LIFE OF FRANCES POWER COBBE
[Illustration:
_Frances Power Cobbe._
1894. [_Frontispiece._
]
LIFE OF FRANCES POWER COBBE
AS TOLD BY HERSELF
WITH
ADDITIONS BY THE AUTHOR
AND
INTRODUCTION BY BLANCHE ATKINSON
LONDON
SWAN SONNENSCHEIN & CO., LIM.
PATERNOSTER SQUARE
1904
INTRODUCTION.
The story of the beautiful life which came to an end on the 5th of
April, 1904, is told by Miss Cobbe herself in the following pages up to
the close of 1898. Nothing is left for another pen but to sketch in the
events of the few remaining years.
But first a word or two as to the origin of the book. One spring day in
1891 or ’92, when Miss Cobbe was walking with me through the Hengwrt
grounds on my way to the station, after some hours spent in listening to
her brilliant stories of men and things, I asked her if she would not
some day write her autobiography. She stood still, laughing, and shook
her head. Nothing in her life, she said, was of sufficient importance to
record, or for other people to read. Naturally I urged that what had
interested me so greatly would interest others, and that her life told
by herself could not fail to make a delightful book. She still laughed
at the idea; and the next time I saw her and repeated my suggestion,
told me that she had not time for such an undertaking, and also that she
did not think her friend, Miss Lloyd, would like it. At last, however,
to my great satisfaction, I heard that the friends had talked the matter
over, and were busily engaged in looking at old letters and records of
past days, and both becoming interested in the retrospection. So the
book grew slowly into an accomplished fact, and Miss Cobbe often
referred to it laughingly as “your” book, to which I replied that then I
had not lived in vain! It is possible that the idea had occurred to her
before; but she always gave me to understand that my persuasion had
induced her to write the book. She came to enjoy writing it. Once when I
said:—“I want you to tell us everything; all your love-stories—and
_everything_!” she took me up to her study and read me the passage she
had written in the 1st Chapter concerning such matters. The great
success of the book was a real pleasure to both Miss Cobbe and her
friend. She told me that it brought her more profit than any of her
books. Most of them had merely a _succès d’estime_. Better still, it
brought her a number of kindly letters from old and new friends, and
from strangers in far off lands; and these proofs of the place she held
in many hearts was a true solace to a woman of tender affections, who
had to bear more than the usual share of the abuse and misrepresentation
which always fall to those who engage in public work and enter into
public controversies.
The sorrow of Miss Lloyd’s death changed the whole aspect of existence
for Miss Cobbe. The joy of life had gone. It had been such a friendship
as is rarely seen—perfect in love, sympathy, and mutual understanding.
No other friend—though Miss Cobbe was rich in friends—could fill the
vacant place, and henceforward her loneliness was great even when
surrounded by those she loved and valued. To the very last she could
never mention the name of “my dear Mary,” or of her own mother, without
a break in her voice. I remember once being alone with her in her study
when she had been showing me boxes filled with Miss Lloyd’s letters.
Suddenly she turned from me towards her bookshelves as though to look
for something, and throwing up her arms cried, with a little sob, “My
God! how lonely I am!”
It was always her custom, while health lasted, to rise early, and she
often went to Miss Lloyd’s grave in the fresh morning hours, especially
when she was in any trouble or perplexity. Up to within a few days of
her death she had visited this—to her—most dear and sacred spot.
Doubtless she seemed to find a closer communion possible with one who
had been her counsellor in all difficulties, her helper in all troubles,
at the graveside than elsewhere. She planted her choicest roses there,
and watched over them with tender care. Now she rests beside her friend.
Yet this anguish of heart was bravely borne. There was nothing morbid in
her grief. She took the same keen interest as before in the daily
affairs of life—in politics and literature and social matters. There
never was a nature more made for the enjoyment of social intercourse.
She loved to have visitors, to take them for drives about her beautiful
home, and to invite her neighbours to pleasant little luncheons and
dinners to meet them. Especially she enjoyed the summer glories of her
sweet old garden, and liked to give an occasional garden party, and
still oftener to take tea with her friends under the shade of the big
cherry tree on the lawn. How charming a hostess she was no one who has
ever enjoyed her hospitality can forget. “A good talk” never lost its
zest for her; until quite the end she would throw off langour and
fatigue under the spell of congenial companionship, and her talk would
sparkle with its old brilliance—her laugh ring with its old gaiety.
Her courtesy to guests was perfect. When they happened not to be in
accord with her in their views upon Vivisection (which was always in
these years the chief object of her work and thought), she never
obtruded the question, and it was her rule not to allow it to be
discussed at table. It was too painful and serious a subject to be an
accompaniment of what she thought should be one of the minor pleasures
of life. For though intensely religious, there was no touch of the
ascetic in Miss Cobbe’s nature. She enjoyed everything; and guests might
come and go and never dream that the genial, charming hostess, who
deferred to their opinions on art or music or books, who conversed so
brilliantly on every subject which came up, was all the time engaged in
a hand to hand struggle against an evil which she believed to be sapping
the courage and consciences of English men and women.
