Chapter XVII: Literary Work at Home and Abroad (4)

* * * * *

“_Wentworth Wodehouse, Dec. 3._--This house has a very stately effect as you approach it, with a truly majestic portico. On the first floor is an immense hall like those in the great Roman houses, and on either side diverge the reception rooms, hung with pictures. Amongst the portraits are several of the great Lord Strafford, with his parents, his son, and his two daughters--Anne and Arabella. Of these, the elder married the Marquis of Rockingham, from whom the present owners are descended. The picture by Vandyke of Lord Strafford and his secretary is glorious. The rooms themselves want colour and effect. Sixty guests can stay in the house, and a hundred and twenty can dine without any crowd, but the place needs great parties of this kind, for smaller ones are lost in these vast suites of too lofty rooms. Lord Fitzwilliam[153] is the very type of a high-bred nobleman, and Lady Fitzwilliam[154] has a sweet and gentle manner; but Lady F. is calm and placid, her two daughters calmer and placider, and Lord F. calmest and placidest.

“To-day we were taken by Lord Fitzwilliam to the two churches. One by Pearson is new and most magnificent; the other is old and very ugly, but has interesting monuments. That of Lord Strafford is mural, with his figure kneeling near the altar. The epitaph does not allude to the manner of his death, but, after setting forth his virtues, simply says ‘he died May 8th, 1641.’ The ghost of Lord Strafford is still said to walk down the oak staircase at Wentworth every Friday night, carrying his head. An old gateway with several fragments of the house of his time remain, and many of his books are preserved in the library. My bedroom is hung with white worked with red by his daughter Lady Rockingham.”

* * * * *

“_Dec. 4._--Lady Fitzwilliam has been showing us the house. It contains much of interest, especially in the pictures, and they are repeated so often that one learns to know the family faces--Lord Strafford and his three wives, his son and his two daughters by his second wife, and the second Lord Strafford with his wife, who was the daughter of James, Earl of Derby, and Charlotte de la Tremouille. His inscriptions in the Bibles of her father and mother, which are here, and the many memorials he raised to her, are so touching that it is quite a shock to find he married again after her death; but in his will he always speaks of the second as only his “wife,” the first as his “deare wife.” He restored the old church in her memory, and enjoined upon his descendants always to keep it up for her sake.

“Lady Albreda drove us about the park and to the ‘Mausoleum,’ a commemorative monument raised to the Minister Lord Rockingham by his son. It is copied from the Roman monument at S. Remy near Aries, and contains, in a kind of Pantheon, a statue by Nollekens of Lord Rockingham surrounded by his friends. The face is from a mask taken after death, and the figure is full of power and expression, with a deprecatory ‘Oh, pray don’t say such a thing as that.’”

“_Temple Newsam, Dec. 6._--This great house is four miles from Leeds, by a road passing through a squalid suburb of grimy houses and muddy lanes, with rotten palings and broken paving-stones, making blackened pools of stagnant water; then black fields succeed, with withered hedges, stag-headed trees, and here and there a mountain of coal refuse breaking the dismal distances. It was almost dark as I drove up the steep park to the house.

“In an immense gallery, hung with red and covered with pictures, like the gallery at Chesney Wold in Bleak House, I found Mrs. Meynell Ingram and Freddie Wood[155] sitting. It was like arriving at a bivouac in the desert; the light from the fire and the lamps gleamed on a little tea-table and a few chairs round it, all beyond was lost in the dark immensity.... Soon other guests arrived--Judge Denman, come for the assizes at Leeds, and his marshal, young Ottaway, the cricketer; Admiral Duncombe, the High Sheriff; Mr. Glyn, Vicar of Beverley, the chaplain; and Sir Frederick Grey and his wife ‘Barberina.’ Some of the pictures are very fine--a portrait by Titian, several Vandykes, Reynolds’ ‘Shepherd Boy,” and some fine Reynolds portraits of Lord and Lady Irvine, the former possessors of this place--the Templar’s Stow of ‘Ivanhoe.’ They left it to their five daughters in turn. The eldest was Lady Hertford, and, if she had two sons, it was to go to the second, but she had only one; the second daughter was Lady Alexander Gordon, who was childless; the third was Mrs. Meynell, mother-in-law of the present possessor.”

* * * * *

“_Dec, 7._--Deep snow all to-day and a furious wind. But yesterday we reached Leeds for the assize sermon from the Sheriff’s chaplain, Mr. Glyn,[156] a really magnificent sermon on ‘What is thy life?’ The music also was very fine, and the great church filled with people.

“This house, where Lord Darnley was born, and whence Lord Strafford issued his summons to the Cavaliers to meet in defence of the King, is very curious. In point of amusement, the Judge is the principal feature of the present party, and how he does trample on his High Sheriff! He coolly said _to_ him yesterday that he considered a High Sheriff as ‘dust under his feet;’ and he narrated _before_ him a story of one of his brother judges, who, when his High Sheriff had left his hat in court, not only would not let him go to fetch it, but would not wait while his servants fetched it, and ordered him instantly to take him back to his lodgings without his hat! In court, Judge Denman was annoyed by some stone-breakers outside the window, and was told it would cost a matter of _£_40 to have them stopped. ‘Stop the noise instantly,’ he said; and the Mayor had to pay for it out of his own pocket. Yesterday, when the snow was so deep, the High Sheriff timidly suggested that they might be snowed up. ‘That is impossible,’ said the Judge; ‘whatever the difficulties, Mr. High Sheriff, you are bound to see me conveyed to Leeds by the opening of the court, if the whole of Leeds is summoned out to cut a way for me.’

