_THE SWORD FALLS_
1890
Life is a sheet of paper white,
Whereon each one of us may write
His word or two, and then comes night.
LOWELL.
“Let me recall the last happy day of my life. It was Sunday, October
19, 1890. I went out to Communion and Mass at eight o’clock, came
back, and kissed my husband at his writing. He was engaged on the last
page of _The Scented Garden_, which had occupied him seriously
only six actual months, not thirty years, as the press said. He said
to me, ‘To-morrow I shall have finished this, and I promise you that
I will never write another book on this subject. I will take to our
biography.’ And I said, ‘What a happiness that will be!’ He took his
usual walk of nearly two hours in the morning, breakfasting well.
“That afternoon we sat together writing an immense number of letters,
which, when we had finished, I put on the hall table to be posted on
Monday morning. Each letter breathed of life and hope and happiness;
for we were making our preparations for a delightful voyage to Greece
and Constantinople, which was to last from November 15 to March 15. We
were to return to Trieste from March 15 till July 1. He would be a free
man on March 19, and those three months and a half we were to pack up,
make our preparations, wind up all our affairs, send our heavy baggage
to England, and, bidding adieu to Trieste, we were to pass July and
August in Switzerland, arrive in England in September, 1891, look for a
little flat and a little cottage, unpack, and settle ourselves to live
in England.
“The only difference remarkable on this particular Sunday, October 19,
was, that whereas my husband was dreadfully punctual, and with military
precision as the clock struck we had to be in our places at the table
at half-past seven, he seemed to dawdle about the room putting things
away. He said to me, ‘You had better go in to table’; and I answered,
‘No, darling, I will wait for you’; and we went in together. He dined
well, but sparingly; he laughed, talked, and joked. We discussed our
future plans and preparations, and he desired me on the morrow to
write to Sir Edmund Monson, and several other letters, to forward the
preparations. We talked of our future life in London, and so on. About
half-past nine he got up and went to his bedroom, accompanied by the
doctor and myself, and we assisted him at his toilet. I then said
the night prayers to him, and whilst I was saying them a dog began
that dreadful howl which the superstitious say denotes a death. It
disturbed me so dreadfully that I got up from the prayers, went out of
the room, and called the porter to go out and see what was the matter
with the dog. I then returned, and finished the prayers, after which
he asked me for a novel. I gave him Robert Buchanan’s _Martyrdom of
Madeleine_. I kissed him and got into bed, and he was reading in bed.
“At twelve o’clock, midnight, he began to grow uneasy. I asked him
what ailed him, and he said, ‘I have a gouty pain in my foot. When did
I have my last attack?’ I referred to our journals, and found it was
three months previously that he had had a real gout, and I said, ‘You
know that the doctor considers it a safety-valve that you should have
a healthy gout in your feet every three months for your head and your
general health. Your last attack was three months ago at Zurich, and
your next will be due next January.’ He was then quite content; and
though he moaned and was restless, he tried to sleep, and I sat by him
magnetizing the foot locally, as I had the habit of doing, to soothe
the pain, and it gave him so much relief that he dozed a little, and
said, ‘I dreamt I saw our little flat in London, and it had quite a
nice large room in it.’ Between whiles he laughed and talked and spoke
of our future plans, and even joked.
“At four o’clock he got more uneasy, and I said I should go for the
doctor. He said, ‘Oh no, don’t disturb him; he cannot do anything.’ And
I answered, ‘What is the use of keeping a doctor if he is not to be
called when you are suffering?’ The doctor was there in a few moments,
felt his heart and pulse, found him in perfect order--that the gout
was healthy. He gave him some medicine, and went back to bed. About
half-past four he complained that there was no air. I flew back for
the doctor, who came and found him in danger. I went at once, called
up all the servants, sent in five directions for a priest, according
to the directions I had received, hoping to get one; and the doctor,
and I and Lisa[40] under the doctor’s orders, tried every remedy and
restorative, but in vain.
“What harasses my memory, what I cannot bear to think of, what wakes me
with horror every morning from four till seven, when I get up, is that
for a minute or two he kept on crying, ‘Oh, Puss, chloroform--ether--or
I am a dead man!’ My God! I would have given him the blood out of my
veins, if it would have saved him; but I had to answer, ‘My darling,
the doctor says it will kill you; he is doing all he knows.’ I was
holding him in my arms, when he got heavier and heavier, and more
insensible, and we laid him on the bed. The doctor said he was quite
insensible, and assured me he did not suffer. I trust not; I believe it
was a clot of blood to the heart.
“My one endeavour was to be useful to the doctor, and not impede his
actions by my own feelings. The doctor applied the electric battery
to the heart, and kept it there till seven o’clock; and I knelt down
at his left side, holding his hand and pulse, and prayed my heart out
to God to keep his soul there (though he might be dead in appearance)
till the priest arrived. I should say that he was insensible in thirty
minutes from the time he said there was no air.
“It was a country Slav priest, lately promoted to be our parish
priest, who came. He called me aside, and told me that he could not
give Extreme Unction to my husband, because he had not declared
himself; but I besought him not to lose a moment in giving the
Sacrament, for the soul was passing away, and that I had the means
of satisfying him. He looked at us all three, and asked if he was
dead, and we all said no. God was good, for had he had to go back for
the holy materials it would have been too late, but he had them in
his pocket, and he immediately administered Extreme Unction--‘_Si
vivis_,’ or ‘_Si es capax_,’ ‘If thou art alive’--and said the
prayers for the dying and the departing soul. The doctor still kept
the battery to the heart all the time, and I still held the left hand
with my finger on the pulse. By the clasp of the hand, and a little
trickle of blood running under the finger, I judged there was a little
life until seven, and then I knew that ... I was alone and desolate for
ever.”[41]
* * * * *
I have given the foregoing in Lady Burton’s own words, as unfortunately
a fierce controversy has raged round her husband’s death-bed, and
therefore it is desirable to repeat her testimony on the subject.
This testimony was given to the world in 1893, when all the witnesses
of Sir Richard Burton’s death were living, and it was never publicly
contradicted or called into question until December of last year
(1896), eight months after Lady Burton’s death, when Miss Stisted’s
book made its appearance. In consequence of the attack made upon Lady
Burton by her niece, which has been repeated and echoed elsewhere,
it is necessary to defend Lady Burton on this point, since she is no
longer able to defend herself. But I should like to reiterate that
the question of Sir Richard Burton’s religion did not enter into the
original scheme of this book. I only approach it now with reluctance,
and that not so much for the purpose of arguing as to what was Sir
Richard Burton’s religion (that was a matter for himself alone) as of
upholding the good faith of his wife. In view also of the peculiar
bitterness of the _odium theologicum_, perhaps it may be permitted
me to say at the outset that I have no prejudice on this subject. I am
not a Roman Catholic, and therefore cannot be accused of approaching
the controversy with what Paley was wont to call an “antecedent bias.”
