‘No spring or summer beauty hath such graceAs I have seen on one autumnal face.’
‘No spring or summer beauty hath such graceAs I have seen on one autumnal face.’
She lives so far more in the heavenly than the earthly horizons, that one feels raised above earth whilst one is with her. She spoke of the impossibility of believing in eternity of punishment, yet of the mass of difficulties besetting all explanations. She talked of a woman in the village in failing health and unhappy. Being asked if she was not troubled in her mind, she confessed that she was, but said, ‘It is not for want of light; I have had plenty of light.’ She said her father had said to her, ‘Now if you go to hell, Hannah, it will not be for want of light.’
“Some one had urged Lady Suffolk to go and hear Moody and Sankey, because their sermons on heaven were such a refreshment and rest: she had gone, and the sermon had all been about hell.
“Lady Victoria drove me to Malmesbury. The town cross is beautiful. The Abbey is a gigantic remnant of a colossal whole; the existing church being about two-thirds of the nave of the original abbey-church, entered by a magnificent Norman door. By the altaris a tomb to King Athelstan, erected some centuries after his death, and there is a gallery like Prior Bolton’s in Smithfield.”
“June 18.—I sleep at Charlton in the ‘king’s room,’ so called from James II. It is hung with tapestry and old pictures. As we were going to bed, Andover said, ‘You sleep in the haunted room.’ Consequently every noise, which I had never observed before, troubled me through the night. One ought never to betoldthat a room is haunted.
“Conversation has been much about Mrs. Wagstaff, a homœopathic clairvoyant, wife of an allopathic doctor at Leighton Buzzard. She comes up to London if desired, and works wonderful cures.Inher trances her conversation is most remarkable, but out of them she is a very ordinary person. She never remembers when awake having seen any one (with her eyes half-open) in a trance, but meets as a perfect stranger the person she has just been talking to for half-an-hour.
“It was odd on Sunday having no service in church till six in the evening, but certainly very pleasant. We walked in the park beforehand to Sans Souci, a pretty wood in which a clear stream has its source, throwing up the sand in the oddest way in a large round basin. Numbers of trees were lying about, cut down, as Andover said, ‘to meet the annual demand for the needy.’”
“June 19.—The Andovers’ little girl is most amusing. At six, if she catches a new word, she uses itwithout the slightest idea as to its meaning. Her maid Sabina went to her to-day and said, ‘Now, Miss Howard, I must put on your things, for you must go out.’—‘No, Sabina, you must not,’ promptly said ‘Tiny-Wee.’—‘But I really must, Miss Howard,’ said Sabina.—‘No, Sabina, you must not,’ persisted Tiny-Wee.—‘And why, Miss Howard?’ said Sabina.—‘Because, Sabina, it isco-eternal,’ said Tiny-Wee very solemnly; and Sabina was utterly quelled and gave way at once. It is needless to say that Tiny had been to church and heard the Athanasian Creed.
“Andover has been describing a clergyman who preached on the fatted calf, and sought his words as well as his ideas as he proceeded extempore, and said, ‘He came home, my brethren, he came home to his father, to his dear father, and his father killed for him the fatted calf, which he had been saving up for years, my brethren—saving up foryearsfor some festive occasion.’
“He told of an American who never was in time for anything in his life, was unpunctual for everything systematically. One day, in a very out-of-the-way place, he fell into a cataleptic state, and was supposed to be dead. According to the rapidity of American movement, instead of bringing the undertaker to him, they took him to the undertaker, who fitted him with a coffin and left him, only laying the coffin lid loosely on the outside of it. In the middle of the night he awoke from his trance, pushed off the lid, and finding himself in a place alone surrounded by a quantity of coffins, he jumped up and pushed off the lid of the coffin nearest to him. He found nothing. He triedanother: nothing. ‘Good God!’ he cried, ‘I’ve been late all my life, and now I’m late for the resurrection!’”
“June 20.—Yesterday we had a delightful drive to see Lady Cowley at Draycot, a most charming place of happy medium size, in a park full of fern and old oaks. Lord Mornington, who left it to the Cowleys, was quite a distant cousin, and they expected nothing. He came to dine with them occasionally at Paris, he mounted Lady Feodore for the Bois de Boulogne, and one day they suddenly found themselves the heirs of Draycot, perfectly fitted up with everything they could possibly wish for. It was like a fairy story, and Lady Cowley has never attempted to conceal her enchantment at it.
“To-day we went to a different place—Mr. Holford’s new house of Westonbirt. It is an immense building in a flat, ugly situation. The hall goes up the whole height of the house, with open galleries to the bedrooms, so that every one sees who goes in and out of them. The dining-room has a fine Jacobean chimney-piece and modern Corinthian pillars. There is a great chimney-piece in another room, which was an altar in a church at Rome. All is huge, and seemed very comfortless.
“It has been a most happy visit to the Suffolks, with whom one is completely at home. As Lady Suffolk says, though they have often wished to be rich, they have been much happier for being poor, for they have all been obliged to do their part in the house and place, and all that has to be carried on there, and so it is to them not only the scene of their life, but of their work.”
“June 22.—Yesterday I went to Oxford, and came in, without intending it, for Commemoration. I will never go there again if I can help it. It is like visiting a grave of happy past years.”
“June 28.—Went to Holland House. The deep shade of its lofty avenue is enchanting as one turns in from the baking street of Kensington. Lady Holland sat in the inner room, with her sweet face encircled by the prettiest of old-fashioned caps. Beau Atkinson was with her, with a lovely little Skye dog in his arms, and Lady Lilford with her two fine boys. After talking some time, we wandered into the gardens under the old cedars. When we came in, old Mr. Cheney was leaning over Lady Holland’s chair, chuckling to himself over the dogmatic self-assertion of Mr. Hayward,[204]who was talking to her of books, the value of which he considered to be quite decided by his opinion of them. Especially he talked of Ticknor’s Memoirs, so remarkable because, though he was an American of the most lowly origin, it is evident that when he came to Europe he not only saw the best society of every country he visited, but saw it intimately—which could only have been due to his own personal charm.
“Dined at Lady Barrington’s. She said I must be presented, and George Barrington said he should present me.
“L. was full of a dinner she had been at at Count Beust’s. The Prince Imperial was there, who had always hitherto been regarded as only a pleasant boy, but who electrified them on this occasion by a remarkable flash of wit. It had been impossible to avoid asking the French Ambassador, but Count Beust had taken especial pains to make it as little offensive as possible. He took in the Princess of Wales to supper and placed her at the same table with the Prince Imperial. The Comte and Comtesse d’Harcourt were at another table with the Prince of Wales. Suddenly an offensive pushing man, first secretary to the French embassy, brought Mademoiselle d’Harcourt to the Prince Imperial’s table and sat down. The Prince was very much annoyed. Looking up at a picture of the Emperor of Austria, he asked if it resembled him—‘I do not remember him, I was so very young when I saw him,’ and then in a louder tone, ‘I wonder how the French Ambassador represents the Republic of France on the walls of his rooms.’”