It is pleasant to look back upon sunny hours spent among the roses she
loved, or under the fine old trees she never ceased to admire; upon the
gay company gathered round the tea-table in the dark-panelled hall of
Hengwrt; best of all, on quiet twilight talks by the fireside or in the
great window of her drawing-room watching the last gleams of sunset fade
from hill and valley, and the stars come out above the trees. But it is
sadly true that the last few years of Miss Cobbe’s life were not as
peacefully happy as one would have loved to paint them to complete the
pleasant picture she had drawn in 1894. Even her cheery optimism would
hardly have led her to write that she would “gladly have lived over
again” this last decade.
The pain of separating herself from the old Victoria Street Society was
all the harder to bear because it came upon her when the loss of Miss
Lloyd was still almost fresh. Only those who saw much of her during that
anxious spring of 1898 can understand how bitter was this pain. Miss
Cobbe has sometimes been blamed for—as it is said—causing the division.
But in truth, no other course was possible to one of her character. When
the alternative was to give up a principle which she believed vital to
the cause of Anti-Vivisection, or to withdraw from her old Society, no
one who knew Miss Cobbe could doubt for an instant which course she
would take. It was deeply pathetic to see the brave old veteran of this
crusade brace up her failing strength to meet the trial, resolved that
she would never lower the flag she had upheld for five-and-twenty years.
It was a lesson to those who grow discouraged after a few
disappointments, and faint-hearted at the first failure. This, it seems
to me, was the strongest proof Miss Cobbe’s whole life affords of her
wonderful mental energy. Few men, well past 70, when the work they have
begun and brought to maturity is turned into what they feel to be a
wrong direction, have courage to begin again and lay the foundations of
a new enterprise. Miss Cobbe has herself told the story of how she
founded the “British Union;” and I dwell upon it here only because it
shows the intensity of her conviction that Vivisection was an evil thing
which she must oppose to the death, and with which no compromise was
possible. She did not flinch from the pain and labour and ceaseless
anxiety which she plainly foresaw. She never said—as most of us would
have held her justified in saying—“_I_ have done all I could. I have
spent myself—time, money, and strength—in this fight. Now I shall rest.”
She took no rest until death brought it to her. Probably few realise the
immense sacrifices Miss Cobbe made when she devoted herself to the
unpopular cause which absorbed the last 30 years of her life. It was not
only money and strength which were given. She lost many friends, and
much social influence and esteem. This was no light matter to a woman
who valued the regard of her fellows, and had heartily enjoyed the
position she had won for herself in the world of letters. She often
spoke sadly of this loss, though I am sure that she never for an instant
regretted that she had come forward as the helper of the helpless.
From 1898 until the last day of her life the interests of the new
Society occupied her brain and pen. It was at this time that I became
more closely intimate with her than before. Her help and encouragement
of those who worked under her were unfailing. No detail was too trifling
to bring to her consideration. Her immense knowledge of the whole
subject, her great experience and ready judgment were always at one’s
service. She soon had the care of all the branches of the Union on her
shoulders; she kept all the threads in her hand, and the particulars of
each small organisation clear in her mind. For myself, I can bear this
testimony. Never once did Miss Cobbe urge upon me any step or course of
action which I seriously disliked. When, on one or two occasions, I
ventured to object to her view of what was best, she instantly withdrew
her suggestion, and left me a free hand. If there were times when one
felt that she expected more than was possible, or when she showed a
slight impatience of one’s mistakes or failures, these were as nothing
compared with her generous praise for the little one achieved, her warm
congratulation for any small success. It was indeed easy to be loyal to
such a chief!
Much of Miss Cobbe’s leisure time during the years after Miss Lloyd’s
death was spent in reading over the records of their old life. I find
the following passage in a letter of December, 1900:—
“I have this last week broken open the lock of an old note-book of my
dear Mary’s, kept about 1882–85. Among many things of deep interest to
me are letters to and from various people and myself on matters of
theology, which I used to show her, and she took the trouble to copy
into this book, along with memoranda of our daily life. It is
unspeakably touching to me, you may well believe, to find our old life
thus revived, and such tokens of her interest in my mental problems. I
think several of the letters would be rather interesting to others,
and perhaps useful.”
There remain in my possession an immense number of letters, carefully
arranged in packets and docketed, to and from Miss Lloyd, Lord
Shaftesbury, Theodore Parker, Fanny Kemble, and others. These have all
been read through lately by Miss Cobbe, and endorsed to that effect. Up
to the very end Miss Cobbe’s large correspondence was kept up
punctually. She always found time to answer a letter, even on quite
trivial matters; and among the mass which fell into my hands on her
death were recent letters from America, India, Australia, South Africa,
and all parts of England, asking for advice on many subjects, thanking
for various kindnesses, and expressing warm affection and admiration for
the pioneer worker in so many good causes. With all these interests, her
life was very full. Nothing that took place in the world of politics,
history, or literature, was indifferent to her. She never lost her
pleasure in reading, though her eyes gave her some trouble of late
years. At night, two books—generally Biography, Egyptology, Biblical
Criticism, or Poetry—were placed by her bedside for study in the wakeful
hours of the early morning. In spite of all these resources within
herself, she sorely missed the companionship of kindred spirits. She
was, as I have said, eminently fitted for the enjoyment of social life,
and had missed it after she left London for North Wales. Up to the last,
even when visitors tired her, she was mentally cheered and refreshed by
contact with those who cared for the things she cared for.