“Lord Strafford was here because he borrowed the house of Sir Arthur Ingram as the largest to which to summon the Cavaliers. Sir Arthur was rewarded by Charles II. for his devotion to the Stuarts by being made Viscount Irvine.”

* * * * *

“_Ripley Castle, Dec. 12._--In this pleasant hospitable house I greatly miss the gentle presence of the beloved Lady Ingilby, who was so long a kind and warm-hearted friend; but it is pleasant to find her cordial welcome still living in that of her son, Sir Henry, and her pretty graceful daughter-in-law, who is a daughter of Lord Marjoribanks of Ladykirk.

“I found here Count and Countess Bathyany, people I was very glad to see. They retain their old castle in Hungary, where they are magnates of the first rank, but for some years they have lived chiefly in England, at Eaglehurst on the Solent, and receive there during the yachting season. The Countess has remains of great beauty and is wonderfully agreeable. As I sat by her at dinner, she talked much of Lady William Russell,[157] and told me the story of Lord Moira’s appearance, which she had heard from her own lips.

“Lady William was at Brighton, where her friend Lady Betty ---- was also staying. One day when Lady Betty went to her, she found her excessively upset and discomposed, and she said it was on account of a dream that she had had of her uncle, who, as Lord Moira, had brought her up, and who was then Governor of Malta. She said that she had seen a very long hall, and at the end of the hall a couch with a number of female figures in different attitudes of grief and despair bending over it, as if they were holding up or attending to some sick person. On the couch she saw no one, but immediately afterwards she seemed to meet her Uncle Moira and embraced him, but said, with a start, ‘Uncle, how terribly cold you are!’ He replied, ‘Bessie, did you not know that I am dead?’ She recollected herself instantly and said, ‘Oh, Uncle, how does it look on the other side?’--‘Quite different from what we have imagined, and far, far more beautiful,’ he replied with a radiant smile, and she awoke. Her dream occurred just when Lord Hastings[158] (formerly Lord Moira) died on a couch in a hall at Malta; but she told the circumstances to Lady Betty long before the news came.[159]

“Another story which Countess Bathyany told from personal knowledge was that of Sir Samuel Romilly.

“Lord Grey[160] and his son-in-law, Sir Charles Wood, were walking on the ramparts of Carlisle. The rampart is there still. It is very narrow, and there is only one exit; so if you walk there, you must return as you came. While they were walking, a man passed them, returned, passed them again, and then disappeared in front of them over the parapet, where there was really no means of exit. There was a red scarf round his throat. ‘How very extraordinary! and how exactly like Sir Samuel Romilly!’ they both exclaimed. At that moment Sir Samuel Romilly had cut his throat in a distant part of England.

“We have tea in the evening in the oak room in the tower, where Miss Ingilby has often had much to say that is interesting, especially this story.[161]

“A regiment was lately passing through Derbyshire on its way to fresh quarters in the North. The Colonel, as they stayed for the night in one of the country towns, was invited to dine at a country-house in the neighbourhood, and to bring any one he liked with him. Consequently he took with him a young ensign for whom he had taken a great fancy. They arrived, and it was a large party, but the lady of the house did not appear till just as they were going in to dinner, and, when she appeared, was so strangely _distraite_ and preoccupied that she scarcely attended to anything that was said to her. At dinner, the Colonel observed that his young companion scarcely ever took his eyes off the lady of the house, staring at her in a way which seemed at once rude and unaccountable. It made him observe the lady herself, and he saw that she scarcely seemed to attend to anything said by her neighbours on either side of her, but rather seemed, in a manner quite unaccountable, to be listening to some one or something behind her. As soon as dinner was over, the young ensign came to the Colonel and said, ‘Oh, do take me away: I entreat you to take me away from this place.’ The Colonel said, ‘Indeed your conduct is so very extraordinary and unpleasant, that I quite agree with you that the best thing we can do is to go away;’ and he made the excuse of his young friend being ill, and ordered their carriage. When they had driven some distance the Colonel asked the ensign for an explanation of his conduct. He said that he could not help it: during the whole of dinner he had seen a terrible black shadowy figure standing behind the chair of the lady of the house, and it had seemed to whisper to her, and she to listen to it. He had scarcely told this, when a man on horseback rode rapidly past the carriage, and the Colonel, recognising one of the servants of the house they had just left, called out to know if anything was the matter. ‘Oh, don’t stop me, sir,’ he shouted; ‘I am going for the doctor: my lady has just cut her throat.’