“June 29.—Yesterday I went down into Kent for Miss Virginia Smith’s wedding with young Francis Villiers,[205]toiling in a cab with Lady Craven over the hot chalky hills. The breakfast was at Selsden Park, a lovely place belonging to a child-heiress, Erroll Smith’s daughter.
“Dined with Lady Head, and we went on together to Baroness Burdett Coutts’, where Irving readMacbethto an immense company, chiefly bishops and archbishopsand their belongings. The reading was stilted and quite ineffective.”
“June 30.—A most pleasant party at Lord Ducie’s—Mr. and Miss Froude, Sir James Lacaita, Miss Grant the sculptress, Lord Aberdeen and Lady Katherine, Lord Northbrook and Lady Emma Baring, Lord Camperdown, Mr., Mrs., and Miss Gladstone, Lord Vernon, George and Lady Constance Shaw-Lefevre, &c.
“There was very agreeable conversation, chiefly about Macaulay’s Life—of his wonderful memory and the great power it gave him. Gladstone said the most astonishing thing about him was that he could remember not only the things worth knowing, but the most extraordinary amount of trash. He described another man he knew who, after once reading over the advertisement sheet of theTimes, could repeat it straight through.
“In the evening I was asked to tell a story, and did, feeling that if Irving amused people for about three hundred nights of the year, it was rather hard if I declined to amuse him on one of the remaining sixty-five. He enjoyed it more than any one else, and lingering behind, when all were gone but Mrs. Gladstone and one or two others, said, ‘Now that we are such a very small party, do tell us another.’”
“July 6.—Went by rail with Mr. Ralph Dutton and ‘Beauty Stephens’ to Syon. It is a great house in a low-lying park, on the edge of which the Thames is marked by its great lines of tall sedges and the barges going up and down with music through the flatmeadow-lands. On the parapet of the house is the poor old lion from Northumberland House. The lime-trees were in flower, scenting the whole air.
“Lady Percy received in the gallery, and about two thousand guests were collected on the lawn. I took courage and went and talked to the Japanese ambassadress, who was very smiling, but did not say much beyond ‘Me speak leetle English and no moosh French.’”
“July 7.—Went by water with Mrs. Mostyn, Miss Monk, and Miss Milnes to Fulham. The steamer was actually two hours and a half on the way. There was an interest in recognising a whole gallery of De Wint’s sketches in the tall bosky trees, the weirs, the great water-plants, and still more on the causeway leading from Fulham Church to the palace. It was a gloriously hot day, and very pleasant sitting under the old gateway looking into the sunlit court, with full light on the rich decorations of the brickwork and the massy creepers.
“Afterwards, I was at a beautiful and charming party at Holland House. A number of grown-up royalties and a whole bevy of royal children sat under the trees watching Punch and Judy. The Prince Imperial, with charming natural manners, walked about and talked to every one he knew. I was happy in finding Lady Andover and many other friends. Towards the end, Lady Wynford said the Princess Amelie of Schleswig[206]desired that I might be presented to her, as she had read my books, &c. She is elderly, but enjoys life anddances at all the balls she is asked to, especially at Pau, of which she talked with animation.”
enlarge-imageCOURTYARD, FULHAM PALACE.COURTYARD, FULHAM PALACE.[207]
“July 8.—At luncheon at Lady Alwyn Compton’s I met Lady Marion Alford. There was much talk of the wills of old London citizens—how Mr. Bancroft had desired in his that for a hundred years a loaf of bread and a bottle of wine should be placed in his vault every year on the anniversary of his death, because he was convinced that before that time he should awake from his death-sleep and require it, and the hundred years had only just expired;—of how Jeremy Bentham’s body, in accordance with his will, was produceda year after his death at the feast of a club he had founded, and how all the company fled from it.
“I was afterwards at a breakfast at Lord Bute’s. There were few people I knew there, and the grass was very wet, so I sat under the verandah with the Egertons. Presently an old lady was led out there, very old, and evidently unable to walk, but with a dear beautiful face, dressed in widow’s weeds. She seemed to know no one, so gradually—I do not know how it came about—I gave her a rose, and sat down at her feet on the mat and she talked of many beautiful things. She was evidently sitting in the most peaceful waiting upon the very threshold of the heavenly kingdom. When I was going away she said, ‘I should like to know whom I have been talking to.’ I said, ‘My name is Augustus Hare.’ She said, ‘I divined that when you gave me the flower.’ I have not a notion who she was.[208]
“I dined at Sir John Lefevre’s, and was pained to see how weak and failing he looks. The Rianos were there and Sir James Lacaita, and in the evening Lady Ducie came in, radiant with goodness and beauty.”
“July 11.—A very pleasant dinner at Lord Ebury’s. He overflows with kindness. He said, ‘If this hot weather is trying for you and me, it is very good for the corn: that hardens, while we melt.’”
“July 13.—Luncheon with Sir C. Trevelyan, who showed me Macaulay’s library, and then drove me tosee the remnant of the house of Villiers, Duke of Buckingham, in Villiers Street. Peter the Great lived there when in London, and David Copperfield is made to lodge there by Dickens.
“Dined at Lord Cardwell’s, where I sat by George Otto Trevelyan, the author of Lord Macaulay’s Life. At Lord Sherborne’s in the evening I found Irving, with all the three hundred nights of hisHamletwritten on his face. I was introduced to Dr. Ellicott, Bishop of Gloucester and Bristol, a little dapper man in a violet coat.”
“July 14.—Luncheon at Mrs. Lowe’s. She was most amusing about her pets. ‘Mr. Lowe, you know, is always going out and bringing home a new animal: he does like pets so. He went and he bought a dog, and then he went and bought a parrot, and then he bought a cockatoo and a cat, and I said, “Mr. Lowe, if you go and buy any more pets, I will go out of the house, because I willnotbear it,” and then Mr. Lowe went and bought Bow-wow, the little white dog, and it had not cut its teeth, and it was so dreadfully ill, and we had to nurse it, and it gave us more trouble than all the other pets put together; and I like Bow-wow the best of them all, and Mrs. Scutt (that’s the housekeeper) is just the same.
“‘I said to Mr. Lowe, “If you will go downstairs with that cockatoo on your shoulder, it will fly away out of the window, and you’ll lose him,” but Mr. Lowe would do it, you know, he’s so obstinate; and it was just as I said, and the cockatoo flew out of the staircase window, and Mr. Lowe was in a fine way abouthim. There are a lot of boys watching for him now, and he’ll come back some day, for every one knows Mr. Lowe’s cockatoo: but he won’t come back yet. And finely he’s enjoying himself, that bird is; he’s never had such a fine time in his life; he’s finished all the cherries in Eldon Grove, and he’s just beginning upon the gooseberries.
“‘When we drive down to Caterham, Bow-wow and Elfin, the two dogs, sit upon the back-seat, and the cat sits in the middle. They look out of the windows and amuse themselves wonderfully, and finely the people stare.