In this I have the advantage of Miss Stisted, who appears to be
animated by a bitter hostility not only against her aunt but against
the Church of Rome. In her book she asserts that Sir Richard Burton
died before the priest arrived on the scene, and that the Sacrament of
Extreme Unction was administered to a corpse. She also goes on to say:
The terrible shock of so fatal a termination to what seemed an
attack of little consequence, would have daunted most Romanists
desirous of effecting a death-bed conversion. It did not daunt
Isabel. No sooner did she perceive that her husband’s life was
in danger, than she sent messengers in every direction for a
priest. Mercifully, even the first to arrive, a man of peasant
extraction, who had just been appointed to the parish, came too
late to molest one then far beyond the reach of human folly
and superstition. But Isabel had been too well trained by
the Society of Jesus not to see that a chance yet remained of
glorifying her Church--a heaven-sent chance which was not to
be lost. Her husband’s body was not yet cold, and who could
tell for certain whether some spark of life yet lingered in
that inanimate form? The doctor declared that no doubt existed
regarding the decease, but doctors are often mistaken. So,
hardly had the priest crossed the threshold than she flung
herself at his feet, and implored him to administer Extreme
Unction. The father, who seems to have belonged to the ordinary
type of country-bred ecclesiastic so common abroad, and who
probably in the whole course of his life had never before
availed himself of so startling a method of enrolling a new
convert, demurred. There had been no profession of faith, he
urged; there could be none now, for--and he hardly liked to
pronounce the cruel words--Burton was dead. But Isabel would
listen to no arguments, would take no refusal; she remained
weeping and wailing on the floor, until at last, to terminate
a disagreeable scene, which most likely would have ended in
hysterics, he consented to perform the rite. Rome took formal
possession of Richard Burton’s corpse, and pretended, moreover,
with insufferable insolence, to take under her protection his
soul. From that moment an inquisitive mob never ceased to
disturb the solemn chamber. Other priests went in and out at
will, children from a neighbouring orphanage sang hymns and
giggled alternately, pious old women recited their rosaries,
gloated over the dead, and splashed the bed with holy water; the
widow, who had regained her composure, directing the innumerable
ceremonies.... After the necessary interval had elapsed,
Burton’s funeral took place in the largest church in Trieste,
and was made the excuse for an ecclesiastical triumph of a faith
he had always loathed.[42]
These statements of Lady Burton and Miss Stisted have been placed one
after another, in order that the dispassionate reader may be able to
judge not only of their conflicting nature, but of the different spirit
which animates them. Lady Burton writes from her heart, reverently,
as a good woman would write of the most solemn moments of her life,
and of things which were to her eternal verities. Would she be likely
to perjure herself on such a subject? Miss Stisted writes with an
unconcealed animus, and is not so much concerned in defending the
purity of her uncle’s Protestantism as in vilifying her aunt and the
faith to which she belonged. It may be noted too that Miss Stisted has
no word of womanly sympathy for the wife who loved her husband with a
love passing the love of women, and who was bowed down by her awful
sorrow. On the contrary, with revolting heartlessness and irreverence,
she jeers at her aunt’s grief and the last offices of the dead. We may
agree with the doctrines of the Church of Rome, or we may not; the
solemn rites may be unavailing, or they may be otherwise; but at least
they can do no harm, and the death-chamber should surely be sacred from
such vulgar ribaldry! Good taste, if no higher consideration, might
have kept her from mocking the religious convictions of others.
Miss Stisted’s indictment of Lady Burton on this point falls under
three heads:
First, that Sir Richard was dead before the priest arrived.
Secondly, that he was never a Catholic at all, and so his wife acted in
bad faith.
Thirdly, that he “loathed” the Catholic religion.
It is better to deal with these charges _seriatim_.
With regard to the first, we have the positive and public testimony of
Lady Burton, which was never contradicted during her lifetime, to the
effect that her husband was alive when the Sacrament of Extreme Unction
was administered to him. As, however, this testimony has been publicly
called in question, though not until eight months after her death, we
obtained through the kindness of the Baroness Paul de Ralli, a friend
of Lady Burton at Trieste, the following written attestation from the
priest who attended Sir Richard Burton’s death-bed, and who is still
living:
=Declaration.=[43]
“On October 20, 1890, at six o’clock in the morning, I was
called in to assist at the last moments of Sir Richard Burton,
British Consul.
“Knowing that he had been brought up, or born in, the
Evangelical religion, before repairing to his house I went to
see Dr. Giovanni Sũst, the Provost of this Cathedral, in order
to find out from him what I was to do in the matter. He replied
that I should go, and act accordingly as the circumstances might
seem to require.
“So I went.
“Entering into the room of the sick man, I found him in bed with
the doctor and Lady Burton beside him.
“At first sight it seemed that I was looking, not at a sick man,
but rather at a corpse. My first question was, ‘Is he alive or
dead?’ Lady Burton replied that he was still living, and the
doctor nodded his head, to confirm what she had said.
“And in fact the doctor was seated on the bed holding in
his hands the hand of Sir Richard Burton to feel the beat
of his pulse, and from time to time he administered some
_corroborante_,[44] or gave an injection. Which of these
two things he did I cannot now recollect, but it was certainly
one or the other of them. These are things which one would
certainly not do to a corpse, but only to a person still living;
or if these acts were performed with the knowledge that the
person in question was already dead, they could not be done
without laying oneself open to an accusation of deception, all
the more reprehensible if put in operation at such a solemn
moment.
“In such a case all the responsibility would fall upon the
doctor in charge, who with a single word, or even a sign given
secretly to the priest, would have been able to prevent the
administration of the Holy Sacrament of Extreme Unction.
“The second observation which I made to Lady Burton was
one concerning religion--namely, ‘That whoever was of the
Evangelical persuasion could not receive the Holy Sacraments in
this manner.’
“To this observation of mine she answered that some years ago
he had received Extreme Unction, being, if I mistake not, at
Cannes, and that on this occasion he had abjured the heresy and
professed himself as belonging to the Catholic Church. On such a
declaration from Lady Burton, I did that which a minister of God
ought to do, and decided to administer to the dying man the last
comforts of our holy religion. As it seemed to me that there
was not much time to lose, I wished to administer the Extreme
Unction by means of one single anointing on the forehead, as
is done in urgent cases; but Lady Burton said that death was
not so imminent; therefore she begged me to carry out fully the
prescribed ceremony of Extreme Unction.
“This completed, together with the other customary prayers for
the dying, I took my departure. I returned to the house of the
Provost, Dr. Sũst, and laid everything before him, and he said I
had done quite right.
“In a certificate of death drawn up by the Visitatore dei
Morti,[45] Inspector Corani, in the register, under the head of
religion, is written ‘Catholic.’ The funeral also was conducted
according to the rites of the Catholic Church. I am convinced
that Sir Richard Burton really became a Catholic, but that
outwardly he did not wish this to be known, having regard to
his position as a Consul to a Government of the Evangelical
persuasion; and I have built up the hope that the innumerable
prayers for her husband’s conversion and good works of his pious
wife Lady Burton will have been heeded by that Lord who said
unto us, ‘Pray, and your prayers shall be answered,’ and that
his soul will now have been received by the good God, together
with that of the saintly lady his wife.
“One question I permit myself to ask of those who have now
published the Life of Sir Richard Burton, which is this, ‘Why
did they not publish it during the lifetime of Lady Burton? Who
better than she would have been able to enlighten the world on
this point of much importance? Why publish it now when she is no
longer here to speak?’
“Trieste, January 12, 1897,
“PIETRO MARTELANI,
“Formerly Parish Priest of the B.V. del Soccorso,
now Prebendary and Priest of the Cathedral of Trieste.”[46]
I am further able to state that the gross travesty of Lady Burton’s
grief--“her weeping and wailing on the floor,” etc., etc.--is the
outcome of a malevolent imagination, from which nothing is sacred, not
even a widow’s tears. Lady Burton bore herself through the most awful
trial of her life with quietude, fortitude, and resignation.
And now to turn to the second charge--to wit, that Sir Richard was
never a Catholic at all; from which, if true, it follows that he was in
fact “kidnapped” by his wife and the priest on his death-bed.
If this charge did not involve a suggestion of bad faith on the part of
Lady Burton, I should have ignored it; for I hold most strongly that a
man’s religion is a matter for himself alone, a matter between himself
and his God, one in which no outsider has any concern. Burton himself
took this view, for he once said: “My religious opinion is of no
importance to anybody but myself. No one knows what my religious views
are. I object to confession, and I will not confess. My standpoint is,
and I hope ever will be, the Truth, as far as it is in me, known only
to myself.”[47] This attitude he maintained to the world to the day of
his death; but to his wife he was different. Let me make my meaning
quite clear. I do not say Burton was a Catholic or that he was not; I
offer no opinion. But what I do assert with all emphasis is that _he
gave his wife reason to believe that he had become a Catholic_;
and in this matter she acted in all good faith, in accordance with
the highest dictates of her conscience and her duty. Burton knew
how strongly his wife felt on this subject, and how earnest were her
convictions. He knew that his conversion to Catholicism was her daily
and nightly prayer. These considerations probably weighed with him when
he signed the following paper (reproduced in facsimile on the opposite
page). He signed it on the understanding that she was to keep it secret
till he was a dying man:
[Illustration: Gorizia 15^{th}--February 1877
Should my husband Richard Burton be on his death-bed unable to
speak--I perhaps already dead and that he may wish and have
the Grace to retract & recant his former errors and to join
the Catholic Church and also receive the Sacraments of Penance
Extreme Unction & Holy Eucharist he might perhaps be able to sign
this paper or make the Sign of the Cross to show his need
Richard F. Burton]
“GORIZIA, _February 15, 1877_.