“I may mention here a very odd adventure which the other day befell my cousin Eliot Yorke. He had been dining with the Duke of Edinburgh at Buckingham Palace, in company with Captain Fane, commander of H.M.S. _Bellerophon_ on the Australian Station, who had been well known to the Duke and Eliot when the former was in the South Pacific in command of the _Galatea_. At a late hour Eliot and Captain Fane left the Palace to go to their club. The night was cold and wet, and, at a crossing in Pall-Mall, their attention was attracted by a miserable-looking little boy, ragged and shoeless, who, even in the middle of the night, was still plying his broom and imploring a trifle from the passers-by. Eliot, according to his usual custom, stopped to talk to the boy before relieving him. The child told him he was a stranger in London, that he had walked there to seek his fortune from some place on the south-west coast, that he was friendless, homeless, and penniless. The proprietor of the crossing had lent it to him, with his broom, for that day only: he had earned very little, but Eliot’s gift would secure him a lodging for that night, and then--he supposed there was nothing for him but starvation or the workhouse. ‘And have you really no friends or relations in the world?’ said Eliot. ‘Well, sir, it’s the same as if I had none; I’ve one brother, but I shall never see him again: I don’t even know if he is alive.’--‘What is your brother’s name?’--‘He is---- a signalman on board the _Bellerophon_, and he’s been away so long, he must have forgotten me.’--‘It’s perfectly true,’ said Captain Fane; ‘that is the name of my signalman, and a very smart fellow he is, and I see a strong likeness between him and the boy.’ The end of the story was, that the two gentlemen secured a lodging for the boy, bought him some clothes, and, through Captain Fane’s influence, he has been placed on board one of the training vessels, the _Dreadnought_, for the merchant service, to become a good sailor like his brother. But the combination of coincidences is most striking and providential. The boy only had the crossing for that one night. Captain Fane, almost the only person in the world who could testify to the truth of the story, was only in London for two nights; and he chanced to be walking with Eliot, probably the only person who would have thought of stopping to talk to a crossing-sweeper.”

* * * * *

“_Hickledon, Dec. 12._--I came here yesterday, cordially welcomed by Lord and Lady Halifax, and was glad to find the John Greys here. In the evening my dear Charlie and Lady Agnes came, but our meeting was sadly clouded by the terrible news of poor George Grey’s[162] death at Sandringham. Charlie had brought back many stories from Bedgebury. Mr. Beresford Hope told him that:--

“His uncle Lord Decies, who had lived very much in Paris, met, somewhere abroad, young Lionel Ashley, a brother of Lord Shaftesbury, then about twenty-two, and living abroad, as he was, very much out at elbows. Lord Decies remarked upon a very curious iron ring which he wore, with a death’s-head and cross-bones upon it. ‘Oh,” said young Ashley, ‘about that ring there is a very curious story. It was given to me by a famous conjuring woman, Madame le Norman, to whom I went with two friends of mine. She prophesied that we should all three die before we were twenty-three. My two friends are already dead, and next year I shall be twenty-three: but if you like I will give you the ring;’ and he gave it to Lord Decies. When Lord Decies returned to Paris, Lionel Ashley came there too, and he frequently dined with him. A short time before the expiration of the year, at the end of which Ashley was again engaged to dine with him, Lord Decies was sitting in his room, when the door opened, and Lionel Ashley came in. As to what was said, Mr. Hope was not quite clear, but the circumstances were so singular, that when he was gone, Lord Decies rang the bell, and asked the servant who had let Mr. Ashley into the house. ‘Mais, Milord, M. Ashley est mort hier,’ said the servant.’[163]

“Another curious story was that--

“Lord Waterford (the third Marquis) was one day standing talking to the landlord of the little inn in the village close to his place of Curraghmore, when some one rushed up looking very much agitated, and said that there had been a most dreadful murder in the neighbouring hills. ‘Then it must be the little one,’ exclaimed the landlord. ‘What can you possibly mean?’ said Lord Waterford, feeling that the landlord’s knowing anything about it was at the least very suspicious. ‘Well, my lord,’ he said, ‘I am afraid you will never believe me, but I must tell you that last night I dreamt that two men came to my inn, a tall man and a little, and in my dream I saw the tall man murder the little man with a very curious knife, the like of which I never saw before. I told my wife when I woke, but she only laughed at me. To my horror, in the course of the morning, those very two men came to my inn, and I was so possessed by my dream, that I refused them admittance; but coming back some time after, I found that my wife had let them in when my back was turned. I could not turn them out of my house when they were once in it, but going in, some time after, with some refreshments, my horror was increased by seeing on the table between them the very knife I had seen in my dream. Then they paid for their refreshments and went away.’

“The dream of the landlord and the coincidences were considered so extraordinary, that as the bridge at Carrick-on-Suir was the only bridge in that part, and so in a sort of sense divided the country, a watch was put there, and in course of time a man exactly answering to the landlord’s description crossed the bridge and was arrested. In prison, he confessed that he had been in the cod-fishery trade with his companion, who had boasted to him of his great earnings. He forthwith attached himself to him, travelled with him, and watched for the opportunity of murdering him. His weapon was a knife used in the cod-fishery, quite unknown in those parts.”[164]

* * * * *

“_Hickledon, Dec. 15._--I have been indescribably happy here with Charlie Wood, and every hour spent with him makes one more entirely feel that there is no one like him--_no one_.

‘He is indeed the glass
Wherein the noble youth may dress themselves.’

To be with him is like breathing a pure mountain air of which one cannot imbibe enough, and which strengthens one for weary months of other people. One cannot give greater praise to Lady Agnes than by saying that she is quite worthy of him. Charlie’s relation to his parents is perfect. They often cannot agree with his High Church opinions, but he never obtrudes his views or annoys them, and while his whole life is what it is, could they grudge or regret what is so much to him?”

