--How little you will be able to imagine all
we have been going through in the last twenty-four hours! We have
had a number of adventures in our different travels, but this is by
far the worst that has ever befallen us. Now I must tell you our
story consecutively.

"For the last three days the Mother has been very ill. On Thursday
she had an attack of fainting, and seemed likely to fall into one
of her long many days' sleep.... The rain continued day and night
in torrents. Yesterday made it three weeks since we arrived, and in
that time there had been only two days in which the rain had not
been ceaseless. The Arno was much swollen: I saw it on Thursday,
very curious, up to the top of the arches of the bridges.

"Yesterday, Friday, Madame Victoire came to dine with Lea.
Afterwards she came up to see us as usual, and then Flora's
children came to be shown pictures. I think it must have been
half-past three when they took leave of us. Lea went with them down
the passage. Soon she came back saying that little Anna said there
was 'such an odd water coming down the street, would I come and
see,' and from the passage window I saw a volume of muddy water
slowly pouring down the street, not from the Arno, but from towards
the railway station, the part of the street towards Lung' Arno (our
street ends at the Spina Chapel) remaining quite dry. The children
were delighted and clapped their hands. I meant to go and see the
water nearer, but before I could reach the main entrance, in half a
minute the great heavy waves of the yellow flood were pouring into
the courtyard and stealing into the entrance hall.[408]

"It was as suddenly as that it came upon us.

"The scene for the next half-hour baffles all description. Flora
and her mother stood on the principal staircase crying and wringing
their hands: the servants rushed about in distraction: Lea, pale as
ashes, thought and cried that our last moment was come; and all the
time the heavy yellow waters rose and rose, covering first the
wheels of the omnibus, the vases, the statues in the garden, then
up high into the trees. Inside, the carpets were rising and swaying
on the water, and in five minutes the large pieces of furniture
were beginning to crash against each other. I had rushed at the
first alarm to the _garde meuble_, and (how I did it I cannot
imagine) dragged our great box to the stairs: it was the only piece
of luggage saved from the ground-floor. Then I rushed to the
_salle-à-manger_, and shouting to Flora to save the money in her
bureau, swept all the silver laid out for dinner into a tablecloth,
and got it safe off. From that moment it was a _sauve qui peut_. I
handed down rows of teapots, jugs, sugar-basins, &c., to the maids,
who carried them away in lapfuls: in this way also we saved all the
glass, but before we could begin upon the china, the water was up
to our waists and we were obliged to retreat, carrying off the
tea-urns as a last spoil. The whole family, with Amabile and all
the old servants, were now down in the water, but a great deal of
time was wasted in the belief that a poor half-witted Russian lady
was locked into her room and drowning, and in breaking open the
door; but when at last a panel of the door was dashed in, the room
was found full of water and all its contents swimming about, but
the lady was ... gone out for a walk!

"As I was coming in from the lower rooms to the staircase with a
load of looking-glasses, a boat crashed in at the principal
entrance, bringing home the poor lady and two other English, who
had been caught by the flood at the end of the street, and had been
for some time in the greatest peril: the boatmen having declined to
bring them the few necessary steps until they had been paid twenty
francs, and then having refused altogether to bring a poor Italian
who had no money to give them. At this moment Madame Victoire
insisted on taking the opportunity of the boat to return to her
own house. It was a dreadful scene, all the women in the house
crying and imploring her to stay, but she insisted on embarking.
She did not arrive without hairbreadth escapes. When she reached
her own house, the current was so strong, and the boat was dashed
so violently against the walls, that it was impossible for her to
be landed; but the flood was less violent beneath her larger house
which is let to the Marchese Guadagna, from which sheets were let
down from the upper windows, and she was fastened to them and
raised: but when she reached the grille of the first-floor windows,
and was hanging half-way, the current carried away the boat, and at
the same moment the great wall opposite S. Antonio fell with an
awful crash. However, the Guadagna family held tight to the sheets,
and Madame Victoire was landed at last, though she fell insensible
on the floor when she entered the window.

"The walls were now falling in every direction with a dull roar
into the yellow waters. The noise was dreadful--the cries of the
drowning animals, the shrieks of the women, especially of a mother
whose children were in the country, wringing her hands at the
window of an opposite house. The water in our house was rising so
rapidly that it was impossible to remain longer on the side towards
the principal staircase, and we fled to the other end, where
Pilotte, a poor boy in the service, lay dangerously ill, but was
obliged to get up from his bed, and, though quite blind from
ophthalmia, was far more useful than any one else. Since her mother
left, Flora had been far too distracted to think of anything; still
we saved an immense number of things, and I was able to cut down
pictures, &c., floating on a sofa as if it were a boat. The great
difficulty in reaching the things was always from the carpet
rising, and making it almost impossible to get out of the room
again. The last thing I carried off was the 'Travellers' Book!' It
was about half-past 5 P.M. when we were obliged to come out of the
water, which was then terribly cold and above the waist.