“Should my husband, Richard Burton, be on his death-bed unable
to speak--I perhaps already dead--and that he may wish to have
the grace to retract and recant his former errors, and to join
the Catholic Church, and also to receive the Sacraments of
Penance, Extreme Unction, and Holy Eucharist, he might perhaps
be able to sign this paper, or make the sign of the cross to
show his need.
(Signed) “RICHARD F. BURTON.”
I do not analyse the motives which led Burton to sign this paper. He
may have done it merely to satisfy his wife (for, from the Agnostic
point of view, the Sacraments would not have mattered much either
way), or he may have done it from honest conviction, or from a variety
of causes, for human motives are strangely commingled; _but that
he did sign it there is no doubt_. Lady Burton, at any rate,
took it all in good faith, and acted accordingly in sending for the
priest; the priest, on receiving her assurance, acted in good faith in
administering to Sir Richard Burton the last rites of the Church; and
the Bishop of Trieste also acted in good faith in conceding to him a
Catholic funeral. It is difficult to see how any of them could have
acted otherwise.
Lastly, it has been asserted that Sir Richard Burton “loathed” the
Roman Catholic Church; and though he was indifferent to most religions,
he entertained a “positive aversion” to this one, and therefore to
“kidnap” him on his death-bed was peculiarly cruel. I have read most
of Burton’s writings, and it is true, especially in his earlier books,
that he girds against what he conceives to be certain abuses in the
Roman Catholic Church and her priesthood in out-of-the-way countries;
but then he attacks other forms of Christianity and other religions
too. He had a great hatred of cant and humbug under the cloak of
religion, and denounced them accordingly. There is nothing remarkable
in this. We all denounce cant and humbug in the abstract, often most
loudly when we are humbugs ourselves. If Burton attacked Christianity
more than other religions, and Catholicism more than other forms of
Christianity, he probably did so because they came more in his way. His
religious acts generally appear to have been guided by the principle
of “When one is at Rome, do as Rome does.” He was a Mohammedan among
Mohammedans, a Mormon among Mormons, a Sufi among the Shazlis, and a
Catholic among the Catholics. One thing he certainly was not in his
later years--a member of the Church of England. He was baptized and
brought up in the Anglican Communion. He entered at Trinity College,
Oxford, and he joined the Indian army as a member of the Church of
England; but when he was at Goa in 1847 he left off “sitting under” the
garrison chaplain and betook himself to the Roman Catholic chapel, and
availed himself of the ministrations of the Goanese priest. From that
time, except officially, he never seems to have availed himself of the
services of the Church of England. I do not unduly press the point of
his attendance at the Roman Catholic chapel at Goa, for it may simply
have meant that Burton merely went to the chapel and worshipped as a
Catholic among Catholics, just as when he was at Mecca he worshipped as
a Mohammedan among Mohammedans; but it tells against the theory that he
“loathed” Catholicism, as the same necessity did not exist at Goa as at
Mecca. It was a purely voluntary act on his part. Henceforward it would
seem that, so far from being prejudiced against Catholicism, Burton
was always coquetting with it; and if he took any religion seriously
at all, he may be said to have taken this one seriously. The following
facts also go to prove this theory. He married a Catholic wife, of
whose strong religious views he was well aware. Before the marriage
he signed a paper to the effect that his children, if any, should
be brought up in the Roman Catholic faith. He obtained and used the
following letter from Cardinal Wiseman, with whom he was on friendly
terms:
“LONDON, _June 28, 1856_.
“DEAR SIR,
“Allow me to introduce to you Captain Burton, the bearer of this
note, who is employed by Government to make an expedition to
Africa, at the head of a little band of adventurers. Captain
Burton has been highly spoken of in the papers here; and I have
been asked to give him this introduction to you as a Catholic
officer.
“I am, dear Sir,
“Yours sincerely in Christ,
“N. CARD. WISEMAN.
“COLONEL HAMMERTON,” etc., etc., etc.
He habitually wore a crucifix, which his wife had given him, next
his skin; he championed the cause of the Catholic converts in Syria;
and when staying with his wife’s family, he would frequently attend
a service in a Roman Catholic church, and behave in all things as a
Catholic worshipper. I am not saying that these things prove that
Burton was a Catholic, but they afford strong presumptive evidence
that he had leanings in the direction of Catholicism; and undoubtedly
they go to prove that he did not “loathe” the Catholic religion. One
thing is certain, he was too much of a scholar to indulge in any
vulgar prejudice against the Roman Catholic Church, and too much of a
gentleman to insult her priests.
After all there is nothing inherently improbable in Burton’s conversion
to Catholicism. Most of his life had been spent in countries where
Catholicism is practically the only form of Christianity; and such a
mind as his, if on the rebound from Agnosticism, would be much more
likely to find a refuge in the bosom of the Roman Catholic Church than
in the half-way house of Evangelical Protestantism. To a temperament
like Burton’s, steeped in Eastern mysticism and Sufiism, Catholicism
would undoubtedly have offered strong attractions; for the links
between the highest form of Sufiism and the Gospel of St. John, the
_Ecstasis_ of St. Bernard, and other writings of the Fathers of
the Church who were of the Alexandrian school, are well known, and
could hardly have been ignored by Burton, who made a comparative study
of religions.
This, however, is by the way, and has only an indirect bearing on his
wife’s action. She, who knew him best, and from whom he had no secrets,
believed that, in his later years at least, her husband was at heart a
Catholic. He gave her ample grounds for this belief, and she acted upon
it in all good faith. That he may have deceived her is possible, though
not probable; but that she would have deceived a priest of her Church
at the most solemn moment of her life, and on one of the most sacred
things of her religion, is both impossible and improbable. The whole
nature of the woman, her transparent truthfulness, her fervent piety,
rise up in witness against this charge, and condemn it. And to what end
would she have done this thing? No one knew better than Lady Burton
that there is One whom she could not deceive; for with her the things
invisible were living realities, and the actualities of this life were
but passing things which come and fade away.
BOOK III
WIDOWED
(1890–1896)
“_El Maraa min ghayr Zaujuhá mislahá tayarán maksús el
Jenáhh._”
(“The woman without her husband is like a bird with one wing”)
CHAPTER I
_THE TRUTH ABOUT “THE SCENTED GARDEN”_
Now I indeed will hide desire and all repine,
And light up this my fire that neighbours see no sign:
Accept I what befalls by order of my Lord,
Haply he too accept this humble act of mine.
ALF LAYLAH WA LAYLAH
(_Burton’s “Arabian Nights”_).
Sir Richard Burton’s funeral was attended by a great crowd of mourners
and representatives of every class in Trieste. The Austrian authorities
accorded him military honours, and the Bishop of Trieste conceded
all the rites of the Church. His remains were laid, with much pomp
and circumstance, in their temporary resting-place--a small chapel
in the burial-ground--until his widow could take them back with her
to England. The funeral over, Lady Burton returned to her desolate
house--a home no longer, for the loved presence which had made the
palazzo a home, as it would have made a home to her of the humblest
hut on earth, was gone for ever. The house was but an empty shell. Sir
Richard Burton’s death had been so sudden and unexpected that none
of Lady Burton’s near relatives, her sisters, were able to reach
her in time; and though they had telegraphed to her offering to come
at once, she had replied asking them not to undertake the journey.