* * * * *

“_Dec. 27._--I have been staying at Brighton with old Mrs. Aïdé, who looks like Cinderella’s godmother or some other good old fairy. It amused me exceedingly to see at Brighton an entirely new phase of society--two pleasant old ladies, daughters of Horace Smith, being its best and leading elements. Every one was full of the ‘Rink,’ where all the young gentlemen and all the young ladies skate all morning on dry land, come home to luncheon, and skate again all afternoon. No balls or picnics can promote the same degree of intimacy which is thus engendered, young men walking about (on wheels) all day long, holding up and assisting their partners. I heard this curious story:--

“The Princess Dolgorouki had been a great heiress and was a person of great wealth and importance. One day she was driving through a village near S. Petersburg, when she heard the clear glorious voice of a young girl ringing through the upper air from a high window of one of the poor houses by the wayside. So exquisitely beautiful was the voice, that the Princess stopped her carriage to listen to it. The voice rang on and on for some time, and, when it ceased, the Princess sent into the house to inquire who the singer had been. ‘Oh,’ they said, ‘it is one of your own serfs: it is the girl Anita;’ and they brought the singer out, a sweet, simple, modest-looking girl of sixteen, and at the bidding of the Princess she sang again, quite simply, without any shyness, in the road by the side of the carriage. The Princess was greatly captivated by her, and finding that she was educated beyond most of those in her condition of life, and being at that time in want of a reader in her palace at S. Petersburg, she took her to live with her, and Anita occupied in her house a sort of intermediate position, arranging the flowers, and reading when she was wanted. Gradually the Princess became very fond of her, and gave her masters, under whom she made such astonishing progress, that she became quite a well-educated young lady, while her glorious voice formed the great attraction to all parties at the Dolgorouki Palace.

“The Princess Dolgorouki never foresaw, what actually happened, that when her son returned from ‘the grand tour,’ which young men made then, and found a very beautiful, interesting girl domesticated with his mother, he would fall in love with her. When she saw that it was so, she said to her son that she had a great regard for the girl and could not have her affections tampered with, so that he had better go away again. The young prince answered that he had no idea whatever of tampering with the girl’s affections, that he loved her and believed that she loved him, and that he meant to marry her.

“On hearing this the fury of the Princess knew no bounds. She tried to reason with her son, and when she found him perfectly impracticable, she expelled him from her house and got him sent to France. She also sent for the parents of Anita, and told them that they must look out at once for a suitable person for her to marry, for that she must be married before Prince Dolgorouki returned. She said that she had no complaint to make of the girl, and that she would help her to make a good marriage by giving her a very handsome dowry; all that she required was that she should be married at once. Before leaving, however, Prince Dolgorouki had found means to be alone for a few minutes with Anita, and had said to her, ‘I know my mother well, and I know that as soon as I am gone she will try to insist upon your marriage. She will not consider you, and will sacrifice you to the fulfilment of her own will. Have faith, however, in me, hold out, and believe that, however impossible it may seem, I shall be able at the last moment to save you.’

“The bridegroom whom Anita’s father found was a certain Alexis Alexandrovitch, a farmer near their village and a person in a considerably higher position than their own. He was rich, he was much esteemed, he was greatly in love with Anita, but he was vulgar, he was hideous, he was almost always drunk, and Anita hated him. He came to her father’s house and proposed. She refused him, but he persisted in persecuting her with his attentions, and her own family tried to force her consent by ill-treatment, half-starved her, cut her off from all communication with others and from all her usual employments, and shut her up in a room at the top of the house.

“At last, when the girl’s position was becoming quite untenable and her courage was beginning to give way, Prince Dolgorouki contrived to get a note conveyed to her. He said, ‘I know all you are suffering; it is impossible that you can go on like this. Pretend to accede to their wishes. Accept Alexis Alexandrovitch, but believe that I will save you at the last moment.’

“So Anita said to her father and mother that she gave in to their wishes, that she would marry Alexis Alexandrovitch. And the wedding-day was fixed and the wedding-feast was prepared. And the old Princess Dolgorouki gave not only a very handsome dowry, but a very splendid set of peasant’s jewellery to the bride. She did not intend to be present at the ceremony herself, but she would send her major-domo to represent her.

“The wedding-day arrived, and the bride went with her family to the church, which was darkened, with candles burning everywhere. And Alexis Alexandrovitch also arrived, rather more drunk than usual. The church was thronged with people from end to end, for the place was within a drive of S. Petersburg, and it was fine weather, and hundreds of persons who remembered Anita and had admired her wonderful voice at the Dolgorouki palace drove out to see her married. According to the custom of the Greek Church, the register was brought to be signed before the ceremony. He signed his name ‘Alexis Alexandrovitch,’ and she signed her name ‘Anita.’ And the service began, and the crowd pressed thicker and thicker round the altar, and there was a constant struggle to see. And the service went on, and the crowd pressed more closely still, and somehow in the press the person who stood next to Anita was not Alexis Alexandrovitch, and the service went on, and Anita was married, and then the crowd opened to let the bridal pair pass through, and Anita walked rapidly down the church on the arm of her bridegroom, and it was not Alexis Alexandrovitch, and it was Prince Dolgorouki. And a carriage and four was waiting at the church door, and the bridal pair leapt into it and were whirled rapidly away.