“‘When I first married Mr. Lowe we lived at Oxford. It was quite delightful: we had all the interesting society of the University, and Mr. Lowe was a tutor and taught all the clever young men. When we went up to London, we hired a coach, and had six first-class men inside, all Mr. Lowe’s pupils. Then Mr. Lowe’s eyes failed, and we threw it all up and went to Australia, and were away six years; but it answered to us, for I had some money left to me at that time, and Mr. Lowe had some money left to him, and we invested it there in houses, and they pay us 60 per cent., and we made our fortunes.
“‘How sad the Duchess of —— going away is! She cried so dreadfully when she went, that I am sure it’s for ever. Don’t you think, if I had had a dreadful quarrel with Mr. Lowe, and we had parted for ever, that I should cry too? It is a very different thing when it is not for ever. I go off to Wiesbaden for six weeks, and I wish Mr. Lowe good-bye, and I say, “Well, good-bye, Mr. Lowe; in six weeks you’llhave me back again,” and if we have quarrelled, it does not signify; but it would be very different if it was for ever. Why, I should cry my eyes out.’
“One day, however, when Mrs. Lowe was inveighing against the absurdity of the marriage service—of the bridegroom’s statement, ‘With all my worldly goods I thee endow,’ even when he possessed nothing and it was just the other way, and when she was saying, ‘Now when I married Mr. Lowe, he had nothing whatever but his brains’—a deep voice from the end of the room growled out, ‘Well, my love, I certainly did not endow you with those.’
“‘Why contend against your natural advantages?’ said Mr. Lowe one day to a deaf friend who was holding up an ear-trumpet to listen to a bore.
“In the afternoon I drove down with Lady Sherborne, Miss Dutton, and Miss Elliot to see Lord Russell at Pembroke Lodge. It is a beautiful place; not merely a bit of Richmond Park, but a bit of old forest enclosed, with grand old oaks and fern. The Queen gives it to Lord Russell, who, at eighty-four,[209]was seated in a Bath-chair in the garden, on a sort of bowling-green, watching his grandsons play at tennis. Though he no longer comprehends present events, he is said to be perfectly clear about a far-away past, and will converse at any length about Napoleon, the escape from Elba, &c. When I was presented to him, by way of something to say, I spoke of having seen the historical mound in his garden, and asked what it was that Henry VIII. watched for from thence as a death-signal, ‘was it a rocket or a black flag?’
“‘It was a rocket.’
“‘Then that would imply that the execution was at night, for he would hardly have seen a rocket by day.’
“‘No, it was not at night; it was very early in the morning. She was a very much maligned woman was that Anne Boleyn.’
“We all sat by a fountain under the oak-trees, and then went into the house to a sort of five-o’clock tea on a large scale.”
“Holmhurst, July 15.—Returned to the dear little home, where I found Charlotte Leycester sitting on the terrace surrounded by the dogs, looking on the lovely view from our greenery. The intense freshness of the air, the glory of the flowers, the deep blue sea beyond our upland hayfields, and the tame doves cooing in the copper beech-tree, are certainly a refreshing contrast to London, though I should never have been able to leave it unless Duty had pulled at me.”
“Highcliffe, July 24.—In this most unearthly Paradise all looks like last year going on still—the huge stems of chestnut, and the white lilies and bulrushes in the great vase relieved against the old boiserie of the saloon; the wide window-porch open to the fountain and orange-trees and sunlit terraces and sea; Lady Waterford coming in her hat and long sweeping dress through the narrow wind-blown arbutus avenue; old Mrs. Hamilton-Hamilton in her pleasant sitting-room, with Miss Lindsay hovering about and waitingon her like a maid-of-honour; the Ellices, so cordial and pleasant, so beaming with kindness and goodness, their largeness of heart quite preventing their being able to indulge in the sectarian part of their own religious ideas.... I have felt, as I always do very shy at first, and then entirely at home.”
enlarge-imageHOLMHURST.HOLMHURST.
“July 25.—We have all, I think, basked as much in the mental sunshine of this beautiful life as in the external sunshine which illumines the brilliant flowers and glancing sea.
“We walked on the shore this afternoon. ‘See what festival the sea has been making, and what beautiful coloured weeds she has been scattering,’ said Lady Waterford. We found two little boots projecting from the sand, and as we dug them out and found themfilledand stiff, we really expected a drowned child to follow; but it was only sand that filled them, and the little Payne child of Chewton Bunny had lost them when bathing. As we sat on the shore while Lady Waterford looked for fossils, a staith came down from the Bunny and flooded the little stream into a river, cutting off our return. We, the male part, crossed much higher up: Lady Waterford plunged in and walked: Lady Jane took off shoes and stockings and waded.
“Lady Waterford has talked much of marriages—how even indifferent marriages tone down into a degree of comfort which is better for most women than desolation.”
“July 26.—We walked in the evening to the Haven House. The old pine-wood, with its roots writhing out of the sand, and its lovely views, over still reaches of water to the great grey church, and the herons fishing, are more picturesque than ever. Afterwards Lady Herbert of Lea arrived with her beautiful daughter Gladys.[210]Lady Herbert is suffering still from the bite of a scorpion when she was drawing in the ruins of Karnac.”
enlarge-imageLouisa, Marchioness of Waterford. From a Photograph by W. J. Reed. Bournamouth.Louisa, Marchioness of Waterford.From a Photograph by W. J. Reed. Bournamouth.
“July 29.—In the afternoon I went with Lady Waterford to General Maberly, who talked, as itseemed to me, very sensibly about the exaggerations of teetotalism. He thought that every one should do as they pleased, and that it was wrong of a great landowner to prevent the existence of a public-house on his estate: that it was following the teaching of the Baptist rather than that of our Saviour, for ‘was not our Saviour a wine-bibber?’
“Lady Waterford has been speaking of sympathy for others; that there is nothing more distressing than to see another personmortified.
“‘Mama could never bear to see any one mortified. Once at Paris, at a ball they had, there was a poor lady, and not only her chignon, but the whole edifice of hair she had, fell off in the dance. And Mama was so sorry for her, and, when all the ladies tittered, as she was Madame l’Ambassadrice and a person of some influence, I don’t think it was wrong of her to apply the verse, and she said, “Let the woman among us who has no false hair be the first to throw a stone at her.”’
“July 30.—Hamilton Aïdé says he went to visit two or three times at a lunatic asylum. The matron, a very nice person, said, ‘There is here a very extraordinary example of a person who has become quite mad, and only from vanity.’ He went to see her. It was a very old lady, with great traces of beauty and dignity of manner, but she wore the most extraordinary bonnet, very large, and from the fringe hung a pair of scissors, a thimble, and a needle-book. He made a civil speech to her about being glad to see her looking so well, or something of that kind. In replyshe only just looked up and said, ‘For further information refer to the 25th chapter of the second Book of Kings,’ and took no more notice whatever.”