And so it came about that, in this hour of sorest trial, she was
absolutely alone. She had no one to turn to in her grief; she had no
children’s love to solace her; she had no son to say, “Mother, lean
on me”; no daughter to share her sorrow. Friends she had in plenty,
and friends such as the world rarely gives, but they could not intrude
their sympathy overmuch at such a time as this. Moreover, she had
concentrated all her affections on her husband; she had lived so
entirely for him, and in him, that she had not formed any of those
intimate friendships in which some women delight. She had, in short,
put all her earthly happiness in one frail barque, and it had foundered.
Hitherto we have followed her through her wedded life, that beautiful
union which was more like a poem than an ordinary marriage. We have
seen how the love which she bore her husband had sanctified her life,
and his, lifting it above and beyond the ordinary love of men and
women, glorifying all things, even her meanest tasks, for they were
done in love’s holy name. We have seen how she knew no fear, spared
herself no pain, heeded no rebuff in the service of the man she loved.
We have followed her in journeyings often, in perils of sea, in perils
of robbers, in perils of the heathen, in perils of the wilderness,
in weariness and sorrow, in watchings often, in hunger and thirst,
and besides these things that were without, bearing those secret
sorrows--“my beloved secret cross,” she called them--which are known
only to the soul and its God. We have seen all this, the full, perfect,
glorious life which she lived by the side of the man she loved; in the
brief survey of the few broken years left to her on earth, we shall
henceforth see her alone--alone, yet not alone, for the Divine love
went with her, and with her also was ever present the memory of an
earthly love, a love purified and holy, growing nearer and nearer to
the love of the perfect day.
If we were to search the wide world over, ransack history, dive deep
into the annals of the past, I doubt if there would be found any more
perfect example of unselfish love than that which is exemplified in the
wedded life of this woman. With her it was always “Richard only.” It
is with this thought in our minds that we approach her crowning act of
self-sacrifice, her last supreme offering on the altar of her love. I
refer to the act whereby she deliberately sacrificed the provision her
husband had made for her, and faced poverty, and the contumely of her
enemies, for the sake of his fair memory.
Lady Burton’s first act after her husband’s death was to lock up
his manuscripts and papers to secure them against all curious and
prying eyes--a wise and necessary act under the circumstances, and
one which was sufficient to show that, great though her grief was,
it did not rob her for one moment of her faculties. As soon as her
husband’s funeral was over, she went back to his rooms, locked the door
securely, and examined carefully all his books and papers, burning
those which he had desired to be burnt, and sorting and classifying
the others. Among the manuscripts was Sir Richard’s translation of the
notorious _Scented Garden, Men’s Hearts to Gladden, of the Shaykh
el Nafzawih_, which he had been working at the day before his
death, completed all but one page, and the proceeds of which he had
told his wife were to form her jointure. As his original edition of
_The Arabian Nights_ had brought in £10,000 profit, the _Scented
Garden_, beside which _The Arabian Nights_ was a “baby tale,”
might reasonably have been expected to have produced as much, if not
more. Indeed, a few days after Sir Richard’s death, a man offered
Lady Burton six thousand guineas down for the manuscript as it stood,
and told her that he would relieve her of all risk and responsibility
in the matter. She might, therefore, easily have closed with this
offer without any one being the wiser, and if she had been inclined
to drive a bargain, she would doubtless have had no difficulty in
securing double the price. As her husband’s death had reduced her to
comparative poverty, the temptation to an ordinary woman, even a good
and conscientious woman, would have been irresistible; she could have
taken the money, and have quieted her conscience with some of those
sophistries which we can all call to our aid on occasion. But Lady
Burton was not an ordinary woman, and the money side of the question
never weighed with her for one moment. How she acted at this crisis in
her life is best told by herself.
“My husband had been collecting for fourteen years information
and materials on a certain subject. His last volume of _The
Supplemental Nights_ had been finished and out on November
13, 1888. He then gave himself up entirely to the writing
of this book, which was called _The Scented Garden_, a
translation from the Arabic. It treated of a certain passion.
Do not let any one suppose for a moment that Richard Burton
ever wrote a thing from the impure point of view. He dissected
a passion from every point of view, as a doctor may dissect a
body, showing its source, its origin, its evil, and its good,
and its proper uses, as designed by Providence and Nature, as
the great Academician Watts paints them. In private life he was
the most pure, the most refined and modest man that ever lived,
and he was so guileless himself that he could never be brought
to believe that other men said or used these things from any
other standpoint. I, as a woman, think differently. The day
before he died he called me into his room and showed me half
a page of Arabic manuscript upon which he was working, and he
said, ‘To-morrow I shall have finished this, and I promise you
after this I will never write another book upon this subject.
I will take to our biography.’ I told him it would be a happy
day when he left off that subject, and that the only thing that
reconciled me to it was, that the doctors had said that it was
so fortunate, with his partial loss of health, that he could
find something to interest and occupy his days. He said, ‘This
is to be your jointure, and the proceeds are to be set apart for
an annuity for you’; and I said, ‘I hope not; I hope you will
live to spend it like the other.’ He said, ‘I am afraid it will
make a great row in England, because _The Arabian Nights_
was a baby tale in comparison to this, and I am in communication
with several men in England about it.’ The next morning, at 7
a.m., he had ceased to exist. Some days later, when I locked
myself up in his rooms, and sorted and examined the manuscripts,
I read this one. No promise had been exacted from me, because
the end had been so unforeseen, and I remained for three days in
a state of perfect torture as to what I ought to do about it.
During that time I received an offer from a man whose name shall
be always kept private, of six thousand guineas for it. He said,
‘I know from fifteen hundred to two thousand men who will buy it
at four guineas, _i.e._ at two guineas the volume; and as I
shall not restrict myself to numbers, but supply all applicants
on payment, I shall probably make £20,000 out of it.’ I said
to myself, ‘Out of fifteen hundred men, fifteen will probably
read it in the spirit of science in which it was written; the
other fourteen hundred and eighty-five will read it for filth’s
sake, and pass it to their friends, and the harm done may be
incalculable.’ ‘Bury it,’ said one adviser; ‘don’t decide.’
‘That means digging it up again and reproducing at will.’ ‘Get
a man to do it for you,’ said No. 2; ‘don’t appear in it.’ ‘I
have got that,’ I said. ‘I can take in the world, but I cannot
deceive God Almighty, who holds my husband’s soul in His hands.’
I tested one man who was very earnest about it: ‘Let us go and
consult So-and-so’; but he, with a little shriek of horror,
said, ‘Oh, pray don’t let me have anything to do with it; don’t
let my name get mixed up in it, but it is a beautiful book I
know.’
“I sat down on the floor before the fire at dark, to consult my
own heart, my own head. How I wanted a brother! My head told
me that sin is the only rolling stone that gathers moss; that
what a gentleman, a scholar, a man of the world may write when
living, he would see very differently to what the poor soul
would see standing naked before its God, with its good or evil
deeds alone to answer for, and their consequences visible to it
for the first moment, rolling on to the end of time. Oh for a
friend on earth to stop and check them! What would he care for
the applause of fifteen hundred men now--for the whole world’s
praise, and God offended. My heart said, ‘You can have six
thousand guineas; your husband worked for you, kept you in a
happy home, with honour and respect for thirty years. How are
you going to reward him? That your wretched body may be fed and
clothed and warmed for a few miserable months or years, will you
let that soul, which is part of your soul, be left out in cold
and darkness till the end of time, till all those sins which may
have been committed on account of reading those writings have
been expiated, or passed away perhaps for ever? Why, it would
be just parallel with the original thirty pieces of silver!’
I fetched the manuscript and laid it on the ground before me,
two large volumes’ worth. Still my thoughts were, Was it a
sacrilege? It was his _magnum opus_, his last work that he
was so proud of, that was to have been finished on the awful
morrow--that never came. Will he rise up in his grave and curse
me or bless me? The thought will haunt me to death, but Sadi
and El Shaykh el Nafzawih, who were pagans, begged pardon of
God and prayed not to be cast into hell fire for having written
them, and implored their friends to pray for them to the Lord,
that He would have mercy on them. And then I said, ‘Not only not
for six thousand guineas, but not for six million guineas will
I risk it.’ Sorrowfully, reverently, and in fear and trembling,
I burnt sheet after sheet, until the whole of the volumes were
consumed.”[48]
As to the act itself I am not called upon to express any opinion.