"Meantime the scene in the street was terrible. The missing
children of the woman opposite were brought back in a boat and
drawn up in sheets; and the street, now a deep river, was crowded
with boats, torches flashing on the water, and lights gleaming in
every window. All the thirty poor hens in the hen-house at the end
of the balcony were making a terrible noise as they were slowly
drowned, the ducks and pigeons were drowned too, I suppose, being
too frightened to escape, and many floated dead past the window.
The garden was covered with cushions, chairs, tables, and ladies'
dresses, which had been washed out of the lower windows. There was
great fear that the omnibus horse and driver were drowned, and the
Limosins were crying dreadfully about it; but the man was drawn up
late at night from a boat, whose crew had discovered him on the top
of a wall, and at present the horse exists also, having taken
refuge on the terrace you will remember at the end of the garden,
where it is partially above water. The street was covered with
furniture, great carved wardrobes being whirled down to the Arno
like straws. The cries of the drowning animals were quite human.

"All this time my poor sweet Mother had been lying perfectly still
and patient, but about 6 P.M., as the water had reached the highest
step of the lower staircase and was still mounting, we had our
luggage carried up to the attics, secured a few valuables in case
of sudden flight (as no boat would have taken luggage), and began
to get Mother dressed. There was no immediate danger, but if
another embankment broke, there might be at any moment, and it was
well to be prepared. Night closed in terribly--pouring rain again,
a perfectly black sky, and waters swelling round the house: every
now and then the dull thud of some falling building, and, from
beneath, the perpetual crash of the furniture and floors breaking
up in the lower rooms. Mother lay down dressed, most of the
visitors and I walked the passages and watched the danger-marks
made above water on the staircase, and tried to comfort the unhappy
family, in what, I fear, is their total ruin. It seemed as if
daylight would never come, but at 6 A.M. the water was certainly an
inch lower.

"It was strange to return to daylight in our besieged fortress.
There had been no time to save food, but there was one loaf and a
little cheese, which were dealt out in equal rations, and we
captured the drowned hens as the aviary broke up, and are going to
boil one of them down in a tiny saucepan, the only cooking utensil
saved. Every one has to economise the water in their jugs (no
chance of any other), and most of all their candles.... How we are
ever to be delivered I cannot imagine. The railways to Leghorn,
Spezia, and Florence must all be under water."

"_Dec. 14._--It seems so long now since the inundation began and we
were cut off from every one: it is impossible to think of it as
only three days.

"Nothing can be more dreadful than the utter neglect of the new
Government and of the municipality here. They were fully warned as
to what would result if Pisa was not protected from the Arno, but
they took no heed, and ever since the dikes broke they have given
no help, never even consenting to have the main drains opened,
which keeps us still flooded, refusing to publish lists of the
drowned, and giving the large sums sent for distribution in charity
into the hands of the students, who follow one another, giving
indiscriminately to the same persons, whilst others are starving.
On Saturday night there ceased to be any immediate alarm: the fear
was that the Arno might break through at the Spina, which still
stands, and which, being so much nearer, would be far more serious
to us. The old bridge is destroyed. All through that night the
Vicomte de Vauriol and the men of the house were obliged to watch
on the balconies with loaded pistols, to defend their property
floating in the garden from the large bands of robbers who came in
boats to plunder, looking sufficiently alarming by the light of
their great torches. The whole trousseau of the Vicomtesse is lost,
and her maid has 4000 francs in her box, which can still be seen
floating _open_.... But the waters are slowly going down. Many
bodies have been found, but there are still many more beneath the
mud. In the lower rooms of this house the mud is a yard deep, and
most horrid in quality, and the smell of course dreadful. I spend
much of my time at the window in hooking up various objects with a
long iron bed-rod--bits of silver, teacups, even books--in a state
of pulp."

"_Dec. 19._--My bulletin is rather a melancholy one, for my poor
Mother has been constantly in bed since the inundation, and cannot
now turn or move her left side at all.... I have also been very ill
myself, with no sleep for many days, and agonies of neuralgia from
long exposure in the water.... However, I get on tolerably, and
have plenty to take off my thoughts from my own pain in attending
to Mother and doing what I can for the poor Limosins.... In the
quarter near this seventy bodies have been found in the mud, and as
the Government suppresses the number and buries them all
immediately, there are probably many more. Our friends at Rome have
been greatly alarmed about us."

"_Dec. 27._--Mother has been up in a chair for a few hours daily,
but cannot yet be dressed. The weather is horrible, torrents of
rain night and day--quite ceaseless, and mingled with snow,
thunder, and lightning. It is so dark even at midday, that Mother
can see to do nothing, and I very little. The mud and smell would
prevent our going out if it were otherwise possible. It has indeed
been a dismal three months, which we have all three passed entirely
in the sick-room, except the four days I was away.... Still the
dear Mother says 'we shall have time to recount our miseries in
heaven when they are over; let us only recount our mercies now.'"

_To_ MISS WRIGHT.