In the winter of 1901–2 she was occupied in bringing out a new edition
of her first book, “The Theory of Intuitive Morals.” She wrote thus of
it to me at the time:—
“I have resolved not to leave the _magnum opus_ of my small literary
life out of print, so I am arranging to reprint ‘Intuitive Morals,’
with my essay on ‘Darwinism in Morals’ at the end of it, and a new
Preface, so that when I go out of the world, this, my _Credo_ for
moral science and religion, will remain after me. Nobody but myself
could correct it or preface it.... As I look back on it now, I feel
glad to be able to re-circulate it, though very few will read anything
so dry! It was written just 50 years ago, and I am able to say with
truth that I have not seen reason to abandon the position I then took,
although the ‘cocksureness’ of 30 can never be maintained to 80!”
During the same winter, Miss Cobbe joined the Women’s Liberal
Federation, moved to take this decided step not only by her strong
disapproval of the war in South Africa, but by her belief that the then
existing government was in opposition to all the movements which she
longed to see carried forward. Her accession to their ranks met with a
warm welcome from the President and Committee of the Women’s Liberal
Federation, many of whom were already her personal friends. To the end
she kept in close touch with all that concerned women; and only a few
days before her death, was asked to allow her name to be given to the
Council as an Honorary Vice-President of the National Union of Women
Workers of Great Britain and Ireland.
In the summer of 1902 an incident occurred—small in itself, but causing
such intense mortification to Miss Cobbe that it cannot be passed over
in any true account of the closing years of her life. In fact, those who
saw most of her at the time, and knew her best, believe that she never
recovered from the effects of it. A charge was brought against her of
cruelly overdriving an old horse—a horse which had been a special pet.
The absurdity of such a charge was the first thing that struck those who
heard of it; but to Miss Cobbe it came as a personal insult of the
cruellest kind. The charge was pressed on with what looked like
malicious vindictiveness, and though it failed, the intention to give
her pain did not fail. She wrote to me at the time that she was “wounded
to the quick.” The insult to her character, the attempt to throw
discredit upon her life’s work for the protection of animals from
suffering, the unchivalrousness of such an attack upon an old and lonely
woman—all this embittered the very springs of her life, and for a time
she felt as if she could not stay any longer in a neighbourhood where
such a thing had been possible. The results were very grievous for all
who loved her, as well as for herself. It had been one of her
pleasantest recreations to drive by the lovely road—which was full of
associations to her—between Hengwrt and Barmouth, to spend two or three
hours enjoying the sea air and sunshine, and the society of the old
friends who were delighted to meet her there. To Barmouth also she had a
few years previously bequeathed her library, and had taken great
interest and pleasure in the room prepared for the reception of her
“dear books.” Yet it was in Barmouth that the blow was struck, and she
never visited the little town again. It was pitiful! She had but a few
more months to live, and this was what a little group of her enemies did
to darken and embitter those few months!
On September 6th, she wrote to me:—
“This week I have had to keep quite to myself. I am, of course,
enduring now the results of the strain of the previous weeks, and they
are bad enough. The recuperative powers of 80 are—_nil_! My old
friends, Percy Bunting and his wife, offered themselves for a few days
last week, and I could not bear to refuse their offer. As it proved,
his fine talk on all things to me most interesting—modern theological
changes, Higher Criticism, etc.—and her splendid philanthropy on the
lines I once humbly followed (she is the leading woman on the
M.A.B.Y.S., which I had practically founded in Bristol forty years
ago), made me go back years of life, and seem as if I were once more
living in the blessed Seventies.... Altogether, their visit, though it
left me quite exhausted, did my brains and my heart good. O! what
friends I once had! How _rich_ I was! How poor I am now!”
In October of that year she decided to leave Hengwrt for the winter. It
was a great effort. She had not left her home for eight years, and
dreaded the uprooting. But it was a wise move. One is glad now to
remember how happy Miss Cobbe was during that winter in Clifton. She
lived over again the old days of her work in Bristol with Mary
Carpenter; visited the old scenes, and noted the changes that had taken
place. Some old friends were left, and greatly she enjoyed their
company. At Clifton she had many more opportunities of seeing people
engaged in the pursuits which interested her than in her remote Welsh
home. Her letters at that time were full of renewed cheeriness. I quote
a few sentences:
“November 13th.
“... I hope you have had as beautiful bright weather as we have had
here, and been able to get some walks on the mountain. Now I can no
longer ‘take a walk,’ I know how much such exercise helped me of old,
mentally and morally, quite as much as physically. I see a good many
old friends here, and a few new ones, and my niece comes to tea with
me every afternoon. They are all very kind, and make more of me than I
am worth; but it is a City of the Dead to me, so many are gone who
were my friends long ago; and what is harder to bear is that when I
was here last, eight or ten years ago, I was always thinking of
returning _home_, and writing daily all that happened to dear Mary—and
now, it is all a blank.”