But there can be no two opinions among fair-minded people as to the
heroism, the purity, and the sublime self-sacrifice of the motives
which prompted Lady Burton to this deed. Absolutely devoted to her
husband and his interests as she had been in his lifetime, she was
equally jealous of his honour now that he was dead. Nothing must
tarnish the brightness of his good name. It was this thought, above all
others, which led her to burn _The Scented Garden_. For this act
the vials of misrepresentation and abuse were poured on Lady Burton’s
head. She was accused of the “bigotry of a Torquemada, the vandalism
of a John Knox.” She has been called hysterical and illiterate. It has
been asserted that she did it from selfish motives, “for the sake of
her own salvation, through the promptings of a benighted religion,”
for fear of the legal consequences which might fall upon her if she
sold the book, for love of gain, for love of notoriety, for love of
“posing as a martyr,” and so on, and so on. She was publicly vilified
and privately abused, pursued with obscene, anonymous, and insulting
letters until the day of her death. In fact, every imputation was
hurled at her, and she who might have answered all her persecutors
with a word, held her peace, or broke it only to put them on another
track. It was not merely the act itself which caused her suffering; it
was the long persecution which followed her from the day her letter
appeared in _The Morning Post_ almost to the day she died. How
keenly she felt it none but those who knew her best will ever know. A
proud, high-spirited woman, she had never schooled herself to stay her
hand, but generally gave her adversaries back blow for blow; but these
cowardly attacks she bore in silence, nay more, she counted all the
suffering as gain, for she was bearing it for the sake of the man she
loved.
And this silence would never have been broken, and the true reasons
which led Lady Burton to act as she did would never have been told to
the world, had it not been that, after her death, a woman, whom she
had never injured by thought, word, or deed, has seen fit to rake up
this unpleasant subject again, for the purpose of throwing mud on her
memory, impugning her motives, and belittling the magnitude of her
sacrifice. It is solely in defence that the truth is now told.
I have never read Sir Richard’s translation of _The Scented
Garden_, for the simple reason that there is none in existence
(notwithstanding all that has been said to the contrary); the only two
copies were destroyed by his widow. But I have read another translation
of the book, mainly the work of a man who was also an Orientalist and
a distinguished soldier, which, though doubtless inferior to Burton’s,
is more than sufficient to give one full knowledge of the character of
the book. I have read also Burton’s original and unexpurgated edition
of _Alf Laylah wa Laylah_ and his Terminal Essay, including the
Section which is omitted in all later editions, and certain other
unpublished notes of his on the same subject. Lady Burton also talked
with me freely on the matter. I know therefore of what I speak, and am
not in the same position as Lady Burton’s latest accuser, who declares
with quite unnecessary emphasis that she has never read _The Arabian
Nights_, and of course never saw the burnt manuscript of _The
Scented Garden_. She is therefore obviously disqualified to express
any opinion on the subject.
So far as I can gather from all I have learned, the chief value of
Burton’s version of _The Scented Garden_ lay not so much in his
translation of the text, though that of course was admirably done, as
in the copious notes and explanations which he had gathered together
for the purpose of annotating the book. He had made this subject a
study of years. For the notes of the book alone he had been collecting
material for thirty years, though his actual translation of it only
took him eighteen months. The theme of _The Scented Garden_
is one which is familiar to every student of Oriental literature.
Burton, who was nothing if not thorough in all he undertook, did not
ignore this. In fact, one may say that from his early manhood he had
been working at it, as he commenced his inquiries soon after his
arrival in India. Lady Burton, it will be seen, says he “dissected
a passion from every point of view, as a doctor may dissect a body,
showing its source, its origin, its evil, and its good, and its proper
uses, as designed by Providence and Nature”; that is, Burton pursued
his inquiries on this subject in the same spirit as that which has
animated Kraft-Ebbing and Moll, and other men of science. But from
what I have read in _The Arabian Nights_ and elsewhere, it seems
to me that Burton’s researches in this direction were rather of an
ethnological and historical character than a medical or scientific one.
His researches had this peculiarity, that whereas most of the writers
on this subject speak from hearsay, Burton’s information was obtained
at first hand, by dint of personal inquiries. Thus it came about that
he was misunderstood. For a man, especially a young soldier whose
work is not generally supposed to lie in the direction of scientific
and ethnological investigation, to undertake such inquiries was to
lay himself open to unpleasant imputations. People are not apt to
distinguish between scientific motives and unworthy ones, and so Burton
found it. His contemporaries and comrades in India did not understand
him, and what people do not understand they often dislike. In his
regiment he soon incurred odium, and a cloud of prejudice enveloped
him. Unfortunately, too, he was not overwise; and he had a habit of
telling tales against himself, partly out of bravado, which of course
did not tend to improve matters. People are very apt to be taken at
their own valuation, especially if their valuation be a bad one. It
must not be supposed that I am giving countenance, colour, or belief to
these rumours against Burton for a moment: on the contrary, I believe
them to be false and unjust; but false and unjust though they were,
they were undoubtedly believed by many, and herein was the gathering of
the cloud which hung over Burton’s head through the earlier part of his
official career. To prove that I am not drawing on my own imagination
with regard to this theory, I quote the following, told in Burton’s own
words:--
“In 1845, when Sir Charles Napier had conquered and annexed Sind, ...
it was reported to me that Karachi, a townlet of some two thousand
souls, and distant not more than a mile from camp.... Being then the
only British officer who could speak Sindi, I was asked indirectly to
make inquiries, and to report upon the subject; and I undertook the
task on the express condition that my report should not be forwarded to
the Bombay Government, from whom supporters of the conqueror’s policy
could expect scant favour, mercy, or justice. Accompanied by a Munshi,
Mirza Mohammed Hosayn Shiraz, and habited as a merchant, Mirza Abdullah
the Bushiri passed many an evening in the townlet, visited all the
porneia, and obtained the fullest details, which were duly dispatched
to Government House. But the ‘Devil’s Brother’ presently quitted Sind,
leaving in his office my unfortunate official; this found its way with
sundry other reports to Bombay, and produced the expected result. A
friend in the secretariat informed me that my summary dismissal had
been formally proposed by one of Sir Charles Napier’s successors, whose
decease compels me _parcere sepulto_, but this excess of outraged
modesty was not allowed.”[49]
Burton was not dismissed from the Service, it is true, but the
unfavourable impression created by the incident remained. He was
refused the post he coveted--namely, to accompany the second expedition
to Mooltan as interpreter; and seeing all prospect of promotion at an
end for the present, he obtained a long furlough, and came home from
India under a cloud. Evil rumour travels fast; and when he went to
Boulogne (the time and place where he first met Isabel), there were
plenty of people ready to whisper ill things concerning him. When he
returned to India two years after, notwithstanding his Mecca exploit,
he found prejudice still strong against him, and nothing he could do
seemed to remove it. His enemies in India and at home were not slow to
use it against him. One can trace its baleful influence throughout his
subsequent career. Lady Burton, whose vigilance on her husband’s behalf
never slept, and who would never rest until she confronted his enemies,
got to know of it. When I know not, in what way I know not, but the
fact that sooner or later she did get to know of it is indisputable.
How she fought to dispel this cloud none but herself will ever know.
Official displeasure she could brave, definite charges she could
combat; but this baseless rumour, shadowy, indefinite, intangible,
ever eluded her, but eluded her only to reappear. She could not grasp
it. She was conscious that the thing was in the air, so to speak, but
she could not even assume its existence. She could only take her stand
by her husband, and point to his blameless life and say, “You are all
the world to me; I trust you and believe in you with all my heart and
soul.” And in this her wisdom was justified, for at last the calumny
died down, as all calumnies must die, for lack of sustenance.
