From London the Burtons proceeded first to Boulogne where Sir Richard visited the haunts of his early manhood and called upon his old fencing master, Constantin, who was hale and well, though over eighty; and then to Geneva, where he delivered before the local Geographical Society what proved to be his last public lecture. From Geneva he wrote several letters to Mr. Payne. In that of November 21st, his mind running on the Bandello, he says, "You would greatly oblige me by jotting down when you have a moment to spare the names of reverends and ecclesiastics who have written and printed facetious books.603In English I have Swift and Sterne; in French Rabelais, but I want one more, also two in Italian and two in German."
In reply, Mr. Payne sent him some twenty or thirty names in half a dozen literatures. From Geneva the Burtons made their way first to Vevey, where Sir Richard revelled in its associations with Ludlow, the English regicide, and Rousseau; and then to Lausanne for the sake of his great hero, Edward Gibbon; and on 12th March (1889) they were back again at Trieste.
Writing to Mr. A. G. Ellis on May 8th, Burton enquires respecting some engravings in the Museum brought over from Italy by the Duke of Cumberland, and he finished humorously with, "What news of Mr. Blumhardt? And your fellow-sufferer from leather emanations, the Sanskiritist?"604—an allusion to the Oriental Room, under which, in those days, was the book-binding department.
In July, for Burton found it impossible to content himself long in any place, the Burtons made another journey, this time through Western Austria, being accompanied as usual by Dr. Baker and Lisa. After their return, on September 13th, it was necessary for Burton to undergo two operations; and Lady Burton, racked with anxiety and fearing the worst, seemed, when all was successfully over, to have recovered from a horrible nightmare. Then followed acquaintance with the gifted young artist, Mr. Albert Letchford, and his beautiful and winning sister, Daisy. Mr. Letchford became the Burtons' Court Painter, as it were—frequently working in their house—and both he and his sister admired—nay, worshipped Sir Richard down to the ground. Even as a child, Albert Letchford was remarkable for his thoughtful look, and his strong sense of beauty. In church one day he begged his mother to let him run home and get his little sword, as there was such an ugly woman there and he wished to cut her head off. As a youth he drew and studied from morning to night, living in a world of his own creation—a world of books and pictures. His letters were those of a poet and an artist. Beauty of the mind, however, attracted him even more than beauty of the body. Thus, he fell in love with his cousin Augusta, "though she had the toothache, and her head tied up in a handkerchief." At seventeen he studied art in Venice. From Venice he went to Florence, where he met the Burtons and got from them introductions to all the best people, including the Countess Orford and Mlle. de la Ramee (Ouida). We then find him in Paris, in London, in Egypt, where he acquired that knowledge of the East which helped him later when he illustrated The Arabian Nights. Finally he settled at Trieste. "That wonderful man, Sir Richard Burton, with the eyes of a tiger and the voice of an angel," writes Miss Letchford, "loved my brother, for he found something more in him than in others—he found a mind that could understand his own, and he often said that Mr. Albert Letchford was about the only man that he was pleased to see—the only one who never jarred on his nerves. To him did Sir Richard, proud and arrogant to most people, open his soul, and from his lips would come forth such enchanting conversation—such a wonderful flow of words and so marvellous in sound that often I have closed my eyes and listened to him, fancying, thus—that some wonderful learned angel had descended from Heaven unto Earth."
Among the friends of the Burtons was the Princess of Thurn and Taxis, who with her husband became one of Letchford's best patrons. The princess won Sir Richard's heart by her intelligence, her beauty and grace; and "his conversation was never so brilliant, and his witticisms were never so sparkling as in her presence." One day another princess—a foolish, vain woman—after making a number of insipid remarks, shook hands with Sir Richard, lifting high her arm and elbow in the fashion which was then just coming into vogue, but which has now lost acceptance.605Sir Richard, while giving her his right hand, quietly with his left put down her arm and elbow. The princess turned scarlet, but she never after practised "the high shake." Miss Letchford sums up Lady Burton as "a most beautiful and charming woman, with many lovely ideas, but many foolish ones." Unfortunately she was guided entirely by her confessor, a man of small mental calibre. One of the confessor's ideas was to convert Sir Richard by dropping small charms into his pockets. Sir Richard got quite used to finding these little images about him; but they invariably made their way out of the window into the garden. One of Lady Burton's little failings was the fear lest anybody should come to the house in order to steal, and the servants had special commands to admit none who did not look "a perfect gentleman or lady," with the result that one day they slammed the door in the face of the Archduke Louis Salvator, simply because he did not happen to have a card with him. After that Lady Burton's orders were less strict.