“November 16th.
“... It is so nice to think I am missed and wanted! If I do get back
to Hengwrt, we must manage to see more of each other.... I have come
to the conclusion that for such little time as may remain for me, I
will not shut myself up again, and if I am at all able for it, I will
return home very early in the spring. I see a good many nice, kind
people here, old friends and new, and I have nice rooms; but I sadly
miss my own home and, still more, _garden_. And the eternal noise of a
town, the screaming children and detestable hurdy-gurdies, torment my
ears after their long enjoyment of peace—and thrushes.... I am shocked
to find that people here read nothing but novels; but they flock to
any abstruse lectures, _e.g._, those of Estlin Carpenter on Biblical
Criticism. I have just had an amusing experience—a journalist sent up
to gather my views as to changes in Bristol in the last forty years.
Goodness knows what a hash he will make of them!”
During this autumn, the thought occurred to me that as Miss Cobbe’s 80th
birthday was at hand, a congratulatory address from the men and women
who appreciated the work she had done for humanity and the lofty,
spiritual influence of her writings, might cheer her, and help to remove
some of the soreness of heart which the recent trouble at Barmouth had
left behind. Through the kind help of Mr. and Mrs. Bunting and Mr.
Verschoyle in England, and of Miss Schuyler and Mrs. Wister in America,
an address was drawn up, and a notable list of signatures quickly and
most cordially affixed to it. The address was as follows:—
“To FRANCES POWER COBBE
“DECEMBER 4th, 1902.
“On this your eightieth birthday, we, who recognize the strenuous
philanthropic activity and the high moral purpose of your long life,
wish to offer you this congratulatory address as an expression of
sincere regard.
“You were among the first publicly to urge the right of women to
university degrees, and your powerful pen has done much to advance
that movement towards equality of treatment for them, in educational
and other matters, which is one of the distinguishing marks of our
time.
“In social amelioration, such as Ragged Schools and Workhouse reform,
you did the work of a pioneer. By your lucid and thoughtful works on
religion and ethics, you have contributed in no small degree to that
broader and more humane view, which has so greatly influenced modern
theology in all creeds and all schools of thought.
“But it is your chief distinction that you were practically the first
to explore the dark continent of our relations to our dumb
fellow-creatures, to let in light on their wrongs, and to base on the
firm foundation of the moral law their rights and our duty towards
them. They cannot thank you, but we can.
“We hope that this expression of our regard and appreciation may bring
some contribution of warmth and light to the evening of a well spent
life, and may strengthen your sense of a fellowship that looks beyond
the grave.”
The Address happily gave Miss Cobbe all the gratification we had hoped.
I quote from her letters the following passages:—
“Clifton, December 5th.
“I learn that it is to you I owe what has certainly been the greatest
honour I have ever received in my long life—the address from English
and American friends on my 80th birthday. I can hardly say how touched
I am by this token of your great friendship, and the cheer which such
an address could not fail to give me. The handsome album containing it
and all the English signatures (the American ones—autographs—are on
their way, but I have the names in type-writing) was brought to me
yesterday by Mrs. Bunting and Mr. Verschoyle. I had three reporters
dodging in and out all day to get news of it, and have posted to you
the _Bristol Mercury_ with the best of their reports. It is really a
very splendid set of signatures, and a most flattering expression of
sympathy and approval from so many eminent men and women. It is
encouraging to think that they would _endorse_ the words about my care
for animals.”
“December 8th.
“You may not know that a very fair account of the address appeared in
the _Times_ of Saturday, and also in at least twenty other papers, so
my _fame_! has gone evidently through the land. I also had addresses
from the Women’s Suffrage people, with Lady Frances Balfour at their
head, and from the A.V. (German) Society at Dresden, Ragged School,
etc.... I am greatly enjoying the visits of many literary men and
women, old friends and new—people interested in theology and ethics
and Egypt, and all things which interest me....”
“December 24th.
“Only think that I am booked to make an address on Women Suffrage to a
ladies’ club, five doors off, on the 2nd.... The trouble you must have
taken (about the address) really overwhelms me! You certainly
succeeded in doing me a really great honour, and in _cheering_ me. I
confess I was very downhearted when I came here, but I am better now.
I feel like the man who ‘woke one morning and found himself famous.’”
“January 4th.
“I like to hear of your fine walk on the mountain. How good such walks
are for soul and body! I miss them dreadfully—for my temper as well as
my health and strength. Walking in the streets is most disagreeable to
me, especially now that I go slower than other people, so that I feel
myself an obstacle, and everybody brushes past me. I sigh for my own
private walks, small as they are, where nobody has a right to come but
myself, and my thoughts can go their ways uninterrupted. But oh, for
the old precipice walk and Moel Ispry solitudes! You will be amused to
hear that I actually gave an hour’s address to about 100 ladies at a
new club, five doors from me in this crescent, on Friday.... I was not
sorry to say a word more on that subject, and, of course, to bring in
how I trusted the votes of women to be against all sorts of cruelty,
including Vivisection. I found I had my voice and words still at
command.... They were nice, ladylike women in the club. One said she
would have seven votes if she were a man. I do believe that it would
be an immense gain for women themselves to have the larger interest
which politics would bring into their cramped lives, and to cease to
be de-considered as children.”