“July 31.—Lady Jane Ellice says that there are three shades of people one likes—those whom one must see in heaven, for it would not be heaven without them: those whom one hopes to see in heaven and to meet there: and those whom one hopes will beinheaven but that one will not see them there. Her singing this evening of ‘Zurich’s Blue Waters,’ ‘Three Blue Bottles,’ &c., has been perfectly charming.
“Lady Waterford has been telling of Ruskin ‘like a little wizened rat.’ ‘He likes to be adored, but then Somers and I did adore him, and he likes to lash his disciples with rods of iron. I do not mind that: it is his jokes I cannot bear; they make me so sorry and miserable for him.’”
“August 3.—Lady Waterford said that Lady Stuart, when a Frenchman tried to talk to her in very bad English, told him she preferred talking French. ‘Ah,’ he said, ‘vous aimez mieux, Madame, écorcher les oreilles des autres, qu’on vous écorche vos oreilles.’”
“August 5.—I have left Highcliffe, and the gates of Paradise seem closed for a year. There has been the usual perfect confidence about everything through the whole party: the pleasant going backwards and forwards to ‘Hamilton Place,’ and the waiting upon old Mrs. Hamilton of her ‘equerry’ and her ‘maid-of-honour:’ the many friendly snubs and contradictionswhich rail at all the smallnesses and ennoble all the higher aims of life. After luncheon we all sat in the porch surrounded by the great lilies and geraniums in flower and we had coffee there, looking upon the Isle of Wight with the Needles looming through the mist: then we parted.
“It was a long drive in pouring rain from Southampton to Sydney Lodge, where I found a warm welcome from dear old Lady Hardwicke.[211]It is a moderate house, with large gardens, into which bits of old forest are interwoven. This morning we drove to Eliot Yorke’s house at Netley Fort, an old tower of the monks, in front of which theMayflowerset sail. The situation is lovely, close to the sea, with a hilly garden in miniature and a machicolated tower rising out of ivy walls like a scene in a play. But the great charm is in Eliot himself, so handsome, with such a pleasant smile and melodious voice. His Jewess wife, Agneta Montagu, and Hinchinbroke were there. From the garden we went to the Abbey, where I drew while Hinchinbroke amused himself by pretending to make love to an old lady (‘Jemima Anne’) who was peering about in spectacles amongst the arches. When we went back, boats were arriving from Cowes at the little wharf—the Prince Imperial with the Duke and Duchess of St. Albans and a crowd of others. The Prince has the most pleasant, frank, simple manners, and makes himself agreeable to every one. He was much amused with the quantities of Yorkes who seemed to crop up from every house round, and saidhe ‘thought he must have landed by mistake on the coast of Yorkshire.’ His arm was in a sling, and he looked pale and fagged, for somehow, in playing at leap-frog with his ‘camarades,’ he had tumbled into a camp-fire, and, to save his face, had instinctively put out his hands, and burnt the whole skin off one of them. It must have been terrible agony, but he never complained.”
“August 6.—The Yorkes are absolutely devoted to each other. There is such family loyalty that every peccadillo is consecrated. I certainly do not wonder at their love for Eliot; he has such a sweet though frank manner, and is so genial and kind to every one.[212]L. has been talking of the advantages of even an unhappy married life over a single one, as exemplified by the poor Empress, who herself said, ‘C’est mieux d’être mal à deux que d’être seule.’
“L. was at a party at Mrs. Brand’s, sitting by Lady Cork, when Lady Francis Gordon came up to her. ‘Come, Lady Cork, can you spell in five letters the three scourges of society?’ (drink, rink, ink). ‘No,’ said Lady Cork instantly, ‘that I cannot do, but I can spell in two letters the two blessings of society—U and I.’
“Mrs. Eliot Yorke is exceedingly pleasing and much beloved in her husband’s family. Amongst the few Jews I have known, I have always found the women infinitely superior to the men, and this is especially the case with the Rothschilds. Some one once made an observation of this kind to Rogers the poet.‘Yes,’ he said, ‘the men crucified Him, but the women—wept.’”
“August 12.—Last Monday I went to Cobham for a few days, arriving just as the setting sun was illuminating the grand old red brick house deeply set in its massy woods. A large party was assembled, its most interesting element being Fanny, Lady Winchilsea, who is always delightful. Archdeacon Cust told me a curious story of a Mr. Phipps, a clergyman at Slough. He asked him if he was related to Lord Normanby’s family, and he said they were related, but that they had never known one another, and that the reason was a strange one. His father had been residing at Caen, where they had become very intimate with a French family called Beaurepaire. After his father left Caen, the great Revolution occurred, and all the Beaurepaire family perished on the scaffold except the youngest daughter, who, for some unknown reason, was spared. Having no relation left alive, she was utterly desolate, and felt that no one in the world cared for her but young Phipps, the son of her former neighbour, who had evinced an attachment for her. So to the Phipps family she somehow made her way; but they, disapproving the attachment, were all excessively unkind to her, except one sister, who received her, and went out with her to India, where her brother was then supposed to be. But when they reached India, they found, with despair, that Phipps had left and gone to Egypt. Thither, however, they pursued him, and there Mademoiselle de Beaurepaire was married to him. Young Phipps would neverforgive the unkindness which had been shown to his wife by his family, and the two branches of the Phipps family were never afterwards friends.
“A schoolmaster near Cobham, named King, for some reason best known to himself, has abolished the game of football—a most unpopular move. The boys were furious, and one day, when the master entered the schoolroom, he found ‘King is a donkey’ chalked up in large letters on a board. For an instant he was perplexed; but it would never do to take no notice. He left the inscription, but added the single word—‘driver.’ The boys quite saw the joke, and the master’s prestige was restored.”
“Ampthill Park, August 29, 1876.—I came here on Monday, stopping some hours in London on the way, and finding out ancient treasures in the purlieus of Soho and St. Giles’s, which, black and filthy as they are, are still full of reminiscences.
“At St. Pancras Station I saw a very ancient lady in a yellow wig step into a railway carriage by herself, and her footman guard the door till the train started, and I felt sure it was the Dowager Duchess of Cleveland. At Ampthill Station the Lowther carriage was waiting for both of us, and we drove off together. She talked the whole way, but the carriage rumbled so that I could hardly hear a word she said, except that when I remarked ‘What a fine tree!’ as we entered the park, she answered rather sharply ‘Thatwasa fine tree.’ She spoke too of the Lowther boys—‘They are having their vacancies. I like that word vacancies,’ she said.
enlarge-imageCHURCHYARD OF ST. ANNE, SOHO.CHURCHYARD OF ST. ANNE, SOHO.[213]
“It is a fine wild park, with most unexpected ups and downs and a great deal of grand old timber, on a ridge rising high above the blue Bedfordshire plain, in the midst of which a spire rising out of a little drift of smoke indicates the town of Bedford. On one of the highest points of the ridge a cross raised on steps marks the site of the royal residence where Katherine of Arragon lived for most of her semi-widowhood, and where Anne Boleyn shot stags in a green velvet train.The later house, approached on the garden side by a narrow downhill avenue half a mile long, is in the old French style, with posts and chains, broad steps widening at the top, and aperron.... The Duchess, at eighty-four, talked most pleasantly and interestingly all evening. Lady Wensleydale, in her high cap and large chair, with her sweet face and expression, sat by like an old picture. There is a picture of her thus, by Pointer, surrounded by great white azaleas, but it does not do her justice.