Mr. Letchford's paintings include views of the neighbourhood, a portrait of Burton which was exhibited in the Stanley Gallery, and a full-length portrait of Burton fencing,606but he is best known by his series of illustrations to The Arabian Nights.
On April 24th we find Burton writing to thank Dr. Charles Tuckey for the gift of a copy of his Psycho-Therapeutics. "An old pupil of Dr. Elliotson,"607he says, "I am always interested in these researches, and welcome the appearance of any addition to our scanty knowledge of an illimitable field. Suggestion (what a miserable name!) perfectly explains the stigmata of St. Francis and others without preter-natural assistance, and the curative effect of a dose of Koran (a verset written upon a scrap of paper, and given like a pill of p.q.). I would note that the "Indian Prince"608was no less a personage than Ranjit Singh, Rajah of the Punjab, that the burial of the Fakir was attested by his German surgeon-general, and that a friend and I followed Colonel Boileau's example in personally investigating the subject of vivi-sepulture. In p. 10: The throngs of pilgrims to Mecca never think of curing anything but their 'souls,' and the pilgrimage is often fatal to their bodies. I cannot but take exception to such terms as 'psychology,' holding the soul (an old Egyptian creation unknown to the early Hebrews) to be the ego of man, what differentiates him from all other men, in fact, like the 'mind,' not a thing but a state or condition of things. I rejoice to see Braid609duly honoured and think that perhaps a word might be said of 'Electro-biology,' a term ridiculous as 'suggestion' and more so. But Professor Yankee Stone certainly produced all the phenomena you allude to by concentrating the patient's sight upon his 'Electro-magnetic disc'—a humbug of copper and zinc, united, too. It was a sore trial to Dr. Elliotson, who having been persecuted for many years wished to make trial in his turn of a little persecuting—a disposition not unusual."610
In a letter to Mr. W. F. Kirby, 15th May 1889, Burton, after referring to a translation of the Kalevala,611upon which Mr. Kirby was then engaged, says: "We shall not be in England this year. I cannot remove myself so far from my books, and beside, I want a summer in Austria, probably at Closen or some place north of Vienna. We had a long ten months' holiday and must make up for time lost. The Scented Garden is very hard work, and I have to pay big sums to copyists and so forth. Yet it will, I think, repay the reader. What a national disgrace is this revival of Puritanism with its rampant cant and ignoble hypocrisy! I would most willingly fight about it, but I don't see my way." Writing again on 6th November (1889) he says, "I like very much your idea of visiting Sweden in the interests of the Kalevala. Perhaps you might date the Preface from that part of the world. The Natural History of The Nights would be highly interesting. Have you heard that Pickering and Chatto, of Haymarket, London, are going to print 100 (photogravure) illustrations of the Nights? When last in London I called on them. On Friday week, 15th November, we start upon our winter's trip. From here to Brindisi, await the P. and O., then to Malta (ten days), Tunis (month), Tripoli and Algiers, where I hope at last to see the very last of The Scented Garden."
At the time stated, Burton, Lady Burton, Dr. Baker and Lisa took steamer for Brindisi, where they visited Virgil's house, and then made for Malta. On December 20th they were at Tunis, and Sir Richard ransacked the bazaar and button-holed people generally in order to get manuscripts of The Scented Garden, but without success. Nobody had ever heard of it.612At Carthage he recalled that rosy morning when Dido in "flowered cymar with golden fringe" rode out with Aeneas to the hung, read Salammbo, and explored the ruins; but Lady Burton had no eyes for anything but convents, monks and nuns, though she certainly once took Lisa to a harem, where they learnt how to make Tunisian dishes. The biblical appearance of everything reminded Burton of his Damascus days. Seeing a man in a burnous ploughing with oxen and a wooden plough on a plain where there was no background, he said, "Look, there's Abraham!" At Constantine, Sir Richard and Lady Burton celebrated their 29th, and as it proved, their last wedding day. With Algiers, the next stopping place, which boasted a cardinal's Moorish palace and a Museum, Burton was in ecstasies, and said he wanted to live there always; but in less than three weeks he was anxious to get as far away from it as possible.
From Algiers he wrote to Mr. Payne (28th January 1890). After recording his failure to obtain manuscripts of The Scented Garden at Tunis he says: "To-day I am to see M. Macarthy, of the Algiers Bibliotheque Musee; but I am by no means sanguine. This place is a Paris after Tunis and Constantine, but like all France (and Frenchmen) in modern days dirty as ditchwater. The old Gaulois is dead and damned, politics and money getting have made the gay nation stupid as Paddies. In fact the world is growing vile and bete, et vivent les Chinois!613A new Magyar irruption would do Europe much good."