Miss Cobbe was too human, too full of sympathy with her
fellow-creatures, to know anything of the self-esteem which makes one
indifferent to the affection and admiration of others. She was simply
and openly pleased by this address, as the words I have quoted show; and
more than a year later, only a few days before her death, she wrote to
an old friend on _her_ 80th birthday:—
“My own experience of an 80th birthday was so much brightened by that
address ... that it stands out as a happy, albeit solemn, day in my
memory.”
While in Clifton, Miss Cobbe presided at the committee meetings of the
Bristol Branch of the British Union; and she even considered the
possibility of taking up the work once more in London. But a brief
visit, when she occupied rooms in Thurloe Gardens, proved too much for
her strength. The noise at night prevented her from sleeping, and she
was reluctantly—for she enjoyed this opportunity of seeing old
friends—obliged to return to North Wales. One Sunday morning when in
London, she told me that she walked to Hereford Square to see the little
house in which she and Miss Lloyd had spent the happiest years of their
lives. But the changed aspect of the rooms in which they had received
most of the distinguished men and women of that time distressed her, and
she regretted her visit. On February 21st, she wrote to me from
Hengwrt:—
“Dearest Blanche,
“As you see I have got home all right, and this morning meant to write
to announce my arrival.... I have heaps of things to tell you, but
to-day am dazed by fatigue and change of air. It was quite warm in
London, and the cold here is great. But oh, how glad I am to be in the
peace of Hengwrt again—how thankful that I have such a refuge in my
old age! You will be glad, I know, that I can tell you I am in a great
deal better health than when I left.”
The first time I went to see her after her return, I found her standing
in front of an immense chart which was spread out on a table, studying
the successions of Egyptian dynasties. The address she had given in
Clifton at the ladies’ club was about to be printed in the _Contemporary
Review_, and she wanted to verify a statement she had made in it about
an Egyptian queen. She told me that this elaborate chronological and
genealogical chart had been made by her, when a girl of 18, on her own
plan. “How happy I was doing it,” she said, “with my mother on her sofa
watching me, and taking such interest in it!” It was very delightful to
find the old woman of 80 consulting the work of the girl of 18.
Alas! the improvement in her health did not continue long. From that
time till the end, I hardly received a letter from Miss Cobbe without
some reference to the cheerless, gloomy weather. She was very sensitive
to the influences of the weather; and as one of her greatest pleasures
had always been to pass much time out of doors, it became a serious
deprivation to her when rain and cold made it impossible to take her
daily drive, or to walk and sit in her beloved garden. She thought that
some real and permanent change had come over our climate, and the want
of sunshine, during the last winter especially, terribly depressed her
spirits and health. I spent two or three happy days with her in the
spring, and one drive on an exquisite morning at the end of May will
long live in my memory. No one ever loved trees and flowers, mountain
and river, more than she, or took more delight in the pleasure they gave
to others.
Gradually, as the year went on, serious symptoms showed themselves—and
she knew them to be serious. Attacks of faintness and complete
exhaustion often prevented her from enjoying the society of even her
dearest friends, though in spite of increasing weakness she struggled on
with all the weight of private correspondence and the business of her
new society; and sometimes, when strangers went to see her, they would
find her so bright and animated that they came away thinking our fears
for her unfounded.
A visit from two American friends in the summer gave her much pleasure;
but all last year her anxieties and disappointments were great, and wore
down her strength. The Bayliss _v._ Coleridge case tried her grievously,
and the adverse verdict was a severe blow. The evident animus of the
public made her almost despair of ever obtaining that justice for
animals which had been the object of her efforts for so many years. Hope
deferred, and the growing opposition of principalities and powers, made
even her brave heart quail at times. One result of the trial, however,
gave her real satisfaction. The _Daily News_ opened its columns to a
correspondence on the subject of Vivisection, and the wide-spread
sympathy expressed with those who oppose it was, Miss Cobbe said, “the
greatest cheer she had known in this sad cause for years.” The two young
Swedish ladies who had been the principal witnesses at the trial,
visited her at Hengwrt in November, and I met them there one afternoon
at, I think, the last of her pleasant receptions. I have never seen her
more interested, more graciously hospitable, than on that day. She
listened to the account of the trial, sometimes with a smile of
approval, sometimes with tears in her eyes; and when we went into the
hall for tea, where the blazing wood fire lighted up the dark panelling,
and gleamed upon pictures, flowers, and curtains, and she moved about
talking to one and another with her sweet smile and kindly, earnest
words, some one present said to me, “How young she looks!” I think it
was the simplicity, the perfect naturalness of her manner and speech
that gave an aspect of almost childlikeness to the dear old face at
times. Every thought found expression in her countenance and voice. The
eyes, laughing or tearful, the gestures of her beautifully shaped hands,
were, to the last, full of animation.