When _The Arabian Nights_ came out, at which she had worked so
hard to manage the business arrangements, Lady Burton did not read
the book throughout; she had promised her husband not to do so. She
had perhaps a vague idea of some of its contents, for she raised
objections. He explained them away, and she then worked heart and soul
to ensure its success. The success which the book achieved, and the
praise with which it was greeted, were naturally gratifying to her, and
did much to dispel any objections which she might have had, especially
when it is remembered that this book yielded profits which enabled her
to procure for her husband every comfort and luxury for his declining
years. It has been urged against her that she was extravagant because,
when Burton died, only four florins remained of the £10,000 which they
had netted by _The Arabian Nights_; but when it is borne in mind
that she spent every penny upon her husband and not a penny upon
herself, it is not possible that the charge of extravagance can be
maintained against her--certainly not in a selfish sense.
When Burton took to translating _The Scented Garden_, he
acquainted his wife to some extent with its contents, and she objected.
But he overcame her objections, as he had done before, and the thought
that the money would be needed to maintain her husband in the same
comfort as he had enjoyed during the last few years weighed down her
scruples; besides which, though she had a general idea that the book
was not _virginibus purisque_, she had no knowledge of its real
character. When therefore she read it for the first time, in the lonely
days of her early widowhood, with the full shock of her sudden loss
upon her, and a vivid sense of the worthlessness of all earthly gain
brought home to her, she naturally did not look at things from the
worldly point of view. She has told with graphic power how she sat
down with locked doors to read this book, and how she read it through
carefully, page by page; and it must be remembered that it was not
Burton’s translation alone which she read, but also the notes and
evidence which he had collected on the subject. Then it was that the
real nature of its contents was brought home to her, and she determined
to act. It has been said that she only “half understood” what she read.
Alas! she understood but too well, for here was the nameless horror
which she had tried to track to earth leaping up again and staring her
in the face. She knew well enough what interpretations her husband’s
enemies--those enemies whom even the grave does not silence--would
place upon this book; how they would turn and twist it about, and put
the worst construction upon his motives, and so blur the fair mirror
of his memory. Burton wrote as a scholar and an ethnologist writing to
scholars and ethnologists. But take what precautions he would, sooner
or later, and sooner rather than later, the character of his book would
ooze out to the world, and the ignorant world judges harshly. So she
burnt the manuscript leaf by leaf; and by the act she consummated her
life sacrifice of love.
I repeat that her regard for her husband’s memory was her supreme
reason for this act. That there were minor reasons is not denied: she
herself has stated them. There was the thought of the harm a book
of this kind might do; there was the thought of her responsibility
to God and man; there was the thought of the eternal welfare of her
husband’s soul. She has stated, “It is my belief that by this act, if
my husband’s soul were weighed down, the cords were cut, and it was
left free to soar to its native heaven.” It is easy to sneer at such a
sentiment as this, but the spiritual was very real with Lady Burton.
All these minor considerations, therefore, weighed with her in addition
to the greatest of them all. On the other hand, there came to her
the thought that it was the first time she had ever gone against her
husband’s wishes, and now that he was dead they were doubly sacred to
her. The mental struggle which she underwent was a terrible one: it
was a conflict which is not given to certain lower natures to know,
and not knowing it, they can neither understand nor sympathize. I make
bold to say that the sacrifice which she made, and the motives which
prompted her to make it, will stand to her honour as long as her name
is remembered.
There remain two other considerations: the first is--Why did she make
this act known to the world at all? Surely it would have been better
from every point of view to have veiled it in absolute secrecy. She
has given the answer in her own words: “I was obliged to confess this
because there were fifteen hundred men expecting the book, and I did
not quite know how to get at them; also I wanted to avoid unpleasant
hints by telling the truth.” In other words, there was a large
number of Burton’s supporters, persons who had subscribed to _The
Arabian Nights_, and all his literary friends, with whom he was in
constant communication, who knew that he was working at _The Scented
Garden_, and were eagerly expecting it. Lady Burton burned the
manuscript in October, 1890; she did not make her public confession of
the act in _The Morning Post_ until June, 1891, nearly nine months
after the event. During all this time she was continually receiving
letters asking what had become of the book which she knew that she had
destroyed. What course was open to her? One answer suggests itself:
send a circular or write privately to all these people, saying that
the book would not come out at all. But this was impossible because
she did not know all of “the little army of her husband’s admiring
subscribers”; she neither knew their names nor their addresses; and
apart from the endless worry and difficulty of answering letters which
such a course would have entailed, a garbled version of the facts would
be sure to have leaked out, and then she would have had to contradict
the misstatements publicly. Or perhaps spurious copies of _The
Scented Garden_ professing to be Sir Richard’s translation might
have been foisted upon the public, and she would have been under the
necessity of denouncing them. So she argued that it was best to have
the thing over and done with once for all, to make a clean breast of
it, and let the world say what it pleased. In this I cannot but think
that she was right, though she often said, “I have never regretted for
a moment having burned it, but I shall regret all my life having made
it known publicly, though I could hardly have done otherwise. I did not
know my public, I did not know England.” Here I think she was wrong in
confusing England with a few anonymous letter-writers and scurrilous
persons; for however opinions may differ upon the act itself, its
wisdom or unwisdom, all right-thinking people honoured her for the
sacrifice which she had made. They would have honoured her even more if
they had known that she had done it for the sake of her husband’s name!
Her latest and most malevolent accuser, Miss Stisted, has also
urged against her that by this act she conveyed a “wrong impression
concerning the character of the book,” and so cast a slur upon her
husband’s memory. A wrong impression! The ignorance and animus of this
attack are obvious. The character of the manuscript was well known: it
was the translation of a notorious book.
The story of Burton’s inquiries in this unpleasant field was known
too, if not to the many at least to the few, and his enemies had not
scrupled to place the worst construction on his motives. His wife
knew this but too well, and she fought the prejudice with sleepless
vigilance all the years of her married life, and by this last act of
hers did her best to bury it in oblivion. Surely it is cruelly unjust
to say that it was she who cast the slur!
And now to refer to another matter. Miss Stisted animadverts on Lady
Burton’s having sold the library edition of _The Arabian Nights_
in 1894 “with merely a few excisions absolutely indispensable.”
“Coming as it did so soon,” she says, “after her somewhat theatrical
destruction of _The Scented Garden_,” this act “could not be
permitted to pass unchallenged.” She not only charges Lady Burton with
inconsistency, but hints at pecuniary greed, for she mentions the sum
she received. Yet there was nothing inconsistent in Lady Burton’s
conduct in this connexion. On the contrary, it is one more tribute to
her consistency, one more proof of the theory I have put forward in
her defence, for the excisions which Lady Burton made were only those
which referred to the subject which was the theme of _The Scented
Garden_. Lady Burton was no prude: she knew that ignorance is not
necessarily innocence. She knew also that her husband did not write
as “a young lady to young ladies”; but she drew the line at a certain
point, and she drew it rigidly. By her husband’s will she had full
power to bring out any editions she might please of _The Arabian
Nights_ or any other book of his. She therefore sanctioned the
library edition with certain excisions, and the reasons which prompted
her to make these excisions in _The Arabian Nights_ were the same
as those which led her to burn _The Scented Garden_.
CHAPTER II
_THE RETURN TO ENGLAND_
(1890–1891)
Not yet, poor soul! A few more darksome hours
And sore temptations met and overcome,
A few more crosses bravely, meekly carried,
Ere I can proudly call the tried one home.
Nerve then thy heart; the toil will soon be done,
The crown of self-denial nobly earned and won.
_From Lady Burton’s Devotional Book “Ten.”_
Lady Burton remained at Trieste three months after her husband’s death.