In a letter to Mr. A. G. Ellis, dated 12th February, 1890, he refers to the anecdote of the famous Taymor al Wahsh, who, according to a Damascus tradition, played polo with the heads of his conquered enemies. "Every guide book," he continues, "mentions my Lord Iron's nickname 'The Wild Beast,' and possibly the legend was invented by way of comment. He drove away all the Persian swordsmiths, and from his day no 'Damascus blade' has been made at Damascus. I have found these French colonies perfectly casual and futile. The men take months before making up their minds to do anything. A most profligate waste of time! My prime object in visiting Tunis was to obtain information concerning The Scented Garden, to consult MSS. &c. After a month's hard work I came upon only a single copy, the merest compendium, lacking also Chapter 21, my chief Righah (the absurd French R'irha) for a week or ten days [for the sake of the baths] then return to Algiers, steam for Marseilles and return to Trieste via the Riviera and Northern Italy—a route of which I am dead sick. Let us hope that the untanned leather bindings have spared you their malaria. You will not see me in England next summer, but after March 1891, I shall be free as air to come and go." At Hammam R'irha, Burton began in earnest his translation of Catullus, and for weeks he was immersed in it night and day. The whole of the journey was a pleasurable one, or would have been, but for the cruelty with which animals were treated; and Burton, who detested cruelty in all forms, and had an intense horror of inflicting pain, vented his indignation over and over again against the merciless camel and donkey drivers.
As the party were steaming from Algiers to Toulon, a curious incident occurred. Burton and Dr. Baker having sauntered into the smoke room seated themselves at a table opposite to an old man and a young man who looked like, and turned out to be, an Oxford don. Presently the don, addressing the old man, told him with dramatic gesticulations the venerable story about Burton killing two Arabs near Mecca, and he held out his hand as if he were firing a pistol.
Burton, who had long known that the tale was in circulation but had never before heard anyone relate it as fact, here interrupted with, "Excuse me, but what was the name of that traveller?"
"Captain Burton," replied the don, "now Sir Richard Burton."
"I am Burton," followed Sir Richard, "and I remember distinctly every incident of that journey, but I can assure you I do not remember shooting anybody."
At that, the don jumped up, thanked him for giving the story denial, and expressed his happiness at being able to make the great traveller's acquaintance.614
On March 26th (1890) a week after his return to Trieste, Burton wrote to Mr. A. G. Ellis: "It is very kind and friendly of you to write about The Scented Garden MSS. I really rejoice to hear that you and Mr. Bendall have escaped alive from those ground floor abominations stinking of half rotten leather. I know the two Paris MSS. [of The Scented Garden] (one with its blundering name): they are the merest abridgments, both compressing Chapter 21 of 500 pages (Arabic) into a few lines. I must now write to Gotha and Copenhagen in order to find out if the copies there be in full. Can you tell me what number of pages they contain? Salam to Mr. Bendall, and best wishes to you both. You will see me in England some time after March 19th 1891."
At no work that he had ever written did Sir Richard labour so sedulously as at The Scented Garden. Although in feeble health and sadly emaciated, he rose daily at half-past five, and slaved at it almost incessantly till dusk, begrudging himself the hour or two required for meals and exercise. The only luxury he allowed himself while upon his laborious task was "a sip of whiskey," but so engrossed was he with his work that he forgot even that. It was no uncommon remark for Dr. Baker to make: "Sir Richard, you haven't drunk your whiskey." One day, as he and Dr. Baker were walking in the garden he stopped suddenly and said: "I have put my whole life and all my life blood into that Scented Garden, and it is my great hope that I shall live by it. It is the crown of my life."
"Has it ever occurred to you, Sir Richard," enquired Dr. Baker, "that in the event of your death the manuscript might be burnt? Indeed, I think it not improbable."
The old man turned to the speaker his worn face and sunken eyes and said with excitement, "Do you think so? Then I will at once write to Arbuthnot and tell him that in the event of my death the manuscript is to be his."
He wrote the letter the same day. Arbuthnot duly received it, and several letters seem to have passed between them on the subject; but we do not know whether Lady Burton was aware of the arrangement. All we can say is that Arbuthnot believed she knew all about it.