“The old Princess Dolgorouki sent at once to stop them at the frontier, but the flight had been so well arranged, that she was too late. Then she swore (having everything in her own power) that she would cut off her son without a penny, and that she would never see him again. Happy in each other’s love, however, the young Prince and Princess Dolgorouki lived at Paris, where, though they were poor, Anita’s wonderful voice could always keep them from want. There, their two children were born. Four years elapsed, and they heard nothing from their Russian home. Then the family lawyer in S. Petersburg wrote to say that the old Princess Dolgorouki was dead. Whether she had repented of disinheriting her son and had destroyed her will before her death, or whether she had put off making her unjust will till it was too late, no one ever knew. The will of disinheritance was never found, and her son was the heir of all his mother’s vast estates.

“The young couple set out with their children for Russia to take possession, but it was in the depth of winter, the Prince was very delicate, and the change to the fierce cold of the north made him very ill, and at some place on the frontier--Wilna, I think--he died. The unhappy widow continued her journey with her children to S. Petersburg, but when she arrived, the heir-at-law had taken possession of everything. ‘But I am here; I am the Princess Dolgorouki,’ she said. ‘No,’ was the answer; ‘you have been residing for four years with Prince Dolgorouki, but the person you married was Alexis Alexandrovitch, and the register in which you both signed your names before your marriage exists to prove it.’ A great lawsuit ensued, in which the young widow lost almost all the money she had, and eventually she lost her lawsuit too, and retired in great penury to Warsaw, where she maintained herself and her children by singing and giving music lessons.

“But at Warsaw, as at Paris, her beauty and gentleness, and the patience with which she bore her misfortunes, made her a general favourite. Amongst those who became devoted to her was a young lawyer, who examined into the evidence of the trial which had taken place, and then, going to her, urged her to try again. She resisted, saying that the case was hopelessly lost, and besides, that she was too poor to reopen it. The lawyer said, ‘If you regain the vast Dolgorouki inheritance, you can pay me something: it will be a drop in the ocean to you; but if the lawsuit fails I shall expect no payment.’ So she let him try.

“Now the lawyer knew that there was no use in contending against the register, but he also felt that as--according to his view--in the eyes of God his client had been Princess Dolgorouki, there was no harm in tampering with that register if it was possible. It was no use, however, to alter it, as hundreds of witnesses existed who had seen the register as it was, and who knew that it contained the name of Alexis Alexandrovitch as the husband of Anita, for the trial had drawn attention to it from all quarters. It was also most difficult to see the register at all, because it was now most carefully guarded. But at last there came a time when the young lawyer was not only able to see the register, but when for three minutes he was left alone with it. And he took advantage of those three minutes to do what?

“He scratched out the name, or part of the name of Alexis Alexandrovitch, and he wrote the name of Alexis Alexandrovitch over again.

“Then when people came and said, ‘But here is the register--here is the name of Alexis Alexandrovitch,’ he said, ‘Yes, there is certainly the name of Alexis Alexandrovitch, but if you examine, you will find that it is written over something else which has been scratched out.’

“And the case was tried again, and the young widow was reinstated in the Dolgorouki property, and she was the grandmother of the present Prince Dolgorouki.”

* * * * *

“_Holmhurst, Dec. 28._--Lea says, ‘You may put ought to ought (0 to 0) and ought to ought till it reaches to London, and it will all come to nothing at last if you don’t put another figure to it’--apropos of Mr. G. P. neglecting to do his duty.”

* * * * *

“_Battle Abbey, Jan. 26, 1875._--The news of dear Lady Carnarvon’s death came yesterday as a shadow over everything. Surely never was there a more open, lovable, unselfish, charming, and truly noble character. She was the one person in England capable ‘tenir salon,’ to succeed--in a far more charming way--to Lady Palmerston’s celebrity in that respect.

‘Sat vixit, bene qui vixit spatium brevis aevi:
Ignavi numerant tempore, laude boni.’

Apparently radiant with happiness, and shedding happiness on all around her, she yet had often said latterly that she ‘did not feel that the compensations made up for the anxieties of life,’ and that she longed to be at rest.

“In the agreeable party at Battle it has been a great pleasure to find the French Ambassador and the Comtesse de Jarnac. Lord Stanhope is here, and has talked pleasantly as usual. Apropos of the custom of the living always closing the eyes of the dead, he reminded us of the admirable inscription over the door of the library at Murcia, ‘Here the dead _open_ the eyes of the living.’

“He said how the Pineta at Ravenna was really a change in gender from the original name Pinetum in the singular: first it had become the plural of that; then Pineta itself had become a singular word.

“He described a dreary Sunday spent in Sabbatarian Glasgow, and how, everything else being shut up and forbidden, he had betaken himself for hours to examining the epitaphs in the churchyard, and at length found a single verse which atoned for the badness of all the rest:--

‘Shed not for me the bitter tear,
Nor pour for me the vain regret,
For though the casket is not here,
The gem within it sparkles yet.’”

* * * * *

“_Jan. 27._--Count Nesselrode has come. He has been describing to the Duchess how parents are always proposing to him for their beautiful young girls of fifteen or sixteen. He says that he answers, ‘Est que à mon âge je puis songer à me marier?’ and that they reply, ‘Avec le nom que vous portez, M. le Comte, on est toujours jeune.’ ... ‘et ça me donne le chair de poule.’

“On the Duchess asking Count Nesselrode after his sons, he said they were at a tutor’s, ‘pour former le cœur et l’esprit.’