“Yesterday I drove with James, Mildred, and Cecil Lowther to Wrest. It is a most stately place, one of the stateliest I have ever seen. The gardens were all laid out by Le Nôtre, and the house was of that period. Lord De Grey pulled down the house, and found it rested on no foundations whatever, but on the bare ground. It was so thin, that when the still-room maid complained that her room was rather dark, the footman took out his penknife and cut her a square hole for a window in the plaster wall. Capability Brown was employed to rearrange the gardens, which were thought hideous at one time; but though he spoilt so many other places, he had sense to admire the work of Le Notre so much here, that he made no alterations, except throwing a number of round and oblong tanks into one long canal, which, on the whole, is rather an improvement. The modern house is magnificent, and like what Chantilly must have been.
“On the vast flagged terrace in front of the windows we found Lady Cowper[214]sitting in an old-fashionedblack silk dress and tight white bonnet. She has a most sweet face, and was very kind and charming in her manner. I walked with her for a long time on the terrace, looking down on the brilliant gardens, and beyond them upon equally brilliant groups of people, for it was the annual meeting of the great Bedfordshire tennis club, for which she always gives a breakfast. She told the whole story of the place, and took me to see all the finest points of view and the great collection of fine orange-trees brought from Versailles. She greatly lamented the prudishness of her great-aunt (Lady De Grey), through whom her grandmother had derived the place, who thought most of the old French statues—which, according to the custom of that day, were made of lead—to be insufficiently dressed, and so sold them for the value of the metal, at the same time that she sold an incomparable collection of old plate, for the same reason, for its weight in silver. She showed one of the statues, backed by a yew hedge some centuries old. ‘That poor lady, you see, was saved when all the others were sent away, because she had got a few clothes on.’ Lord De Grey had replaced some of the statues, and Lady Cowper herself had added a most beautiful fountain from Carrara, with a very flat basin.
“Lady Cowper talked much of my mother and the ‘Memorials’ and of ‘my sister Lady Jocelyn.’ She spoke of the extreme quietude of her own life. ‘A day like this (pointing out the crowd below) shows me that what this place wants is—people, and I never have any. I think I must hire some puppets to walk about and represent them.’ There are a number of inscriptionsin the grounds to different past-members of the family and their friends. Lady Cowper said that Lady Palmerston, who was very matter-of-fact, thought that of course they were buried there, and said, ‘How I do pity Anne, living alone at Wrest, surrounded by all those graves of her family.’ Graves, however, there are, but of deceased dogs, a regular burial-ground, with headstones like those in a churchyard, surrounded by a wall of clipped yew.
“I was very glad to find Henry Cowper, who showed me the rooms, which were full of people for the ‘breakfast,’ but I saw the two great Sir Joshuas, which are magnificent, especially that of Lady Lucas and Lady Grantham, as very young girls, with a bird.
“In the evening at Ampthill I told the story of Mary-Eleanor, Lady Strathmore, to which Lady Wensleydale added her reminiscence of having been told, at four years old, of Stoney Bowes having ‘nailed his wife’s tongue to a table.’”
“August 30.—Yesterday I drew with Miss Lowther at the ruins of Houghton Hall, the old home of the Russells, where Philip Sidney wrote verses under the trees. It is a very stately though not a large house, and beautiful in colour, from the mixture of red brick and yellow-lichened stone. A great avenue, now utterly ruined, leads away from it direct to Bedford, which lies six miles away in the elm-lined plain. It was deserted because Lord Tavistock, returning from hunting, was thrown from his horse and killed on the spot in the presence of his wife, who was waiting forhim on the doorstep: the family could never bear to live there again.[215]
“After luncheon, I walked with the old Duchess in the avenue. She described being couched. ‘Did you take chloroform?’—‘Oh, certainly not: no such thing: I should not have thought of it. Don’tyouknow that couching is a very dangerous operation? the very slightest movement might be fatal to it. I did not know what might happen under chloroform, but I knew thatIshould never flinch if I had my senses, and I never did: and in three weeks, though I was still bandaged up, I was out walking.’
“‘What was worse than becoming blind in my case,’ said the Duchess, ‘was breaking my knee-pan, for then, you know, one bone goes up and the other goes down, and you never really have the use of your knee again.’
“‘And yet here you are walking, Duchess.’
“‘Yes, certainlyIam. Prescott Hewitt said I never should walk again, and I said “Yes, I should,”—and he answered, “Ah! well, with you perhaps it is different; you belong to a family that have got a will;” and I walk, but I walk by the sheer force ofwill.’
“The Duchess said she remembered old Lady Penrhyn and her pugs, and their being dressed like children, and keeping a footman, and having a key of Grosvenor Square.
“In the evening I drove with Mr. Lowther toHaynes, till lately written Hawnes, the fine old place of Lord John Thynne (Sub-Dean of Westminster), which he inherited from his uncle, Lord Carteret. We met the old man riding in his park, and so much taken up with a sick cow that he almost ignored us. But when we had walked round by the charming old-fashioned gardens, we found him waiting for us on the garden doorstep, all courtesy and kindness. Several sons and daughters-in-law dropped in to tea in a kind of passage-room, but Lord John took me to see all the curiosities of the house himself, and warmed up over them greatly. There is a most noble staircase and a very fine collection of family portraits. In the drawing-room is that of Lady Ann Carteret in a white satin dress, which she always wore, and is always remembered still as ‘The White Lady.’ Her husband was Jack Spencer, of whom there is also a fine picture. His grandmother, Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, one day said to him suddenly, ‘Jack, you must marry, and I will give you a list of the ladies you may propose to.’—‘Very well, grannie,’ he said, and he proposed to the first on the list. When he came back with his wife from their wedding tour they went to pay their respects to the old lady. ‘Well, now,’ she said, ‘I am the root and you are only the branches, and therefore you must always pay me a great deal of deference.’—‘That is all very well,’ said Jack impertinently, ‘but I think the branches would flourish a great deal better if the root was under ground.’
“There is a great collection of small treasures at Haynes—snuff-boxes of royal persons, of Lord Chesterfield, &c., and one with a portrait of a ladyancestress,—‘not a good woman, she had nothing but her beauty,’—which takes off and puts on a mask. But the great relic of all is, in its own old shagreen case, the famous Essex ring—a gem beautifully set. With it is a most interesting letter from Weigall, the famous jeweller, explaining a great number of reasons why it must bethering. There is also the pedigree of the ring, which came through the hands of a great number of females—heiresses.