There was indeed a perennial flow of vitality which seemed to overcome
all physical weakness in Miss Cobbe. But if others were deceived as to
her health, she was not. As the dark, dreary winter went on, she grew
more and more depressed. Four days before the end came, I received the
following sad letter. Illness and other causes had made it impossible
for me to go to Hengwrt for some weeks. The day after her death I was to
have gone.
“It is very sad how the weeks go by, and we, living almost within
_sight_ of each other, fail to meet. It is most horribly cold to-day,
and I would not have had you come for anything.... I think our best
plan by far will be to settle that whenever you make your proposed
start abroad, you come to me for three or four days on your way. This
will let us have a little peaceful confab. I really want very much to
do what I have been thinking of so long, but have never done yet, and
give you advice about your future editorship of my poor books. To tell
you my own conviction, even if I should be living when you return, I
do not think I shall be up to this sort of business. I am getting into
a wretched state of inability to give _attention_ to things, and now
the chances are all for a speedy collapse. This winter has been too
great a trial for my old worn brains, and now the cold returning is
killing.”
Happily for her, she was spared the pain of any protracted period of
mental or bodily weakness. On Monday, April 4th, she drove out as usual,
wrote her letters (one to me, received after she was dead), and in the
afternoon enjoyed the visit of a neighbour, who took tea with her. It
was a better day with her than many had been of late, and she went to
bed cheerful and well. In the morning, having opened her shutters to let
in the blessed daylight, and to look her last upon the familiar scene of
mountain, valley, river, and wood, with the grey headstone visible in
the churchyard where her friend rested, she passed swiftly away, and was
found dead, with a smile of peace upon her face. A short time before,
she had written to me:—
“I am touched by your affectionate words, dear Blanche, but _nobody_
must be sorry when that time comes, least of all those who love me.”
We can obey her request not to sorrow for her; but for all those—and
they are more than she ever realised—who loved her, the loss is beyond
words to tell.
Miss Cobbe’s personality breathes through all her writings. Yet there
was a charm about her which not even her autobiography is able to
convey. It was the charm of an intensely sympathetic nature, quickly
moved to laughter or to tears, passionately indignant at cruelty and
cowardice, tender to suffering, touched to a generous delight at any
story of heroism. As an instance of this, I may recall that in the
spring of 1899 Miss Cobbe started a memorial to Mrs. Rogers, stewardess
of the _Stella_, by the gift of £25. The closing words of the
inscription she wrote for the beautiful drinking fountain which was
erected to that brave woman’s memory are worth recording here:
“ACTIONS SUCH AS THESE—
SHOWING
STEADFAST PERFORMANCE OF DUTY IN THE FACE OF DEATH,
READY SELF-SACRIFICE FOR SAKE OF OTHERS,
RELIANCE ON GOD—
CONSTITUTE THE GLORIOUS HERITAGE OF OUR ENGLISH RACE.
THEY DESERVE PERPETUAL COMMEMORATION:
BECAUSE
AMONG THE TRIVIAL PLEASURES AND SORDID STRIFE OF THE WORLD
THEY REVEAL TO US FOR EVER
THE NOBILITY AND LOVE-WORTHINESS OF HUMAN NATURE.”
In Miss Cobbe’s nature a gift of humour was joined to strong practical
sense. No one who ever lived less deserved the term “Faddist” or
“Sentimentalist.” Miss Cobbe was impatient of fads. She liked “normal”
people best—those who ate and drank, and dressed and lived according to
ordinary conventions. Though, for convenience sake, she had adopted a
style of dress for herself to which she kept, letting “Fashions” come
and go unheeded, she was not indifferent to dress in other women, and
admired colours and materials, or noted eccentricities as quickly as
anyone. She once referred laughingly to her own dress as “obvious.” For
many years dressmaker’s dresses would have been impossible to her; but
she had no sympathy with the effort some women make to look peculiar at
all costs. She could thoroughly enjoy a good story, or even a bit of
amusing gossip. With her own strong religious convictions, she had the
utmost respect for other people’s opinions. Her chosen friends held
widely different creeds, and I do not think that she ever dreamt of
proselytising.
No literary person, surely, ever had less self-conceit. What she had
written was not flourished in one’s face; other people’s smallest doings
were not ignored. One felt always on leaving her that every one else was
lacking in something indefinable—was dull, uninteresting and
common-place. One felt, too, that the whole conception of womanhood was
raised. _This_ was what a woman might be. Whatever her faults, they were
the faults of a great-hearted, noble nature—faults which all generous
persons would be quick to forget. Nothing small or mean could be
tolerated by her.
Her character, as I read it, was drawn on large and simple lines, and
was of a type that is out of fashion to-day. She had many points of
resemblance to Samuel Johnson. With a strong and logical brain, she
scorned all sophistries, evasions, compromises, and half measures, and
was impatient of the wire-drawn subtleties in which modern moralists
revel. With intensely warm affections, she was, like the great doctor,
“a good hater.” He would undoubtedly have classified her as “a clubbable
woman”; and his famous saying, “Clear your mind of cant,” would have
come as appropriately from her lips as from his. If a sin was hateful to
her, she could not feel amiably towards the sinner; and for the
spiritual sins of selfishness, hypocrisy, avarice, cruelty, and
callousness, she had no mercy, ranking them as far more fatal to
character than the sins of the flesh. Like Johnson, too, she valued good
birth, good breeding, and good manners, and was instinctively
conservative, though liberal in her religious and political opinions.