“There used to be a ghost at Battle Abbey. Old Lady Webster told Mr. Hussey of Scotney Castle how she saw it soon after her marriage, an old woman of most terrible aspect, who drew the curtains of her bed and looked in. Immediately after, Sir Godfrey came into the room. ‘Who was that old woman?’ she said. ‘There could have been no old woman.’ ‘Oh, yes, there was, and you must have met her in the passage, for she has only just gone out of the room.’ In her old age Lady Webster would describe the pattern on the old woman’s dress, and say that she should recognise it anywhere.”

[165]

* * * * *

“_Holmhurst, Feb. 1._--A long visit to Lord Stratford de Redcliffe in Lady Jocelyn’s singular house at St. Leonards, which you enter from the top story. Lord Stratford is a grand old man with high forehead and flowing white hair. He can no longer walk, and sits in his dressing-gown, but his artistic daughters make him very picturesque, hanging his chair with a shade of purple which matches the lining and cuffs of his dressing-gown, &c. He talked of many different people he had seen, of Goethe, ‘who had a very high forehead’ (but ‘the highest forehead known was that of the immortal Shakspeare, who had every great quality that could exist phrenologically’), and then he spoke of Mezzofanti, whom he had known personally in Italy, and who had told him the story of his life. He had been a carpenter’s apprentice, and had one day been at his work outside the open window of a school where a master was teaching. Having a smattering of Greek, which he had taught himself, he felt sure that he detected the master in giving a wrong explanation. This worried him so much that he could not get it out of his head, and, after the school and his own work were both over, he rang the bell and begged to see the master. ‘I was at work, sir, and I heard you speaking, and I think you gave such and such an explanation in Greek.’--‘Well, and what do you know about Greek?’--‘Not much, sir; but, if you will forgive my saying so, I am sure you will find, if you examine, that the explanation was not the correct one.’ The master found that the young carpenter was right, and it led to his obtaining friends and being educated. Lord Stratford said that Mezzofanti spoke English perfectly to him, and excellent modern Greek to his servant, and yet that, apart from his wonderful versatility in languages, he seemed to be rather a dull man than otherwise, utterly wanting in originality.

“Lord Stratford described going to dine one day with his agent, and meeting there a lady whose name he did not catch, but whom he was told to take down to dinner. In the course of dinner the conversation turned upon some subject of mathematics, ‘And then,’ said Lord Stratford, ‘I did what I have never done at any other time on a mathematical question. I tried to explain it and make it easy for my companion, who listened with polite attention. When I went upstairs I inquired her name, and it was ... Mrs. Somerville! I knew her intimately afterwards, and she told me something of her early life, which I regret should not have appeared in her memoirs. Her childhood was passed in Burntisland, whither her brother returned for his holidays, having some school-work to do whilst at home. One day, when he was called out, she took up the Euclid he had been studying. ‘Ah! what curious little designs! let me see if I can understand what it is about.’ And she found that she could, and devoured Euclid with avidity. Afterwards she got hold of her brother’s Æschylus and taught herself Greek in order to read it.

“Lord Stratford talked much of the extraordinary change, not only in politics, but in ‘the way of carrying on politics,’ since he was young.”

* * * * *

“_69 Onslow Square, Feb. 4._--Aunt Sophy[166] had a pleasant party yesterday of Theodore Martins, Lady Barker, &c. Mrs. Theodore Martin’s is a fine illuminative face, like that of Madame Goldschmidt. As Helen Faucit she was celebrated as an actress and as having done her utmost to elevate the stage; but I do not admire her reading of Shakspeare, in which I think there is too much manner. He is evidently most excellent. He talked perfectly simply, but only when asked, of his intercourse with the Queen, with whom he must be on happy terms of mutual confidence.

* * * * *

“_Feb. 7, 1875._--Yesterday, when I was with Louisa, Lady Ashburton, at Kent House, which is being beautifully arranged, Lady Bloomfield came in and then Mr. Carlyle--weird and grim, with his long coat and tall wizard-befitting hat. He talked in volumes, with fathomless depths of adjectives, into which it was quite impossible to follow him, and in which he himself often got out of his depth. A great deal was about Garibaldi, who was the ‘most absolute incarnation of zero, but the inexplicable perversity and wilfulness of the human race had taken him up, poor creature, and set him on a pedestal.’ Then he went on about ‘the poor old Pope, so filled with all the most horrible and detestable lies that ever were conceived or thought of.’ He was like the man who asked his friends to dinner and said, ‘I am going to give you a piece of the most delicious beef--the most exquisite beef that ever was eaten,’ and all the while it was only a piece of stale brown bread; but the host said to his guests, ‘May God damn your souls for ever and ever, if you don’t believe it’s beef,’ so they ate it and said nothing.

“Then he talked of the books of Mazzini, which were ‘well worth reading,’ and of Saffi, ‘made professor of something at Oxford, where he used to give lectures in a moth-eaten voice.’”

* * * * *

“_Feb. 11._--Sir Garnet and Lady Wolseley, Miss Thackeray, and others dined. I was not prepared to like Sir Garnet much, a hero is usually so dull, but he is charming, so frank and candid, and most natural as well as good-looking. He has a very young face, though his hair is grey, almost white. Lady Wolseley is remarkably pretty and attractive; Sir Garnet was quite devoted to drawing, and had a great collection of sketches, the work of his life. In the Crimea he drew everything, and it was a most precious collection; but in returning it was all lost at sea. The rest of his drawings he put into the Pantechnicon, where they were every one of them burnt. Miss Thackeray has a sweet voice, which is music in every tone.