We have seen how she spent the first weeks of her bereavement, locked
up with his manuscripts and papers. During that time she would see
no one, speak to no one. When her work was done, all her husband’s
wishes as to the disposal of his private papers carried out, and the
manuscripts duly sorted and arranged, she came out from her seclusion,
and put herself a little in touch with the world again. She was deeply
touched at the sympathy which was shown to her. The Burtons had been so
many years at Trieste, and were so widely known there and respected,
that Sir Richard’s death was felt as a public loss. A eulogy of Sir
Richard was delivered in the Diet of Trieste, and the House adjourned
as a mark of respect to his memory. The city had three funeral
requiems for him, and hundreds of people in Trieste, from the highest
to the lowest, showed their sympathy with his widow. Her friends
rallied round her, for they knew that her loss was no ordinary one,
and she had consigned to the grave all that made life worth living for
to her. Nor was this sympathetic regard confined to Trieste alone; the
English press was full of the “dead lion,” and the dominant note was
that he had not been done justice to while he was alive. Lady Burton
was greatly gratified by all this, and she says a little bitterly: “It
shows how truly he was appreciated except by the handful who could have
made his life happy by success.”
Her first public act after her husband’s death was a defence of his
memory. She had fought so hard for him when living that it seemed
only natural to her to go on fighting for him now that he was beyond
the reach of praise or blame. Colonel Grant had written a letter to
_The Times_ anent an obituary notice of Sir Richard Burton, in
which he defended Speke, and spoke of the “grave charges” which Speke
communicated against Burton to his relatives and to the Geographical
Society. Lady Burton saw this letter some time after it appeared. She
knew well enough what it hinted at, and she lost no time in sending a
reply wherein she defended her husband’s character, and prefaced her
remarks with the characteristic lines:
He had not dared to do it,
Except he surely knew my lord was dead.
Lady Burton had soon to face, in these first days of her widowhood,
the problem of her altered circumstances. With her husband’s death his
salary as a Consul came to an end, and there was no pension for his
widow. For the last three or four years, since they had netted £10,000
by _The Arabian Nights_, the Burtons had been living at the rate
of £3,000–£4,000 a year, and had kept up their palazzo at Trieste and
a large staff of servants, in addition to continually travelling _en
prince_, with all the luxuries of the best hotels, servants, and a
resident doctor who always accompanied them. Lady Burton had sanctioned
this expenditure because she wished, as she said, to give her husband
every comfort during his declining days. Moreover, Burton had looked
forward to _The Scented Garden_ to replenish his exchequer. Now
Lady Burton found herself face to face with these facts: the whole of
the money of _The Arabian Nights_ was gone, her husband’s salary
was gone, _The Scented Garden_ was gone, and there was nothing
left for her but a tiny patrimony. It was therefore necessary that she
should rouse herself to a sense of the position. She did so without
delay. She determined as far as possible to carry out the plans which
she and her husband had made when they were looking forward to his
retirement from the Consular service; that is to say, she determined
to leave Trieste, to return to London, take a little flat, and occupy
herself with literary work. It was a sore pang to her to give up the
beautiful home on which she had expended so much care and taste, and
to part with her kind friends at Trieste, many of whom she had known
for eighteen years. At Trieste she was a personage. Every one knew her
and loved her. She knew well enough that when she came back to London
after such a long absence, except by a few faithful friends, she might
be forgotten and overlooked in the rush and hurry of modern life.
Nevertheless her course was plain; she had but one desire; that was
to get away from Trieste as quickly as might be, take her husband’s
remains with her, and lay them to rest in English soil, a rest which
she hoped to share with him before long.
After her husband’s funeral at Trieste, Lady Burton’s first step should
have been the dismissal of her household, except one or two servants.
She did not feel equal to this, however, and difficulties arose which
are touched on in the following letter:
“From the time I lost my all, my earthly god of thirty-five years,
in two hours, I have been like one with a blow on the head. I cannot
write about him; I must tell of myself. Having been eighteen years in
Trieste, it was difficult to leave so many dependent on me, so many
friends to bid farewell, so many philanthropic works to wind up the
affairs of, and I had to settle twenty rooms full of things I could
not throw away. It took me fourteen weeks to do it. During that time
I swam in a sea of small horrors--wickedness, treachery, threats; but
my Triestine friends stuck to me. The authorities behaved nobly, and I
pulled through and got off.”[50]
The next few months were busy ones for Lady Burton. It is hard under
any circumstances to break up a home of eighteen years, and harder
still when it has to be done as economically and expeditiously as
possible. She placed out all her old and trusted servants; she
endeavoured to find friends to take on the care of many of the aged and
poor people who were more or less dependent on her; she wound up the
institutions of which she was President; she paid her debts, and said
good-bye to all her friends. She refused to sell any of the furniture
or effects of the home she had loved so well. She said it would be
like selling her friends. So she packed the few things she thought she
would want to furnish her flat in London, and all her husband’s and
her own personal effects, his library and manuscripts, and she gave
away the rest of the furniture where she thought it would be useful
or valued. These duties occupied her fourteen weeks in all, and she
worked every day early and late, the only break in her labours being
her frequent visits to the _chapelle ardente_ where the remains of
her husband were reposing, preparatory to being carried to England. The
only comfort to her in this time of sorrow was a visit from her cousin,
Canon Waterton of Carlisle, a scholarly and cultured ecclesiastic,
who, in addition to providing her with spiritual consolation, also
gave her much valuable advice as to the disposition of the books and
manuscripts. In order to guard against any misconception, however, I
should like to add that Canon Waterton did not come to Trieste until
some time after _The Scented Garden_ had been burned. That act,
in spite of all that has been said to the contrary, was entirely
Lady Burton’s own act, influenced by no priest, layman, or any person
whatever. She spoke of it afterwards as a secret between herself and
the dead husband.
So this year (1890), the saddest in Lady Burton’s life, came to an
end. On January 20, 1891, she caused her husband’s remains to be
removed from the chapel and conveyed on board the Cunard steamer
_Palmyra_. She herself was going to England by the quicker route
overland.
Her work now being done, a few days later Lady Burton left Trieste for
the last time. The evening before her departure twenty of her friends
came up to spend the last hours with her. She walked round every room,
recalling her life in her happy home. She visited every nook and cranny
of the garden; she sat under the linden tree where she and her husband
had spent so many quiet hours, and she gazed at the beautiful views
for the last time. This went on till the time came for her to leave.
Many friends came to accompany her to the station. When she arrived
she found that she had to face quite a demonstration. All the leading
people in Trieste and the authorities of the city, all the children of
the orphanage in which she had taken so keen an interest, all the poor
whom she had helped, and all her private friends, who were many, were
there to bid her good-bye and offer her flowers. She says: “It was an
awful trial not to make an exhibition of myself, and I was glad when
the train steamed out; but for a whole hour, ascending the beautiful
road close to the sea and Miramar and Trieste, I never took my misty
eyes off Trieste and our home where I had been so happy for eighteen
years.”
On arriving in England, Lady Burton’s first care was to go and see Sir
Richard’s sister and niece, Lady and Miss Stisted, and acquaint them
with the circumstances of her husband’s death, and her intentions. We
will draw a veil over that meeting. She then went on to London and
stayed at the Langham Hotel, intending to remain there a few days until
she could find a lodging. At the Langham her three sisters were waiting
for her.
Two days after her arrival in London, Lady Burton went to see about
a monument to her husband. This monument has been already described,
and it is unnecessary to repeat the description at any length here.
Suffice it to say that it is a tomb, shaped like an Arab tent, of dark
Forest of Dean stone, lined inside with white Carrara marble. The
tent is surmounted by a large gilt star, and over the flap door is a
white marble crucifix. The fringe is composed of gilt crescents and
stars. The door supports an open book of white marble: on one page
is an inscription to Sir Richard Burton; the opposite page was then
left blank. Lady Burton had the tomb fitted up with an altar and other
accessories, so as to make it as much like a _chapelle ardente_
as possible, while preserving its Eastern character. There was room in
the tent for two coffins, those of her husband and herself. Finding
that her purse was too slender to carry out this somewhat elaborate
design, Lady Burton was encouraged by her friends to ask for a public
subscription, with the result that she received the greater part of
the money, but the appeal was not responded to as it might have been.