She intensely disliked the license of modern life, both in manners and
morals, and had no toleration for the laxity so often pardoned in
persons of social or intellectual eminence. Her mind and her tastes were
strictly pure, orderly, and regular. It is characteristic of this type
of mind that she most admired the classical in architecture, the grand
style in art, the polished and finished verse of Pope and Tennyson in
poetry. These were the two whose words she most frequently quoted,
though she tells us that Shelley was her favourite poet.
Her gift of order was exemplified in the smallest details and the
kindred power of organisation was equally well marked. It was the
combination of impulsiveness and enthusiasm with practical judgment and
a due sense of proportion that made her so splendid a leader in any
cause she championed.
Miss Cobbe was what is often called “generous to a fault.” It was a
lesson in liberality to go with her into the garden when she cut flowers
to send away. She did not look for the defective blooms, or for those
which would not be missed. It was always the best and the finest which
she gave. How often I have held the basket while she cut rose after
rose, or great sprays of rhododendron or azælea with the knife she
wielded so vigorously. “Take as much as you like,” she would say, if she
sent you to help yourself. She gave not only material things, but
affection, interest sympathy, bountifully.
She hated a lie of any kind; her first instinct was always to stamp it
out when she came across one. Perhaps, in her stronger days, she “drank
delight of battle with her peers,” and did not crave over much for
peace. But she was not quarrelsome, and could differ without wrangling,
and dispute without bitterness.
A woman without husband or child is fortunate if, in her old age, she
has one or two friends who really love her. Miss Cobbe was devotedly
loved by a large number of men and women. Indeed, I do not think that
anyone could come close to her and not love her. She was so richly
gifted, and gave so freely of herself.
To many younger women she had become the inspiration of and guide to a
life of high endeavour, and the letters of gratitude and devotion which
were addressed to her from all parts of the world bear witness, as
nothing else can, to the extent of her splendid influence upon the
characters of others. Only a day or two before her death she received
letters from strangers who had lately read her autobiography and felt
impelled to write and thank her for this story of a brave life. It is in
the hope that through it her influence may go on growing, and that her
spirit of self-sacrifice, of service to humanity, and faithfulness to
the Divine law may spread until the causes she fought for so valiantly
are victorious, that this new edition of the “Life of Frances Power
Cobbe” is sent out.
BLANCHE ATKINSON.
AUTHOR’S PREFACE.
My life has been an interesting one to live and I hope that this record
of it may not prove too dull to read. The days are past when biographers
thought it necessary to apologize for the paucity of the adventures
which they could recall and the obscurity of the achievements which
their heroes might accomplish. We have gone far in the opposite
direction, and are wont to relate _in extenso_ details decidedly
trivial, and to reproduce in imposing type correspondence which was
scarcely worth the postage of the original manuscript. Our sense of the
intrinsic interest of Humanity, as depicted either in biography or
fiction,—that is, of the character of the _personages_ of the drama
going on upon our little stage,—has continually risen, while that of the
_action_ of the piece,—the “incidents” which our fathers chiefly
regarded,—has fallen into the second plane. I fear I have been guilty in
this book of recording many trifling memories and of reproducing some
letters of little importance; but only through small touches could a
happy childhood and youth be possibly depicted: and all the Letters
have, I think, a certain value as relics and tokens of friendship, if
not as expressions (as many of them are) of opinions carrying the weight
of honoured names.
As regards these Letters (exclusively, of course, those of friends and
correspondents now dead), I earnestly beg the heirs of the writers to
pardon me if I have not asked their permission for the publication of
them. To have ascertained, in the first place, who such representatives
are and where they might be addressed, would, in many cases, have been a
task presenting prohibitive difficulties; and as the contents of the
Letters are wholly honourable to the heads and hearts of their authors,
I may fairly hope that surviving relatives will be pleased that they
should see the light, and will not grudge the testimony they bear to
kindly sentiments entertained towards myself.[1]
There is in this book of mine a good deal of “_Old Woman’s Gossip_,” (I
hope of a harmless sort), concerning many interesting men and women with
whom it was my high privilege to associate freely twenty, thirty and
forty years ago. But if it correspond at all to my design, it is not
only, or chiefly, a collection of social sketches and friendly
correspondence. I have tried to make it the true and complete history of
a woman’s existence _as seen from within_; a real LIFE, which he who
reads may take as representing fairly the joys, sorrows and interests,
the powers and limitations, of one of my sex and class in the era which
is now drawing to a close. The world when I entered it was a very
different place from the world I must shortly quit, most markedly so as
regards the position in it of women and of persons like myself holding
heterodox opinions, and my experience practically bridges the gulf which
divides the English _ancien régime_ from the new.