It seems to have been at this time that Lady Burton prevailed upon her husband to range himself nominally among the Catholics. "About a year before her death," Mr. T. Douglas Murray writes to me, "Lady Burton showed me a paper of considerable length, all of it in Sir R. Burton's writing and signed by himself, in which he declared that he had lived and would die a Catholic, adhering to all the rites and usages of the Church."615Curiously enough, while bringing forward all the evidence she could adduce to prove that Burton was a Christian, Lady Burton makes no reference in her book to this paper. Perhaps it was because Sir Richard continued to gibe at the practices of her church just as much after his "conversion" as before. However, it gratified her to know that if he was not a good Catholic, he was, at any rate, the next best thing—a Catholic. An intimate friend of Burton to whom I mentioned this circumstance observed to me, "I am sure, that Burton never in any way accepted the idea of a personal God; but, rather than be perpetually importuned and worried, he may have pretended to give in to Lady Burton, as one does to a troublesome child."
Lady Burton tells us that during the last few years of his life he used to lock the outer doors of his house twice a day and then engage in private prayer; on the other hand, friends of Burton who knew him and were with him almost to the last have received this statement with skepticism.
Lady Burton's happiness was further increased by the present of a very beautiful oil painting representing the Virgin Mary, done by Miss Emily Baker, Dr. Baker's sister. It was generally known by the Burtons, from the colour of its drapery, as "the Blue Madonna."616
167. Visit of Arbuthnot, Last Letter to Mr. Payne, May 1890.
On May 11th Mr. Arbuthnot paid a second visit to Trieste, and the pleasure that the vent gave to Sir Richard is reflected in a letter to Mr. Payne written the same month. "At last!" he says, "Arbuthnot has brought the volume [Payne's Alaeddin] and the MS. [Zotenberg's MS. of Zayn al-Asnam which Burton had lent to Mr. Payne]." He then goes on to say that he has kicked up "an awful shindy with the Athenaeum Club," about something, just as if he had not been kicking up awful shindies with all sorts of people ever since his schoolboy days at Tours. "I am delighted," he goes on, "with the volume [Payne's Alaeddin] and especially with the ascription,617so grateful in its friendly tone. I have read every word with the utmost pleasure. We might agree to differ about Cazotte.618I think you are applying to 1750 the moralities of 1890. Arbuthnot's visit has quite set me up, like a whiff of London in the Pontine marshes of Trieste. He goes to-day, d—— the luck! but leaves us hopes of meeting during the summer in Switzerland or thereabouts. He is looking the picture of health and we shall return him to town undamaged. Best of good fortune to Bandello."619
Burton and Arbuthnot had spent many a delightful hour sitting out on Burton's verandah, smoking, listening to the nightingales, and enjoying sea and landscape. It must not be supposed that erotic literature was the only subject upon which they conversed, though as hierarchs of the Kama Shastra Society they naturally bestowed upon that and curious learning considerable attention. Religion was also discussed, and Arbuthnot's opinions may be gathered from the following citation from his unpublished Life of Balzac which is now in my hands. "The great coming struggle of the 20th century," he says, "will be the war between Religion and Science. It will be a war to the death, for if Science wins it will do away with the personal God of the Jews, the Christians and the Muhammedans, the childish doctrine or dogma of future rewards and punishments, and everything connected with the supernatural. It will be shown that Law reigns supreme. The police representing Law and Order will be of more importance than the clergy. Even now we might do away with the latter, everybody becoming his own priest—a great economy. None of us knows what happens to us after death, all we can do is to hope for the best, and follow the three great Laws, viz., 1. Instruct your mind. 2. Preserve your health. 3. Moderate your passions and desires." Thus spake the Founder of the Kama Shastra Society.
On May 15th, Burton told Mr. Kirby all about the Algiers trip. "Plenty to see and do," he says, "but I was not lucky about my MS. The Scented Garden. No one seemed to know anything about it. Never advise any one to winter in Algiers. All the settled English are selling their villas. French mismanagement beats ours holler, and their hate and jealousy of us makes their colonies penal settlements to us. We stay here [at Trieste] till the weather drives us away—about the end of June." The letter concludes with kindly enquiries respecting Professor Bendall,620Mr. A. G. Ellis and Dr. Kirby (Mr. Kirby's son).