She found that, owing to the state of the weather, the monument could
not be completed for some months, but she selected the site in Mortlake
Cemetery, the spot which she and her husband had chosen many years
before, and had the ground pegged out. The next day, though very ill,
she, with her sister Mrs. Fitzgerald, went down to Liverpool to meet
her husband’s remains, which were arriving by sea. Lord and Lady
Derby, who had always been her kind friends, had arranged everything
for her, and the next morning Lady Burton went on board ship. She
says, “I forgot the people when I saw my beloved case, and I ran
forward to kiss it.” It was taken to the train, and Lady Burton and
her sister travelled by the same train to Mortlake, where they arrived
that evening. The coffin was conveyed by torchlight to a temporary
resting-place in the crypt under the altar of the church, where it
remained until the tent was erected. The same evening Lady Burton
returned to London, and, her work being done, the reaction set in. She
broke down and took to her bed that night, where she remained for many
weeks. She says: “I cannot describe the horror of the seventy-six days
enhanced by the fog, which, after sunlight and air, was like being
buried alive. The sense of desolation and loneliness and the longing
for him was cruel, and it became
The custom of the day
And the haunting of the night.
My altered circumstances, and the looking into and facing my future,
had also to be borne.”
In the meantime her friends, notably the Dowager Lady Stanley of
Alderley, the Royal Geographical and other Societies, had not been
idle, and her claims had been brought before the Queen, who was
graciously pleased to grant Lady Burton a pension of £150 a year from
the Civil List. This pension, which she enjoyed to the day of her
death, came to her as a surprise, and was not due to any effort of
her own. She would never have asked anything for herself: the only
thing she did ask for was that the nation should help her in raising a
monument to her husband’s honour; but, as we have seen, the nation was
somewhat lukewarm on that point.
At the end of April Lady Burton recovered sufficiently to leave
the hotel, and joined her sister, Mrs. Fitzgerald. She was chiefly
occupied during the next few months in looking out for a house, and
in completing the arrangements for her husband’s final resting-place.
About the middle of June the tent was finished. Sir Richard Burton’s
remains were transferred from the crypt under the church to the
mausoleum where they now rest. At the funeral service Lady Burton
occupied a _prie-dieu_ by the side, and to the right was Captain
St. George Burton, of the Black Watch, a cousin of Sir Richard. There
was a large gathering of representatives of both families and many
friends. The widow carried a little bunch of forget-me-nots, which she
laid on the coffin. This simple offering of love would doubtless have
been far more acceptable to the great explorer than the “wreath from
Royalty” the absence of which his latest biographer so loudly deplores.
When the ceremony was over, Lady Burton went away at once to the
country for a ten days’ rest to the Convent of the Canonesses of the
Holy Sepulchre, New Hall, Chelmsford, where she had been educated, and
which had received within its walls many of the Arundells of Wardour.
She left New Hall much refreshed and invigorated in mind and body, and
for the next month was busy arranging a house which she had taken in
Baker Street. She moved into it in September, 1891, and so entered upon
the last chapter of her life.
CHAPTER III
_THE TINKLING OF THE CAMEL’S BELL_
(1891–1896)
Friends of my youth, a last adieu! haply some day we meet again;
Yet ne’er the self-same men shall meet; the years shall make us
other men:
The light of morn has grown to noon, has paled with eve, and now
farewell!
Go, vanish from my Life as dies the tinkling of the Camel’s bell.
RICHARD BURTON (_The Kasidah_).
The next few months Lady Burton mainly occupied herself by arranging
in her new house the things which she had brought with her from
Trieste. When all was finished, her modest quarters in Baker Street
were curiously characteristic of the woman. Like many of the houses in
her beloved Damascus, the one in Baker Street was unpretentious, not
to say unprepossessing, when viewed from without, but within totally
different, for Lady Burton had managed to give it an oriental air,
and to catch something of the warmth and colouring of the East. This
was especially true of her little drawing-room, which had quite an
oriental aspect. Eastern curtains veiled the windows, the floor was
piled with Persian carpets, and a wide divan heaped with cushions and
draped with bright Bedawin rugs ran along one side of the room. There
were narghílehs and chibouques, and cups of filigree and porcelain for
the dispensing of delectable Arab coffee. Quaint brackets of Morocco
work, Eastern pictures, portraits, Persian enamels, and curios of every
description covered the walls. The most striking object in the room
was a life-size portrait of Sir Richard Burton, dressed in white, with
a scarlet cummerbund, flanked on either side by a collection of rare
books, most of them his works. Many other relics of him were scattered
about the room; and all over the house were to be found his books and
pictures, and busts of him. In fact, she made a cult of her husband’s
memory, and there were enough relics of him in the house to fill a
little museum.
In this house Lady Burton settled down with her sister, Mrs.
Fitzgerald, to her daily life in England, which was mostly a record of
work--arduous and unceasing work, which began at 10.30 in the morning,
and lasted till 6.30 at night. Sometimes, indeed, she would work much
later, far on into the night, and generally in the morning she would do
a certain amount of work before breakfast, for the old habit of early
rising clung to her still, and until her death she never broke herself
of the custom of waking at five o’clock in the morning. At the top of
her Baker Street house Lady Burton built out a large room, or rather
loft. It was here she housed her husband’s manuscripts, which she knew,
as she used to say, “as a shepherd knew his sheep.” They lined three
sides of the room, and filled many packing-cases on the floor. To this
place she was wont to repair daily, ascending a tortuous staircase, and
finally getting into the loft by means of a ladder. Later she had to
abandon this steep ascent, but so long as it was possible she scaled
the ladder daily, and would sit on a packing-case surrounded by her
beloved manuscripts for hours together.
Lady Burton was scarcely settled in Baker Street before her sister
(the one next to her in age), Mrs. Smyth Pigott, of Brockley Court,
Somerset, died. She had to go down to Weston-super-Mare for the
funeral. When that was over she came back to Baker Street, where she
remained over Christmas. She wrote to a friend of hers about this time:
“I dream always of my books and the pile of work. I am worrying on
as well as I can with my miscellaneous writing. Fogs have kept us in
black darkness and pea-soup thickness for five days without a lift, and
with smarting eyes and compressed head I have double work at heart.
I passed Christmas night in the Convent of the Holy Souls. I went in
my cab--the streets were one sheet of ice--and two flambeaux on each
side. In Regent’s Park the fog was black and thick. We had communion
and three masses at midnight. It was too lovely: in the dead silence
a little before midnight you heard the shepherd’s pipe, or reed, in
the distance, and echo nearer and nearer, and then the soft, clear
voices burst into ‘Glory be to God in the Highest,’ and this was the
refrain all through the service. I passed the time with our Lord and
my darling, who had many masses said for him in London and all over
England that night. I am better and have stronger nerves, and am
perhaps more peaceful.”[51]
In January, 1892, Lady Burton went down to her cottage at Mortlake,
which she called “Our Cottage.” In taking this house she had followed
the plan which her husband when living had always adopted, of having a
retreat a little way from their work, where they could go occasionally
for rest and change. They had intended to follow this plan when they
settled down in London. Another motive drew Lady Burton to Mortlake
too: this cottage was close to the mausoleum of her husband, and she
could visit it when she chose. It was a tiny cottage, plainly but
prettily furnished. Most of her relics and curios were housed at Baker
Street, and this place had few associations for her beyond those which
connected it with her husband’s grave. The cottage was covered with
creepers outside, and trees grew all round it. She had a charming
little garden at the back, in which she took a good deal of pride; and
when the summer came she had a big tent erected in the garden, and
would sit there for many hours together, doing her work and frequently
taking her meals out there. She had always lived an outdoor life, and
this tent recalled to her the days in the East. Here, too, she received
a great many friends who found their way down to Mortlake; she was fond
of asking them to come and take tea with her in her tent. From this
arose a silly rumour, which I mention only to contradict, that Lady
Burton was in the habit of receiving her visitors in her husband’s
tomb, which, as we have seen, was also fashioned like an Arab tent,
though of stone.
Lady Burton stayed down at Mortlake for a few months, and came back to
Baker Street in March, 1892, where she remained for two or three months.