Whether my readers will think at the end of these volumes that such a
life as mine was worth _recording_ I cannot foretell; but that it has
been a “_Life Worth Living_” I distinctly affirm; so well worth it,
that,—though I entirely believe in a higher existence hereafter, both
for myself and for those whose less happy lives on earth entitle them
far more to expect it from eternal love and justice,—I would gladly
accept the permission to run my earthly race once more from beginning to
end, taking sunshine and shade just as they have flickered over the long
vista of my seventy years. Even the retrospect of my life in these
volumes has been a pleasure; a chewing of the cud of memories,—mostly
sweet, none very bitter,—while I lie still a little while in the
sunshine, ere the soon-closing night.
F. P. C.
CONTENTS.
CHAP. PAGE
INTRODUCTION v
PREFACE xxvii
I. FAMILY AND HOME 1
II. CHILDHOOD 29
III. SCHOOL AND AFTER 55
IV. RELIGION 79
V. MY FIRST BOOK 107
VI. IRELAND IN THE FORTIES. THE PEASANTRY 135
VII. IRELAND IN THE FORTIES. THE GENTRY 163
VIII. UPROOTED 201
IX. LONG JOURNEY 217
X. BRISTOL. REFORMATORIES AND RAGGED SCHOOLS 273
XI. BRISTOL. THE SICK IN THE WORKHOUSE 301
XII. BRISTOL. WORKHOUSE GIRLS 325
XIII. BRISTOL FRIENDS 341
XIV. ITALY. 1857–1879 363
XV. MY LITERARY LIFE IN LONDON 397
XVI. MY JOURNALIST LIFE IN LONDON 427
XVII. MY SOCIAL LIFE IN LONDON IN THE SIXTIES AND SEVENTIES 441
XVIII. MY SOCIAL LIFE IN LONDON IN THE SEVENTIES AND EIGHTIES 517
XIX. THE CLAIMS OF WOMEN 581
XX. THE CLAIMS OF BRUTES 613
XXI. MY HOME IN WALES 693
INDEX 713
ERRATA
For Berwick read Bewick, p. 179, last line.
For Goldsmiths read Goldschmidts, p. 237, 8 lines from bottom.
For Goodwin read Godwin, p. 257, line 12.
For Macpelah read Machpelah, p. 237, line 12.
CHAPTER
I.
_FAMILY AND HOME._
I have enjoyed through life the advantage of being, in the true sense of
the words, “well-born.” My parents were good and wise; honourable and
honoured; sound in body and in mind. From them I have inherited a
physical frame which, however defective even to the verge of
grotesqueness from the æsthetic point of view, has been, as regards
health and energy, a source of endless enjoyment to me. From childhood
till now in my old age—except during a few years interval of lameness
from an accident,—mere natural existence has always been to me a
positive pleasure. Exercise and rest, food and warmth, work, play and
sleep, each in its turn has been delightful; and my spirits, though of
course now no longer as gay as in youth, have kept a level of
cheerfulness subject to no alternatives of depression save under the
stress of actual sorrow. How much of the optimism which I am aware has
coloured my philosophy ought to be laid to the account of this bodily
_bien être_, it would be superfluous to enquire too nicely. At least I
may fairly maintain that, as Health is the normal condition of
existence, the views which a particularly healthy person takes of things
are presumably more sound than those adopted by one habitually in the
abnormal condition of an invalid.
As regards the inheritance of mental faculties, of which so much has
been talked of late years, I cannot trace it in my own experience in any
way. My father was a very able, energetic man; but his abilities all lay
in the direction of administration, while those of my dear mother were
of the order which made the charming hostess and cultivated member of
society with the now forgotten grace of the eighteenth century. Neither
paternal nor maternal gifts or graces have descended to me; and such
faculties as have fallen to my lot have been of a different kind; a kind
which, I fear, my good father and his forbears would have regarded as
incongruous and unseemly for a daughter of their house to exhibit.
Sometimes I have pictured to myself the shock which “The old Master”
would have felt could he have seen me—for example—trudging three times a
week for seven years to an office in the purlieus of the Strand to write
articles for a half-penny newspaper. Not one of my ancestors, so far as
I have heard, ever dabbled in printer’s ink.
My brothers were all older than I; the eldest eleven, the youngest five
years older; and my mother, when I was born, was in her forty-seventh
year; a circumstance which perhaps makes it remarkable that the physical
energy and high animal spirits of which I have just made mention came to
me in so large a share. My old friend Harriet St. Leger, Fanny Kemble’s
“dear H. S.,” who knew us all well, said to me one day laughing: “You
know _you_ are your Father’s _Son_!” Had I been a man, and had possessed
my brother’s facilities for entering Parliament or any profession,[2] I
have sometimes dreamed I could have made my mark and done some masculine
service to my fellow-creatures. But the woman’s destiny which God
allotted to me has been, I do not question, the best and happiest for
me; nor have I ever seriously wished it had been otherwise, albeit I
have gone through life without that interest which has been styled
“woman’s whole existence.” Perhaps if this book be found to have any
value it will partly consist in the evidence it must afford of how
pleasant and interesting, and withal, I hope, not altogether useless a
life is open to a woman, though no man has ever desired to share it, nor
has she seen the man she would have wished to ask her to do so. The days
which many maidens my contemporaries and acquaintances,—
“Lost in wooing
In watching and pursuing,”—