The share that Sir Richard Burton had in the translation of the Priapeia has been the subject of dispute; but we are able to state positively that he was the author of the metrical portion. Indeed, he made no secret of it among his intimates. For some reason or other, however, he did not wish to have his name publicly associated with it; so the following passage was inserted in the preface: "The name of Sir Richard Burton has been inadvertently connected with the present work. It is, however, only fair to state that under the circumstances he distinctly disclaims having taken any part in the issue." We have no other ground for the assumption, but this passage seems to point to a quarrel of some kind. It certainly does not alter the fact that every page bears evidence of Burton's hand. The preface then goes on to say that "a complete and literal translation of the works of Catullus, on the same lines and in the same format as the present volume, is now in preparation." A letter, however, written621by Burton to Mr. W. F. Kirby, sets the matter entirely at rest. "I am at present," he says, "engaged in translating the Priapeia, Latin verse, which has never appeared in English, French, or German garb; it will have the merit of novelty."
The Priapeia, in its Latin form Priapeia sine Diversoreun poetarum in Priapum Lusus, is a work that has long been well known to scholars, and in the 16th and 17th centuries editions were common. The translation under consideration is entitled "Priapeia, or the Sportive Epigrams of divers Poets on Priapus: the Latin text now for the first time Englished in verse and prose (the metrical version by Outidanos) [Good for Nothing], with Introduction, Notes, Explanatory and Illustrative and Excursus, by Neaniskos [a young man]," whose name, we need hardly say, is no secret.
The image of Priapus, the god of fruitfulness, was generally a grotesque figure made of rough wood painted red and carrying a gardener's knife and a cornucopia. Placed in a garden it was supposed to be a protection against thieves. "In the earliest ages," observes the writer of the preface, "the worship of the generative energy was of the most simple and artless character... the homage of man to the Supreme Power, the Author of Life.... Afterwards the cult became depraved. Religion became a pretext for libertinism." Poets wrote facetious and salacious epigrams and affixed them to the statues of the god—even the greatest writers lending their pens to the "sport"—and eventually some nonentity collected these scattered verses and made them into a book. Everybody knows Catullus's contribution, which begins:
"A log of oak, some rustic's bladeHewed out my shape; grotesquely madeI guard this spot by night and day,Scare every vagrant knave away,And save from theft and rapine's handMy humble master's cot and land."
The chief complaint to be made against the writers of these verses is that they so rarely strayed from their subject. The address entitled "A Word to the Reader," is padded with citations from Burton's Camoens and his Supplemental Nights, including the well-known passage concerning his estimate of a translator's office,622and the whole work bears evidence of extreme haste. We are assured that it will be "most interesting to anthropologists and humanists."
Burton, as we have seen, had commenced his translation of Catullus, 18th February 1890, at Hammam R'irha. He finished the first rough copy of Trieste March 31st, and commenced a second copy on May 23rd. "He would bring his Latin Catullus," says Lady Burton, "down to the table d'hote with him, and he used to come and sit by me, but the moment he got a person on the other side who did not interest him he used to whisper to me 'Talk, that I may do my Catullus.'" "Sir Richard," says Mr. Leonard Smithers, upon whom had devolved the task of making the prose translation that was to accompany it, "laid great stress on the necessity of thoroughly annotating each translation from an erotic and especially pederastic point of view."623
On July 1st the Burtons, accompanied as usual by Dr. Baker, Lisa and the magpie trunk, set out on what proved to be their last trip—a journey through the Tyrol and Switzerland. They arrived at Zurich just in time for "the great Schiefs-Statte fete, the most important national function of Switzerland," which was held that year at the neighbouring town of Frauenfeld. Seven thousand pounds had been set aside for prizes for shooing, and forty thousand persons were present. Next day there was a grand Consular dinner, to which Burton was invited. Dr. Baker having expressed regret that he also had not been included, Burton remarked, "Oh, I'll manage it. Write a letter for me and decline." So a letter was written to the effect that as Sir Richard Burton made it a rule not to go anywhere without his medical attendant he was obliged to decline the honour, &c., &c. Presently, as had been expected, came another invitation with Dr. Baker's name added. Consequently they went, and a very grand dinner it proved—lasting, by Lady Burton's computation, six hours on end. At St. Mortiz-Kulm, and often after, they met Canon Wenham of Mortlake, with whom both Sir Richard and Lady Burton had long been on terms of friendship.
At Davos they found John Addington Symonds, and at Maloja Mr. Francis R. S. Wyllie, Mr. and Mrs. (Sir and Lady) Squire Bancroft, the Rev. Dr. Welldon and Mr. and Mrs. (Sir and Lady) Henry Stanley. Mrs. Stanley, apparently at Lady Burton's suggestion, took a sheet of paper and wrote on it, "I promise to put aside all other literature, and, as soon as I return to Trieste, to write my autobiography." Then doubling the paper she asked for Burton's autograph; and her request having been complied with, she showed him what he had put his hand to. The rest of the company signed as witnesses.