“To-day the Duchess (Dowager of Cleveland) has been talking much of the wicked Duchess of Gordon, her ancestress. She married all her daughters to drunken Dukes. One of them had been intended to marry Lord Brome, but his father, Lord Cornwallis, objected on account of the insanity in the Gordon family. The Duchess sent for him. ‘I understand that you object to my daughter marrying your son on account of the insanity in the Gordon family: now I can solemnly assure you that there is not a single drop of Gordon blood in her veins.’
“The Duchess of Cleveland went out walking this morning in beating rain and bitter wind—blind, broken-kneed, and eighty-four as she is. ‘Well, youarea brave woman, Duchess,’ some one said as she came in. ‘You need not take the trouble to tell me that: I know that Iama brave woman,’ she answered.
“Old Miss Thornton called—Lady Leven’s sister. She talked much of the misuse of charitable funds in dinners to directors, payment of matrons, ex-matrons, &c., and said, ‘There really ought to be a society formed for the demolition of charitable institutions.’
“At dinner the Duchess vehemently inveighedagainst the deterioration of the times. ‘Was there everanythingso ridiculous and uncalled-for as a school-feast?’—‘But it is such a pleasure to the children.’—‘Pleasure to them! In my days people were not always thinking how children were to be amused. Children were able to amuse themselves in my day. It is not only with the lower classes: all classes are the same—the same utterly demoralising system of indulgence everywhere. Why are not the children kept at home to learn to wash and sew and do their duty?’—‘But the school-feast is only one day in the year.’—‘One day in the year! Fiddlesticks! don’t tell me. I tell you it’s utterly demoralising. Why, if the feast is only one day, it unhinges them for ten days before and ten days after.
“‘Formerly, too, people knew how to live like gentlemen and ladies. When they built houses, they built houses fit to live in, not things in which the walls were too thin to allow of the windows having any shutters.... Why, now people do not even know how to keep a great house. Look at ——, do you think she knows it, with her alternate weeks for receiving visitors.Thatis not what ought to be; that is not hospitality. A great house ought to be open always. The master and mistress never ought to feel it a burthen, and if it was properly managed, they never would. There should always be a foundation of guests in the house, a few relations or intimate friends, who would be quite at home there, and who would be civil and go out to walk or drive, or do whatever might be necessary to amuse the others. There ought to be nogêneof any kind, and there ought to beplenty ofequipages—that should be quite indispensable.’
“The conversation fell upon Rogers the poet. ‘Mr. Rogers came here once,’ said Lady Wensleydale, ‘and I did not like him; I thought him so ill-bred. He came with the Duchess of Bedford of that time, who was the most good-natured woman in the world, and when he went out into the park and came in quite late for luncheon, she said he must have some, and went into the dining-room herself to see that he had it properly, and while he was eating cold beef, mixed him herself a kind of salad of oil and vinegar, which she brought to him. He waited a moment, then took up a piece of the beef in his fingers, rolled it in the sauce, and, walking round the table, popped it into the Duchess’s mouth. She went into the drawing-room afterwards and complained to his friend Luttrell about it, “What can I have done that Mr. Rogers should treat me so?” Luttrell said, “I have known Rogers for sixty years, and have never yet been able to account for any one of his vagaries.”
“‘Rogers and Luttrell were great friends, though they always quarrelled. When they walked out together, they never walked side by side, but always one behind the other.
“‘Rogers met Lord Dudley at one of the foreign watering-places, and began in his vain way, “What a terrible thing it is how one’s fame pursues one, and that one can never get away from one’s own identity! Now I sat by a lady the other night, and she began, ‘I feel sure you must be Mr. Rogers.’”—“Andwereyou?” said Lord Dudley, looking up into his facequite innocently. It was the greatest snub the poet ever had.
“‘Rogers hated Monckton Milnes. He was too much of a rival. If Milnes began to talk, Rogers would look at him sourly, and say, “Oh,youwant to hold forth, do you?” and then, turning to the rest of the party, “I am looking for my hat; Mr. Milnes is going to entertain the company.”’
“Holmhurst, Sept. 1.—I had rather dreaded thetête-à-têtejourney with the Duchess to-day, and truly it was a long one, for we had an hour to wait at Ampthill Station, and then missed the express at Bletchley. When we first got into the carriage the Duchess said, ‘Well, now, I am going to be quiet and rest my eyes,’ which I thought was a hint that I was to take my book; but very soon she got bored and said, ‘I can’t see, and am obliged to go on asking the names of the stations for want of being amused;’ so then I was obliged to talk to her all the rest of the way.
“At Ampthill she told me how she was going to London to meet Admiral Inglefield, who was going to help her to ‘pick a child out of the gutter.’ ‘That child,’ she said, ‘will some day be Earl Powlett. Lord Powlett took a wager that he would run away with the lady-love of one of his brother-officers, and he did run away with her; but she made it a condition that he should marry her before a Registrar, which he believed was illegal, but it was not, and they were really married. Her only child, a boy, was brought up in the gutter. His name is Hinton, and he is presentable,[216]which his wife is not, for she is a figurante at the opera; but she gets more than the other danseuses, because she has the courage to stand unsupported upon a tight-rope, which the others have not. Powlett offered his son £400 if he would go away from England and never come back again, but he refused, so then he would only give him £100. He lives by acting at small theatres, but sometimes he does not live, but starves. He had four children, but one is dead. It is the eldest I mean to take away and place with a clergyman and his wife, that he may learn something of being a gentleman. I shall undertake him for three years, then I shall see what he is likely to be fit for. If I live so long, I can settle it; if not, I must leave the means for it. Facts are stranger than fiction.’
“At the stations, the Duchess was perfectly furious at the bonnets she saw. ‘If any respectable persons had gone to sleep twenty years ago and woke up now, they would think it was Bedlam let loose.’ She said how Count Streletski, who had travelled everywhere, said there was no country in which people were satisfied with nature: if tall, they wished to make themselves short; if short, tall: if they were light, they wished to be dark, andvice versâ. She talked of the peculiarities of vanity in different people—how the first Lady Westmoreland made the coiffeur wait and touch her up when she wasinthe carriage.
“The Duchess parted from me at Euston Station, with a cordial invitation to Osterley.”
“Sept. 27.—I have had a constant succession of visitors at my little Holmhurst.
“A singular subject of interest has been Mr. Freeman’s virulent letters against and about me. He seems insane on the subject of creating imaginary injuries.[217]Certainly it is a little annoying to be called a thief in the public papers, though it may be useful for one’s morals. However, ‘Experience is the best teacher, only the school fees are heavy.’”
“Conington Castle, Sept. 29.—I came here yesterday to old Mr. Heathcote’s. It is a low-lying place in the Fens, close to what was once Whitlesea Mere, but is now drained, only patches of reeds and marshy ground remaining here and there. The house is near the site of an old castle, but its only claim to be called a castle itself arises from its having been partly built out of the ruins of Fotheringhay, from which a row of arches remain. To ordinary eyes the country is frightful, but Mr. Heathcote, as an artist, sees much beauty—which really does exist—in the long unbroken lines where the mere once was, and the faint blue shadows in the soft distances. And he has preserved very interesting memorials of all that the district has been, within his memory, in an immense series of sketches of the mere in summer, and in winter, when covered with people skating; and of themere life—its fisheries, wild birds, and its curious draining mills, now all of the past.