“I have frequently seen lately, at the Lefevres’, old Lord Redesdale, with whom we have some distant cousinship through my Mitford great-grandmother. He is very kind, clever, old-fashioned, and always wears a tail-coat. He took us into the far-away by telling us of having heard his father, Speaker Mitford, describe having known a man in Swaledale named Rievely, whose earliest recollection was of being carried across the Swale by Henry Jenkyns (who lived to 160), who recollected having gone as a boy, with a sheaf of arrows and his elder brother on a pony, from Ellerton in Swaledale to Northallerton, to join the army before the battle of Flodden. He would tell all about the battle in a familiar way--‘the King was not there; but the Duke of Suffolk was there,’ &c.

“Much of the conversation in certain houses is now about Moody and Sankey, the American ‘revivalists,’ who are supposed to ‘produce great effects.’ Moody preaches and Sankey sings. They are adored by some, others (including most Americans) think them ‘mere religious charlatans’--and altogether they offer a famous opportunity for all the barking and biting which ‘truly religious people’ often delight in.”

* * * * *

“_Feb. 20._--Dined with the Rafe Leycesters in Cheyne Walk, where they have a charming old manor-house with a stone gateway, flagged walk, ancient bay-trees, a wide staircase, and panelled rooms. Mrs. Leycester was picturesquely dressed like a picture by Millais. The company were Mr. and Mrs. Haweis, Mr. and Mrs. Tom Taylor, and the Augustus Tollemaches. It was an agreeable party, and a pleasant dinner in a room redolent of violets.”

* * * * *

“_Feb. 21._--Dined with Lady Margaret Beaumont, who talked of dress and the distinction of a gown by Worth, which ‘not only looked well, but _walked_ well.’”

* * * * *

“_Thorncombe, Feb. 27._--This place is a dell in the undulating hills about five miles from Guildford, very pretty and pleasant; and our new cousin, Edward Fisher, to whom it belongs, is one of the kindest, cheeriest, pleasantest fellows who ever entered a family.

“We have been to see Loseley, which belongs to my old college acquaintance Molyneux--a grand old house, gabled and grey, with a great hall, and richly carved chimney-pieces of white chalk, which looks like marble. It has three ghosts, a green-coated hunter, a sallow lady, and a warrior in plate-armour. The last appeared to the kitchen-maid as she was drawing some beer in the cellar, and almost frightened her out of her wits.”

* * * * *

“_London, March 7, Sunday._--Breakfast at Lord Houghton’s, who has adopted Rogers’ custom of social breakfasts. It was a very amusing party--Joaquin Miller[167] the American writer, Henry Cowper, Lord Arthur Russell, &c. There was a young man there whom I did not notice much at first, but I soon found that he was very remarkable, and then that he was very charming indeed. It was Lord Rosebery. He has a most sweet gravity almost always, but when his expression does light up, it is more than an illumination--it is a conflagration, at which all around him take light. Joaquin Miller would have been thought insufferably vulgar if he had not been a notoriety: as it was, every one paid court to him. However, I ought not to abuse him, as he suddenly turned round to me and said, ‘Do you know, I’m glad to meet you, for you write books that I can read.’ Quantities of good stories were told--one of a party given by George IV. as Prince Regent to the Irish peer Lord Coleraine. Smoking was allowed. After supper, when Lady Jersey drank, the Regent kissed the spot upon the cup where her lips had rested: upon which the Princess took a pipe from Lord Coleraine’s mouth, blew two or three whiffs, and handed it back to him. The Prince was quite furious, but it was a lesson.”

* * * * *

“_Holmhurst, March 14._--Went to see Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, who talked incessantly and most agreeably for an hour. He said how surprised he had been to read in the ‘Greville Memoirs’ of himself as ill-tempered; he always thought he was ‘rather a good-tempered sort of fellow.’ It was Madame de Lieven who said that, and she had always hated him. She prevented him having an embassy once, but they made peace afterwards through a compliment he paid her at Paris. He talked of Madame de Lieven’s extraordinary influence, arising chiefly from our inherent national passion for foreigners.

“I asked Lord Stratford which he thought the most interesting of the many places in which he had lived. He said, ‘Oh, England is the most interesting by far.’ He described his first going out to Constantinople, before he had taken his degree, only going for four months, and staying for four or five years in a position equal to a Minister. He took his degree afterwards, and by literary merit, though there was a way then of giving degrees to those who were employed in the public service, and since then they had made him a doctor of both Universities. Now, in his helplessness, he amused himself by writing Greek verses. Once, walking about his room, he thought, ‘Well, I have often written Latin verses; let me see if I can write Greek.’ And his Greek has all come back to him.”