For some days, though it was early autumn, the party was snow-bound, and Burton relieved the wearisomeness of the occasion by relating some of his adventures. Mrs. Bancroft told him many amusing stories as they walked together in a sheltered covered way.
"He had interested me so greatly," writes Lady Bancroft to me,624"that I felt myself in his debt, and so tried by that means to make it up to him. He laughed heartily at them. Indeed, I never knew anyone who more enjoyed my stories. One morning early I played a practical joke upon him. He politely raised his hat and said: 'I will forgive you, dear friend, on one condition. Play the same trick on Stanley when he comes down and I will watch.' I agreed, and fortunately brought down my second bird. Both victims forgave me. One day I posed the Burtons, the Stanleys, Captain Mounteney Jephson (Stanley's friend and companion), with Salah (Stanley's black servant) for a photograph, which was taken by a young clergyman. I have the delightful result in my possession. I remember on a splendid morning, when the weather had mended and the sun was dancing over a neighbouring glacier, my husband saying to the black boy, 'Salah, isn't this a lovely day—don't you like to see the beautiful sun again?' 'No, sir,' was the answer, 'ice makes him cold.' Both Stanley and Sir Richard interested me more than I can say; they were wonderful personalities, and those were, indeed, happy days."
Almost every day during the trip Sir Richard brought the Catullus to the table d'hote, and on 21st July he had finished his second copy. He then wrote in the margin, "Work incomplete, but as soon as I receive Mr. Smithers' prose, I will fill in the words I now leave in stars, in order that we may not use the same expressions, and I will then make a third, fair and complete copy."625During this trip, too, Burton very kindly revised the first half of Dr. Baker's work The Model Republic. The second half was revised by John Addington Symonds after Burton's death.
Burton was back again at Trieste on 7th September. He and the magpie trunk were never again to make a journey together. The melancholy fate of the Catullus, which Burton had put aside in order that he might finish The Scented Garden, will be recorded in a later chapter.
Another work that Burton left unfinished was a translation of The Golden Ass of Apuleius—a work known to Englishmen chiefly by Bohn's edition,626and the renderings of the episode of Cupid and Psyche by Adlington and Walter Pater (in Marius the Epicurean). The manuscript of Burton's translation is now in the possession of M. Charles Carrington, the Paris publisher, who is arranging for its completion by a competent hand. The portions due to Burton will, of course, be indicated. These consist of "The Author's Intent," about two pages small 4to; nearly all the story of Cupid and Psyche; and fragments of Books 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 10 and 11.627
On 30th September Burton wrote again to Mr. W. F. Kirby. "Your collaboration," he says, "has been most valuable to me. Your knowledge of Folk Lore is not only ample, it is collected and controlled by the habit of accuracy which Science gives and which I find in all your writings upon imaginative subjects.... Let me hope that new scenes will not cause you to forget old subjects, and remind you of the infinite important fact that I am a subscriber to the Kalevala."
As we have seen, Burton had for some months shown signs of bodily decay; and he now daily grew weaker. His eyes, though still fierce and penetrating, were sunk into hollow cavities. His body was emaciated, his hands were thin to transparency, his voice was sometimes inarticulate, and he could hardly walk without support. Still, there seemed no immediate cause for anxiety, and, as will be seen from the following letter628(15th October 1890) to Mr. David MacRitchie, he was busy evolving new plans, including a visit to Greece, to be made in the company of Dr. Schliemann,629the archaeologist. "In the spring of next year (Inshallah!) there will be a total disruption of my Lares and Penates. I shall be 'retired for age,' and leave Trieste for ever with my mental eye upon a flat in London which can be locked up at a moment's notice when the renter wants to go abroad. Meanwhile we are off to Athens about mid-November. All luck to the [Gypsy] Society." On the same day he wrote to Mr. W. F. Kirby: "Excuse post-card. We have no secrets. Please don't forget to keep me au courant of your movements in re Jan., &c. We shall not be in London before early September 1891, I imagine, but then it will be for good." Elsewhere he says, almost in the words of Ovid, "My earnest wish is somehow to depart from these regions." He was to depart, very soon, but in a manner little expected.
Sir Richard as we have noticed, would never say "Good-bye." It was always "Au revoir." One day in this October Miss Letchford went to see him with her little sister. It was tea-time, but Lady Burton was in another room with a visitor. Never had he appeared so bright or affectionate. He laughed and joked and teased the child and would not let them go for two hours. At last he shook hands and said, "Come and see me again very soon. I like you and your sister.—-Good-bye, Daisy." "I was so startled," comments Miss Letchford, "by that 'Good-bye' that a shiver passed over me. I felt at that moment that I should never see him again." Two days later Mr. Albert Letchford called on Sir Richard, who seemed fairly well, but he remarked "The good Switzerland did me ended this evening."