“We have been to draw at Peterborough, a wonderfully foreign-looking town, more so, I think, than any other in England. I saw Bishop Jeune’s grave: it almost looks old now, and it really is many years since we lost him; yet, on looking back, the time seems nothing, so quickly does life pass, and living become out-living.”
“Sept. 30.—We have been to Hinchinbroke. Lord and Lady Sandwich were alone. She was the Lady Blanche Egerton[218]of my long ago Chillingham days. Lord Sandwich took me all over the pictures. The best is that of Lady Castlemaine, afterwards Duchess of Cleveland, very young and lovely, with all her hair down. There is also a fine full-length of Charles II., and a curious picture of Charles II. of Spain by Herrera. By Gainsborough there is a beautiful portrait of Miss Martha Ray. Mr. Hackman, who saw her with Lord Sandwich, fell in love with her, and took orders in order to be able to marry her. Afterwards, when he saw her in Covent Garden receiving the attentions of somebody else, he shot her in a fit of jealousy, and suffered for it at Tyburn. In the ‘Ship Room’ is an interesting picture by Vanderwelt of the naval action in which the first Lord Sandwich died. His ship was fired by a fireship and blown up, and he was drowned. Ten days afterwards his body was recovered, and the garter and medal found upon it are preserved in a glass case near the picture.
“The rooms at Hinchinbroke are very pleasant and livable, but the oldest parts of the house are burnt and the oak staircase is painted. Near the foot of it, the skeletons of two prioresses (for the house was once a monastery) were found in their stone coffins, and were buried again in the same place! Lord Sandwich showed us the MSS. of the great Lord Sandwich—journals and letters in many volumes; also many letters of George III., showing his great interest in very minute public matters. He has also a splendid collection of Elzevirs.
“When Lady Sandwich was going to visit a school the next day, Miss Mary Boyle heard the mistress say, ‘Now, girls, to-morrow my Lady is coming, and so, recollect, pocket-handkerchiefs must be the order of the day: there must be nosniffling.’”
“Conington, Oct. 1.—This is one of the clockwork houses, with a monotonous routine of life suited to the flat featureless country. To-day, after church, the male part of the family set off to walk a certain six miles, which they always walk after church, and, when we reached a certain bridge, the female part said, ‘Here we turn back; this is the place where we turn every Sunday through the year: we always go as far as this, and we never go any farther.’”
“Sarsden House, Chipping Norton, Oct. 4.—I came here on Monday. At Paddington Station I met Lady Darnley and Lady Kathleen Bligh, and a procession of carriages in waiting showed that a large party was expected by the same train. It came dropping inround the five-o’clock tea-table—Lord and Lady Denbigh; Lord and Lady Aberdare and a daughter; Mr. and Mrs. J. A. Symonds; two young Plunketts; George, Lady Constance, and Madeleine Shaw-Lefevre; Lord Morton.... I like Lord Denbigh very much, and feel sure that no Roman Catholic plotter would induce him to do what he did not believe to be right, or say what he did not believe to be true.
“On Tuesday afternoon I drove to Heythorp with Lady Darnley, Lady Denbigh, and Lady Aberdare. A long unfinished avenue leads up to the very stately house, which has been well restored by Albert Brassey.
“In the evening Lord Denbigh told us:—
“‘Dr. Playfair, physician at Florence, went to the garden of a villa to see some friends of his. Sitting on a seat in the garden, he saw two ladies he knew; between them was a third lady dressed in grey, of very peculiar appearance. Walking round the seat, Dr. Playfair found it very difficult to see her features. In a farther part of the garden he met another man he knew. He stayed behind the seat and asked his friend to walk round and see if he could make out who the odd-looking lady was. When he came back he said, “Of course I could not make her out, because when I came in front of her, her face was turned towards you.” Dr. Playfair then walked up to the ladies, and as he did so, the central figure disappeared. The others expressed surprise that Dr. Playfair, having seen them, had not joined them sooner. He asked who the lady was who had been sitting between them. Theyassured him that there had never been any such person.
“‘The next morning, Dr. Playfair went early to see the old gardener of the villa, and asked him if there was any tradition about the place. He said, “Yes, there is a story of a lady dressed in grey, who appears once in every twenty-five years, and the singular part is that she has no face.” Dr. Playfair asked when she had appeared last. “Well, I remember perfectly; it was twenty-five years ago, and the time is about coming round for her to appear again.”’
“Lord Aberdare said that when Edward Lear was drawing in Albania, he was in perfect despair over the troops of little ruffians who mobbed him and would not go away. Suddenly his india-rubber tumbled down and bobbed down some steps—bob-bob-bob. The boys all ran away as hard as they could, screaming, ‘Thaitan! Thaitan!’ and never came back again.
“A delightful old Mrs. Stewart has arrived from Scotland. I sat by her at dinner. She talked much of Mrs. Grote. She described an interview Mrs. Grote had with Madame George Sand. She said to Madame Sand that it was a pity she did not employ her great powers for the leavening and mellowing of mankind, as Miss Austen had done. ‘Madame,’ said Madame Sand, ‘je ne suis pas philosophe, je ne suis pas moraliste, et je suis romancière.’”
“Oct. 4.—While Madeleine has been drawing my portrait, Mrs. Stewart has talked delightfully, contradicting the theory of De Tocqueville that ‘the charming art of conversation—to touch and set in motiona thousand thoughts without dwelling tiresomely on any one—is amongst the lost arts, and can only be sought for in History Hut.’[219]She described her visit to Ober Ammergau. Her anxiety to go was intense, but all the means seemed to fail. The Princess Mary of Hanover and the Grand Duchess Elizabeth (to whom she had intended to annex herself)walked. But, to be in waiting upon them, went Baron Klenck, her Hanoverian son-in-law, and he came back greatly impressed, and said to his wife when he came in, ‘If thy mother still wishes to go, in God’s name let her set forth;’ and she went. She described the life at the village—the simplicity, the cheapness; then, in the play, the awful agony of the twenty minutes of the Crucifixion, the sublimity of the Ascension. ‘I have seen hundreds of “ascensions” on the stage and elsewhere, but I have never seen anything like that simplere-presentation.’
“At luncheon Mrs. Stewart described a sitting with Mrs. Guppy the spiritualist. Count Bathyany, her daughter, and others were present. They were asked what sort of manifestation they would have. They declared they would be satisfied with nothing less than a ghost. There was a round hole in the table with a lid upon it. Presently the lid began to quiver, gradually it was thrown on one side, and a hand came up violently agitating itself. ‘Mrs. Guppy said, “Dear spirit” (we are always very affectionate you know), “would you like the glass?” and a great tall fern-glass was put over the place: otherwise, I should have touched that hand. Then, inside the glass (but wecould not touch it, you know) came up something wrapped in muslin: Mrs. Guppy said it was a head. Afterwards we were asked to go down to supper: there was quite a handsome collation. A young American who was with us was so disgusted with what he had seen that he would touch nothing—would take neither bread nor salt in that house. I was weak: I did not quite like to refuse, and I ate a few strawberries. Of course, as far as the moral protest went, I might as well have eaten a whole plateful. Bathyany made a very good supper. He took a rose away with him for his Countess, for at the end of our séance quantities of flowers appeared, we knew not whence, quite fresh, dewy, beautiful flowers: they appeared on the table close to Count Bathyany.