* * * * *

The enormous circulation of the “Memorials of a Quiet Life” in the two years which had elapsed since its publication astonished those who were opposed to it; and in America the sale had been even greater than in England. Numbers of Americans had come to England entirely from the desire to visit the different scenes of my mother’s quiet life, and had gone in turn to Toft, Stoke, Alton, Hurstmonceaux, Holmhurst, and some even to the distant grave of Lucy Hare at Abbots Kerswell. At Holmhurst there were frequently many sets of visitors in a day--“pilgrims” we used to call them,--and even if I was at home I could never bear to refuse them admittance, while to my dear old Lea, who was in very poor health at this time, they were a positive benefit, in rousing her from dwelling upon sad recollections. It was in answer to a constantly expressed desire that, in the autumn of 1874, I occupied myself with the third volume of the Memorials, containing more of my mother’s thoughts upon especial subjects, and photographs from family portraits and of the places described in the first two volumes. The book was, as it were, a gift to the public. It had a large circulation, but no remuneration whatever was ever looked for or obtained. Soon after the publication of the volume, a review appeared in the _Spectator_ (July 8, 1876), speaking of “the veiled self-conceit” with which Mr. Hare had placed himself “upon the voluminous records of his family as upon a pedestal;” that Mrs. Hare was far from being honoured by “the capital” her adopted son had made of her, though, “if his public likes and is willing to pay for the contents of the family album, there is nothing more to be said.... Here, however, let us be thankful, is, so far as anything can be predicated safely on such a subject, the last of the ‘Memorials,’ and that is so grateful a thought as to justify tolerance of what already is.” It seemed a singular review to have been admitted by the _Spectator_, which, four years before (December 11, 1872), had written of the “Memorials” as containing “passage after passage worthy of comment or quotation,” and as “an interesting record of spiritual conflicts and spiritual joy, free from narrowness and fanaticism, and marked throughout by the most guileless sincerity.” I suppose that editors of reviews, when biassed by intense personal feeling, often trust to the public having forgotten what has appeared before in their pages.

Annually, I had tried to make my dearest mother’s home as useful as possible to all those in whom she was most nearly interested, as well as to keep up her charities, especially at Alton. It had also been a great pleasure, with what my books produced, to fit up a cottage close to Holmhurst as a Hospice for needy persons of a better class. These I have always invited to come for a month at a time, their travelling expenses being fully paid, and firing, linen, farm and garden produce, with an outfit of grocery, being supplied to them. Many are the interesting and pleasant persons whom I have thus become acquainted with, many the touching cases of sorrow and suffering with which I have come in contact. In the month of October the Deaconesses of St. Peter’s, Eaton Square, for several years occupied the Hospice, and they generally remained over All Saints’ Day, when they sang the Te Deum in the field round the twisted tree where the dear mother used to sit--“the Te Deum tree.”

In the spring of 1875 I was obliged to go to Italy again, to continue collecting materials for my “Cities of Northern and Central Italy.”

* * * * *

_To_ MARY LEA GIDMAN.

“_Rimini, April 4, 1875._--I made my first long lonely expedition from Turin, going for an hour by rail to the town of S. Ambrogio, and then walking up through the forests to the top of the high mountain of S. Michele, where there is a famous monastery in which the sovereigns of the country--Dukes of Savoy--used to be buried many hundreds of years ago. It is a wonderful place, quite on the highest peak, looking into the great gorges of snow. As I was sketching, the old Abbot was led by on his mule, and stopped to speak to me. I found he was a famous missionary preacher--Carlo Caccia--and had been in England, where he knew Lord Bute well, and was very glad to hear of him. So we made great friends, and as he was going to Turin for Easter, we travelled back together.

[168]

“From Turin I went to Parma, where I had a great deal of work to finish. The cold there was ferocious, but I made the great excursion I went for--to Canossa, where the Emperor Henry IV. performed his famous penance, though it is a most dreadfully fatiguing walk, either in snow above the knees, or in the furrows of streams from the melted snow. At Bologna I never saw anything like the snow--as high as the top of the omnibus, and darkening the lower windows, with a way cut through it down the middle of the street. I had the same room at the Hotel S. Marco which you and the dear Mother had for those anxious days in 1870, and of course I seemed to _see_ her there, and it was a very sad visit. The Librarian told me that hundreds of people had been to look at the portrait of Clotilda Tambroni since reading the ‘Memorials.’

[169]

“We slept here once in 1857, but did not appreciate Rimini properly then, I think, for it is a charming place, with a delightful seashore and interesting old town; but the country is strange and wild, and there is not a sign of vegetation on the hedges; so that when I remember the buds on the deutzia opposite your window at Holmhurst, it seems most dismal in Italy.”

* * * * *

_To_ MISS WRIGHT.

[170]

“_Citta di Castello, April 12, 1875._--It is very cold in Italy, but glorious weather now--ceaseless sunshine and the pellucid skies of Perugino. I have been many great excursions already; to the Sagro di S. Michele, to desolate Canossa, and to S. Marino and the extraordinary S. Leo near Rimini. Then from Forli I paid an interesting visit to Count Saffi, one of the Roman triumvirate, whom I had known well at Oxford, and who lives, with his wife (Miss Craufurd of Portincross) and many children, in a farmhouse-like villa near the town. At Ancona, Charlie Dalison came to meet me, a pleasant change after much silence and solitude. We went together to Loreto, and next day a dreary journey to Urbino, which is more curious than beautiful, though there is a noble old palace of its Dukes. It was a thirteen hours’ drive thence through hideous country to Gubbio, where the inns are wretched, but the town full of interest. Charlie left me at Perugia, and I came on here into the Piero della Francesca country, which is more instructive than captivating.”

[171]

* * * * *

JOURNAL.

“_Forli, April 2._--In one of the old churches here is the tomb of Barbara Ordelaffi, wife of the Lord of Forli, who was one of the most intensely wicked women of her own or any other age. But her tomb is indescribably lovely, her figure, that of quite a young girl, lying upon its marble sarcophagus with a look of innocence and simplicity which can scarcely be equalled.