Dr. Baker, though himself just then a great sufferer from neuralgic headache, watched with anxious solicitude over his patient. On the last day of his life Sir Richard seemed better than usual, and all the household remarked his excellent spirits. It was Sunday October 29th. After returning from mass and communion at eight in the morning Lady Burton found him engaged upon the last page of the twentieth chapter of The Scented Garden.630The work was therefore almost half done. She kissed him, and he said, "To-morrow I shall have finished this, and then I will begin our biography." She commented "What happiness that will be!" Her mind, however, was not quite at ease that morning, for a bird had pecked for the third time at a window that was never opened, and Sir Richard remarked "This is a sign of death."
The day was fine, and after breakfast Burton took his usual two hours' walk with Dr. Baker. On the way out through the garden he noticed a robin drowning in the basin of a fountain.631At his request Dr. Baker rescued it, and Burton, opening his coat and vest—for he never wore a waistcoat—warmed the bird at his breast, and then carried it to the house to be cared for by the porter. The incident carries us back to those old days at Tours, when, as a boy, he often laid himself out to revive unfortunate birds and small beasts. In the afternoon he wrote some letters and discussed gaily the proposed visit to Greece. They dined at half-past seven, and talked and laughed as usual, though Burton seemed tired. As usual, too, he shocked his wife by jesting about scapularies and other sacred things, but the conversation ran chiefly on General Booth's scheme for relieving the Submerged Tenth; and Burton, who entered into the subject with zest, observed: "When you and I get to England and are quite free we will give our spare time to that."632
In the course of the day Mrs. Victoria Maylor came in with the manuscript of The Scented Garden and the copy of it which she had made for the printers,633and from this we may deduce that Sir Richard intended to go to press at once with the first twenty chapters of the work. He may have intended to publish the twenty-first chapter later as a second volume. At half-past nine he retired to his bedroom. Lady Burton then repeated "the night prayers to him," and while she was speaking "a dog," to use her own words, "began that dreadful howl which the superstitious regard as the harbinger of death."
After prayers, Burton asked for "chou-chou;" she game him a paper-covered copy in two volumes of the Martyrdom of Madeline634by Robert Buchanan, and he lay in bed reading it. At midnight he complained of pain in his foot, but said he believed it was only a return of the gout—the "healthy gout," which troubled him about every three months.
"Let me call Dr. Baker," said Lady Burton.
"No," replied Sir Richard, "don't disturb him poor fellow, he has been in frightful pain with his head; and has at last got a little sleep."
At four, however, Lady Burton paid no heed to her husband's remonstrances, but called up Dr. Baker, who, however, saw no cause for alarm, and after administering some medicine he returned to bed. Half an hour later Burton complained that there was no air, and Lady Burton, again thoroughly alarmed, rose to call in Dr. Baker once more.
Although Burton was then dying, he said, "Poor chap, don't disturb him."
But Lady Burton instantly summoned Dr. Baker, who on entering pronounced the situation grave. Lady Burton at once roused the servants and sent in all directions for a priest; while, assisted by Dr. Baker and Lisa, she "tried every remedy and restorative," but in vain.
"Oh, Puss," cried Burton, "chloroform—ether—quick!"
"My darling," replied Lady Burton in anguish. "Dr. Baker says it would kill you. He is doing everything possible."
His breathing then became laboured, and after a brief struggle for air he cried, "I am dying, I am dead." Lady Burton held him in her arms, but he got heavier, and presently became insensible. Dr Baker applied an electric battery to the heart, and Lady Burton kneeling at the bedside, and holding her husband's hand, prayed her "heart out to God to keep his soul there (though he might be dead in appearance) till the priest arrived." But it was in vain. The priest, a Slavonian, named Pietro Martelani, came in about half-past six. We may regret what followed, but no one would judge harshly the actions of an agonised woman. Pity for human suffering must drown all other feelings. The priest looked at the dead but warm body and asked whether there was still any life. That the heart and pulsed had ceased to beat, Lady Burton herself afterwards admitted to her relations, but deceiving herself with the belief that life still continued in the brain, she cried: "He is alive, but I beseech you, lose not a moment, for the soul is passing away."
"If," said the Priest, "he is a Protestant, he cannot receive the Holy Sacrament in this way."