“‘The spirits are very indulgent. They think we are in better humour if our spirits are kept up. After I have been sitting there for some time they generally say, “Harriet is exhausted; let her have a glass of wine.” Then sometimes they give us nicknames—beautiful nicknames; my daughter they called “Mutability,” and me they named “Distrust.”’
“We have been a long drive to a charming old house, Chastleton, belonging to Miss Whitmore Jones, who lives there alone, ‘le dernier rejeton de sa famille.’ It is in a hollow with fine old trees around it, manor-house, church, arched gateway, and dovecot on arches grouped close together, all of a delicate pink-yellow-grey. Inside is a banqueting hall with very fine old panelling and curious furniture, and upstairs a long gallery and nobly panelled drawing-room.”
“Sarsden, Oct. 5.—Last night Mrs. Stewart talked much of Hanover and her life there. Her daughter was lady-in-waiting to the Queen. She described how all the royal family might have their property back at once, but the King would make no concession—‘God has given me my crown; I will only give it back to Him.’
“Mrs. Stewart was with the Queen and Princess for five months at Herrenhausen after the King left for Langensalza, when ‘like a knight, he desired to be placed in the front of his army, where all his soldiers could see him, and where he was not satisfied till he felt the bullets all whizzing around him.’ The people in Hanover said he had run away. When the Queen heard that, she and Princess Marie went down to the place and walked about there, and, when the people pressed round her, said, ‘The King is gone with his army to fight for his people; but I am here to stay with you—to stay with you till he comes back.’ But alas! she did not know!
“All that time in Herrenhausen they were alone: only Mrs. Stewart and her daughter went out occasionally to bring in the news; the others never went out. At last the confinement became most irksome to the Princesses. They entreated Mrs. Stewart to persuade mama to let them go out. Mrs. Stewart urged it to the Queen, who said, ‘But the Princesses have all that they need here; they ought to be satisfied.’—‘Pardon me, your Majesty,’ said Mrs. Stewart; ‘the Princesses have not all they need; it is necessary for young people to have some change.’ ‘So,’ said Mrs. Stewart, ‘at last the Queen saw that it was well, and she consented.She said, “We will not take one of our own carriages, that would attract too much attention, but we will take Harty’s—that is, my daughter’s—carriage, and we will drive in that;” for the Queen had given Harty a little low carriage and a pony. So they set off—the Queen, Princess Marie, and only the coachman besides. And when they had gone some way up the hills, the pony fretted under the new traces and broke them, and, before they knew where they were, it was away over the hedges and fields, and they were left in the lane with the broken carriage. Two Prussian officers rode up—for the Prussians were already in Hanover—and seeing two ladies, beautiful ladies too (for the Queen is still very handsome), in that forlorn state, they dismounted, and, like gentlemen as they were, they came up hat in hand, and offered their assistance. The Queen said, “Oh, thank you; you see what has happened to us: our coachman has gone after the pony, which has run away, and no doubt he will soon come back, so we will just wait his return.” But the coachman did not come back, and the gentlemen were so polite, they would not go away, so at last the Queen and Princess had to set out to return home; and the officers walked with them, never having an idea who they were, and never left them till they reached the gates of Herrenhausen. So the Queen came in and said, “You see what has happened, my dear; you see what a dreadful thing has befallen us: we will none of us ever try going out again,” and we never did.
“‘We used to go and walk at night in those great gardens of Herrenhausen, in which the Electress Sophia died. The Queen talked then, God bless her,of all her sorrows. We often did not come in till the morning, for the Queen could not sleep. But, even in our great sorrow and misery, Nature would assert herself, and when we came in, we ate up everything there was. Generally I had something in my room, and the Queen had generally something in hers, though that was only bread and strawberries, and it was not enough for us, for we were so very hungry.
“‘One night the Queen made an aide-de-camp take the key, and we went to the mausoleum in the grounds. I shall never forget that awful walk, Harty carrying a single lanthorn before us, or the stillness when we reached the mausoleum, or the white light shining upon it and the clanging of the door as it opened. And we all went in, and we knelt and prayed by each of the coffins in turn. The Queen and Princess Marie knelt in front, and my daughter and I knelt behind; and we prayed—oh! so earnestly—out of the deep anguish of our sorrow-stricken hearts. And then we went up to the upper floor where the statues are. And there lay the beautiful Queen, the Princess of Solms, in her still loveliness, and there lay the old King, the Duke of Cumberland, with the moonlight shining on him, wrapped in his military cloak. And when the Queen saw him, she, who had been so calm before, sobbed violently and hid herself against me—for she knows that I also have suffered—and said in a voice of pathos which I can never forget, “Oh, he was so cruel to me, so very, very cruel to me.” And after that we walked or lingered on the garden-seats till daylight broke.
“‘The Queen was always longing to go away toher own house at Marienberg, and at last she went. She never came back; for, as soon as she was gone, the Prussians, who had left her alone whilst she was there, stepped in and took possession of everything.
“‘The Queen is a noble, loving woman, but she is more admirable as a woman than a queen. Ihaveknown her queenly, however. When Count von Walchenstein, the Prussian commandant, arrived, he desired an interview with her Majesty. He behaved very properly, but as he was going away—it was partly from gaucherie, I suppose—he said, “I shall take care that your Majesty is not interfered with in any way.” Then our Queen rose, and in queenly simplicity she said, “I never expected it.” He looked so abashed, but she never flinched; only, when he was gone out of the room, she fainted dead away upon the floor.
“‘The mistake of our Queen has been with regard to the Crown Prince. She has had too great motherly anxiety, and has never sent out her son, as the Empress Eugenie did, tolearnhis world by acting in it and by suffering in it.”
“To-day Mrs. Stewart has been talking much of the pain of age, of the distress of being now able to do so little for others, of being ‘just a creature crawling between heaven and earth.’ She also spoke much of ‘the comfort of experience,’ of scarcely anything being quite utterly irrevocable; that ‘in most things, most crimes even, one can trail,trailoneself in the dust before God and man.’
“In the morning Mrs. Stewart sat for her portrait to Madeleine, in her picturesque square head-dress.She was pleased at being asked to sit. ‘Il faut vieillir pour être heureuse,’ she said. She talked much whilst she was sitting—much of Lady H.’s insolent and often unfeeling sayings. She spoke of a doctor who had the same inclination, and said to her, ‘Ça ne me repugne pas de dire les vérités cruelles.’ Talking of self-respect, she quoted the maxim of Madame George Sand—