Lady Burton having declared that her husband "had abjured the heresy and belonged to the Catholic Church," the priest at once administered "the last comforts."
It was certainly a kind of consolation to the poor lady to feel that her husband had not departed unhouselled; but it is equally evident that her mind had given way, for the scenes that presently followed can be explained only on this assumption.635
Dr. Baker at once sent a brief note to Mr. Letchford. Singularly enough the night before—that is the terrible Sunday night—Miss Daisy Letchford experienced "a strange instance of telepathy." "My brother," she says, "had gone out, and I waited alone for him. Suddenly I fancied I heard footsteps in the passage and stopping at the door of the room where I was reading. I felt drops of cold sweat on my forehead. I was afraid, yet I knew that no one was about at that time of the night. The door opened slowly, and I felt the impression of some one looking at me. I dared not raise my eyes. The footsteps seemed to approach. In a fit of fear I looked up and saw Sir Richard standing before me. He started, waved his hand and disappeared. Early in the morning came a ring at the bell. I jumped out of bed and burst into tears as I said, 'This is to tell us that Sir Richard is dead.' At that moment the maid brought in the letter for my brother from Dr. Baker. I ran with it into his room. 'Albert, Albert,' I cried, 'Sir Richard is dead.' He opened the letter. It was only too true."
The same morning, Mr. P. P. Cautley, the Vice Consul, was called up to the house.
The undertaker, who was already there, asked in Mr. Cautley's presence to what religion Sir Richard belonged.
Turning to Mr. Cautley, Lady Burton asked: "What religion shall I say?"
"Tell him Sir Richard's true religion," replied Mr. Cautley.636
She then said, "Catholic."
"But!" interjected Mr. Cautley.
"YES," followed Lady Burton, "he was a Catholic."
Lady Burton still nursed the hope that Sir Richard was not quite dead. There was life in the brain, she persisted in saying. Would he revive? "For forty-eight hours," she tells us, "she knelt watching him." She could not shed a tear. Then she "had the ulnar nerve opened and strong electricity applied to make sure of his death."
Some months after, when her mind had regained its equilibrium, she observed to Major St. George Burton.637"To a Protestant, Dick's reception into the Holy Church must seem meaningless and void. He was dead before extreme unction was administered; and my sole idea was to satisfy myself that he and I would be buried according to the Catholic rites and lie together above ground in the Catholic cemetery. He was not strictly received, for he was dead, and the formula Si es capax, &c., saved the priest's face and satisfied the church." When mortification began to set in, the body, which was found to be covered with scars, the witnesses of a hundred fights, was embalmed, laid out in uniform, and surrounded with candles and wreaths. "He looked so sweet," says Lady Burton, "such an adorable dignity, like a sleep."638Behind the bed still hung the great map of Africa. On his breast Lady Burton had placed a crucifix, and he still wore the steel chain and the "Blessed Virgin Medal," which she had given him just before the Tanganyika journey.
Priests, pious persons, and children from the orphanage of St. Joseph, in which Lady Burton had taken so much interest, watched and prayed, recited the office for the dead, and sang hymns.
There were three distinct funerals at Trieste, and there was to be another nine months onward in England. All that can be said is that Lady Burton seemed to draw comfort from pageantry and ceremonial that to most mourners would have been only a long-drawn agony.
The procession was a royal one. The coffin was covered with the Union Jack, and behind it were borne on a cushion Burton's order and medals. Then followed a carriage with a pyramid of wreaths, and lastly, the children of St. Joseph's orphanage, a regiment of infantry and the governor and officials of Trieste.
Every flag in the town was half-mast high, multitudes thronged the streets, and every window and balcony was crowded. Every head was uncovered. The procession wound its way from the Palazzo Gosleth down the declivity into the city under a bright sun pouring down its full beams, and so onward through the serried masses of spectators to the cemetery. Writing to Lady Stisted,639Lady Burton says, "I did not have him buried, but had a private room in the cemetery [a "chapelle ardente"] consecrated (with windows and doors on the ground floor) above ground where I can go and sit with him every day. He had three church services performed over him, and 1,100 masses said for the repose of his soul." "For the man," commented the profane, "who, in his own words, 'protested against the whole business,' perhaps 1,100 masses would not have been enough." In an oration delivered in the Diet of Trieste, Dr. Cambon called him an intrepid explorer, a gallant soldier, an honour to the town of Trieste." The whole press of the world rang with his praises. The noble tribute paid to his memory by Algernon C. Swinburne has often been quoted: