Lady Hester’s system of astrology――Sympathies and antipathies――
People’s _nijems_ or stars――Mesmerism explained――Lord Suffolk――Lady
Hester’s own star――Letter to the Queen――Letter to Mr. Speaker
Abercrombie――Messieurs Beck and Moore――Letter to Colonel Campbell――The
Ides of March――Lady Hester’s reflections on the Queen’s conduct to
her――Letter to Sir Edward Sugden――What peers are――Junius’s
Letters――Spies employed by the first Lord Chatham――Mr. Pitt’s opinion
of the Duke of Wellington――Lady Hester’s letter to his Grace, &c.
In order to render intelligible to the reader many passages which have
occurred, and will occur again, in Lady Hester’s conversations,
respecting what she called people’s _nijems_ or stars, it may not be
amiss to give an outline of her system of astrology, and of the
supposed influence that the position of the stars in the heavens at
our nativity has on our future fate and on our sympathies. I must
preface what follows by observing that she had a remarkable talent for
divining characters by the make of a person. This every traveller will
testify who has visited her in Syria; for it was after she went to
live in solitude that her penetration became so extraordinary. It was
founded both on the features of the face and on the shape of the head,
body, and limbs. Some indications she went by were taken from a
resemblance to animals; and, wherever such indications existed, she
inferred that the dispositions peculiar to those animals were to be
found in the person. But, independent of all this, her doctrine was,
that every creature is governed by the star under whose influence it
was born.
Every star has attached to it two aërial beings, two animals, two
trees, two flowers, &c.; that is, a couple of all the grand classes in
creation, animal, vegetable, mineral, or etherial, whose antipathies
and sympathies become congenial with the being born under the same
star. She would say, “My brother Charles vomited if he ate three
strawberries only: other people, born under the same star as his, may
not have such an insurmountable antipathy as his was, because their
star may be imperfect, whilst his was pure; but they will have it,
more or less. Some persons again will have as much delight in the
smell of particular flowers as cats have in the smell of valerian,
when they sit and purr round it.
“The stars under which men are born may be one or more. Thus Mr.
H*****, an English traveller, who came to see me, was born under four
stars, all tending to beauty, but of no good in other respects. His
forehead was as white as snow; his mouth” (I think she said) “was
good, with a handsome small black beard; but his stars were otherwise
dull: for you know the stars in the heavens are not always bright and
twinkling, but sometimes heavy and clouded. It is like engravings――some
of them are proofs, and those are perfect. Some persons may have a
good star, but it may be cracked like a glass, and then, you know, it
can’t hold water.
“The influence of stars depends, likewise, on whether they are rising,
or in their zenith, or setting; and the angle at which they are must
be determined by calculations, which good astrologers make very
readily. But a clever man will, from his knowledge of the stars, look
even at a child and say, ‘That child will have such and such diseases,
such and such virtues, such and such vices;’ and this I can do: nay,
what is more, I can give a description of the features of any person I
have never seen, if his character is described to me, and vice versa.
There is a learned man at Damascus, who possesses the same faculty in
an extraordinary degree. He knew nothing of me but by report, and had
never seen me: but a friend of his, having given him a description of
my person and features, he noted down my virtues, vices, and qualities
so exactly, that he even said in what part of my body I had got a
mole, and mentioned the small mark on my shoulder, where Mr. Cline
removed a tumour. There’s for you? do you believe these things, or do
you not?
“A man’s destiny may be considered as a graduated scale, of which the
summit is the star that presided over his birth. In the next degree
comes the good angel[24] attached to that star; then the herb and the
flower beneficial to his health and agreeable to his smell; then the
mineral, then the tree, and such other things as contribute to his
good; then the man himself: below him comes the evil spirit, then the
venomous reptile or animal, the plant, and so on; things inimical to
him. Where the particular tree that is beneficial or pleasurable to
him flourishes naturally, or the mineral is found, there the soil and
air are salubrious to that individual; and a physician who understood
my doctrines, how easily could he treat his patients!――for, by merely
knowing the star of a person, the simples and compounds most
beneficial to him in medicine would be known also.
“How great the sympathies and antipathies are in stars that are the
same or opposite I have told you before in my grandfather’s case, in
Mr. Pitt’s, and in my own. Lord Chatham, when on a sick bed, could
bear three people only to wait on him――Lady Chatham, Sarah Booby, and
somebody else. My grandmamma’s star and Sarah Booby’s star were the
same――both Venus――only grandmamma’s was more moderate; she could keep
it down. Mr. Pitt, when he was ill at Putney, had such an aversion to
one of the footmen, that he was nervous when he heard his step; for
you know people, when they are sick, can hear a pin drop: he said to
me, ‘Hester, do send that fellow to town.’ I did not let him know why
he was sent to town, but I got him off as quickly as possible: he was,
notwithstanding, a good servant, clean, and had otherwise good
qualities; but Mr. Pitt’s and his star were different. As to myself,
since I have been here, I had a professed French cook, called
François――the people named him _Fransees el Franjy_. His skill was
undoubted; yet, whenever he dressed my dinner, I was always sending
for him to complain, and sometimes threw the dish in his face: a
sweetmeat from his hand turned bitter in my mouth. But, what is most
extraordinary of all, Miss Williams’s star was so disagreeable to me
that I could not bear her to be near me when I was ill:――if I was in a
perspiration, it would stop the moment she came into the room. You
know how many good qualities she had, and how attached she was to me,
and I to her: well, I always kept her out of my sight as much as I
could, when anything was the matter with me.
“Such is the sympathy of persons born under the same star, that,
although living apart in distant places, they will still be sensible
of each other’s sufferings. When the Duke of York died, at the very
hour, a cold sweat and a kind of fainting came over me, that I can’t
describe. I was ill beyond measure, and I said to Miss Williams,
‘Somebody is dying somewhere, and I am sure it is one of my friends:
so I made her write it down. Some time after, when she was poking over
a set of newspapers, she came to me, and said, ‘It’s very singular, my
lady; but, the time you were so very ill, and could not account for
it, corresponds exactly with the date of the Duke of York’s death――the
hour, too, just the same!’ Now, doctor, wasn’t it extraordinary? You
drawl out ‘Y――e――s,’ just as if you thought I told lies: oh, Lord! oh,
Lord! what a cold man!
“The proof of sympathy between the stars of two persons, or, in other
words, of the star of another being good for you, is, when a person
puts his finger on you and you don’t feel it. Zezefôon, when
Mademoiselle Longchamp touches her with her fingers in examining the
Turkish dress, shudders all over: that is a proof that her star is not
good for her, and yet Miss L. uses more kind expressions to her than
anybody; but that makes no difference; there is no sympathy in their
stars.
“Animal magnetism is nothing but the sympathy of our stars. Those
fools who go about magnetizing indifferently one person and another,
why do they sometimes succeed, and sometimes fail?――because, if they
meet with those of the same star with themselves, their results will
be satisfactory, but with opposite stars they can do nothing. Some
people you may magnetize, some you cannot; and so far will the want of
sympathy act in some, that there are persons whom it would be
impossible to put in certain attitudes: they might be mechanically
placed there, but their posture never would be natural; whilst others,
from their particular star, would readily fall into them. Oh! if I had
your friend, Mr. Green,[25] here, I could give him some useful hints
on choosing models for his lectures.
“There are animals, too, under the same star with human beings. I had
a mule whose star was the same as mine; and, at the time of my severe
illness, this mule showed as much sensibility about me, and more, than
some of the beasts who wait on me. When that mule was first foaled, I
had given orders to sell the foal and its mother; but, happening to
see it, I countermanded the order immediately. It received a hurt in
its eye, and when, with my hand, I applied some eye-water with camphor
in it, which, of course, made the eye smart, it never once turned its
head away, or showed the least impatience of what I was doing. When
this mule was dying some years afterwards, she lay twenty-four hours,
every minute seeming to be going to breathe her last; but still life
would not depart. They told me of this, and I went to the stable. The
moment she saw me, she turned her eyes on me, gave an expressive look,
and expired. All the servants said she would not die until my star,
which was hers, had come to take her breath: isn’t it very
extraordinary? Serpents never die, whatever you can do to them, until
their star rises above the horizon.[26]
“Some can do well only when under the guidance of another person’s
star. What was Lord Grenville without Mr. Pitt? with him to guide him
he did pretty well; but, as soon as Mr. Pitt was dead, he sunk into
obscurity: who ever heard of Lord Grenville afterwards? So again Sir
Francis Burdett has never been good for anything since Horne Tooke’s
death. So long as Napoleon had Josephine by his side he was lucky:
but, when he cast her off, his good fortune left him. You know you
sent me her portrait: well, it was a good engraving, and I have no
doubt was a likeness. I observed in her face indications of much
falsity, and a depth of cunning exceedingly great: it was her _sâad_
(luck) that held him up. You may see so many examples of such good
fortune depending on men’s wives. Mahomet Ali owes all to his wife――a
woman without a nose. What saved the Shaykh Beshýr but the sâad of the
Syt Haboos? Hamâady told the Emir Beshýr, ‘You will never do anything
with the Shaykh Beshýr until you get rid of her, and then the Shaykh
is in your power.’ So what did he do? he sent his son――the little Emir
Beshýr, as they call him――who surrounded her palace with twenty
horsemen, and, when she attempted to escape, drove her into her own
courtyard, and stabbed her: her body was cut in pieces, and given to
the dogs to eat.
“What is to account for some people’s good fortune but their star?
There was Lord Suffolk, an ensign in a marching regiment, and
thirteenth remove from the title――see what an example he was! It was
predestined that he should arrive at greatness, although, when the
news was brought him that he was come to the title, he had not money
enough to pay for a post-chaise: but nothing could hinder what his
good star was to bring him. Lady Suffolk, the daughter of a clergyman
of a hundred a-year, was a very clever, shrewd woman, and filled her
elevated station admirably.”
I have embodied thus much in Lady Hester Stanhope’s own words of what
may give a tolerable idea of her notion of planetary influence. What
her own star was may be gathered from what she said one day, when,
having dwelt a long time on this, her favourite subject, she got up
from the sofa, and, approaching the window, she called me to
her――“Look,” said she, “at the pupil of my eyes; there! my star is the
sun――all sun――it is in my eyes: when the sun is a person’s star, it
attracts everything.” I looked, and replied that I saw a rim of yellow
round the pupil.――“A rim!” cried she; “it isn’t a rim――it’s a sun;
there’s a disk, and from it go rays all round: ’tis no more a rim than
you are. Nobody has got eyes like mine.”[27]
Lady Hester Stanhope, in a letter she wrote to Prince Pückler Muskau,
describes her system briefly as follows; and she desired me to keep a
copy of it, that I might not, as she said, substitute my own ideas
for hers.
“Every man, born under a given star, has his aërial spirit, his
animal, his bird, his fruit-tree, his flower, his medicinal herb, and
his dæmon. Beings born under any given star may be of four different
qualities and forms, just as there may be four different qualities of
cherries, having little resemblance one to another, but being
nevertheless all cherries. Added to this, there may be varieties in
the same star, occasioned by the influence of other stars, which were
above the horizon in particular positions at the hour of a man’s
birth: just as you may say that a ship is more or less baffled by
certain winds, though she is standing her course. Again, a man being
born under the same star with another man, whilst that star is in one
sign of the zodiac, changes somewhat the character and appearance when
in another sign of the zodiac: just as two plants which are alike,
when one grows where there is always shade and the other where there
is constantly sunshine, although precisely of one and the same kind,
will differ slightly in appearance, odour, and taste.
“A man born under a certain star will have, from nature, certain
qualities, certain virtues and vices, certain talents, diseases, and
tastes. All that education can do is merely artificial: leave him to
himself, and he returns to his natural character and his original
tastes. If this were better known, young people would not be made to
waste their time uselessly in fitting them for what they never can be.
“I have learned to know a man’s star by his face, but not by
astrological calculations, as perhaps you fancy; of that trade I have
no knowledge. I have been told that the faculty which I possess is
much more vague than the astrological art, and I believe it: but mine
is good for a great deal, though not for calculating the exact epoch
of a man’s maladies or death.
“You will ask me how it is possible to know mankind by looking at
their features and persons; and so thoroughly too. I answer――a
gardener, when he sees twenty bulbs of twenty different flowers on the
table before him, will he not tell you that one will remain so many
days under ground before it sprouts, then it will grow little by
little, very slowly, and in so many days or weeks will flower, and its
flowers will have such a smell, such a colour, and such virtues: after
so many days more, it will begin to droop and fade, and in ten days
will wither: that other, as soon as it is out of the ground, will grow
an inch and a half in every twenty-four hours: its flowers will be
brilliant, but will have a disagreeable smell; it will bloom for a
long time, and then will wither altogether in a day and why may not
I, looking on men, pronounce on their virtues, qualities, and duration
in the same way? This may not be well explained, but a clever person
will divine what I mean.”
Such were, in the main, the opinions of Lady Hester on astrology, to
which several travellers have alluded, but which, from defective
information, they have hitherto misrepresented. It will be seen that
there was at least method in her belief. We will now return from this
digression.
Our narrative broke off in the middle of a conversation on the evening
of January 31, 1838.
Tea was ordered; but so simple a process as getting tea ready was now
a painful business. If it did not come immediately, Lady Hester grew
so impatient, that it was distressing to see her agitation. She would
then ring for a pipe, and perhaps send it back to be fresh filled or
changed four or five times in succession, each one being, for some
trifling reason, rejected. Alas! it was not the tea nor the pipes that
were in fault; it was Colonel Campbell’s letter that had given a stab
to her heart, from which she never recovered; and, in proportion to
the apparent calm which she endeavoured to assume, when speaking on
that subject, did the feeling of the supposed indignity which she had
received prey on her spirits and on her pride.
She reverted to the letter. “The thing to be considered,” she said,
“is whether I shall write a letter to the Queen, and ask the Duke of
Wellington to give it to her, or whether I shall put it in the
newspapers: for I am afraid, if I send it to him, he will not give it
to her; or, if he does, they will say nothing about it. I should like
to ask for a public inquiry into my debts, and for what I have
contracted them. Let them compare the good I have done in the cause of
humanity and science with the D――――s of K――――’s debts. When I am
better, I’ll set all this to rights. I wonder if Lord Palmerston is
the man I recollect――a young man just come from College, that was
hanging about, waiting to be introduced to Mr. Pitt. Mr. Pitt used to
say, ‘Ah! very well; we will ask him some day to dinner.’ Perhaps it
is an old grudge that makes him vent his spite. He is an Irishman, I
think.”
February 1.――To-day Lady Hester was much the same as on the preceding
days: her pulse was low; her lungs were loaded with phlegm; aphthæ had
shown themselves on her tongue; her nails were cracked from the
contraction of the surrounding integuments; the tips of her fingers
were cold; her back, as she sat up in bed, was bent; her bones almost
protruded through the skin, from being obliged to lie always on one
side. Speaking of her inability to sleep, except in some particular
position, she observed that she was like those little figures of
tumblers; place her as you would, she rolled over to the left side, as
if there was a weight of lead there.
After the usual preliminaries of smoking a pipe and a little
conversation, she dictated her letter to the Queen and to Mr.
Abercrombie, speaker of the House of Commons.
* * * * *
_Lady Hester Stanhope to the Queen._
Jôon, February 12, 1838.
Your Majesty will allow me to say that few things are more
disgraceful and inimical to royalty than giving commands
without examining all their different bearings, and casting,
without reason, an aspersion upon the integrity of any
branch of a family who had faithfully served their country
and the house of Hanover.
As no inquiries have been made of me what circumstances
induced me to incur the debts alluded to, I deem it
unnecessary to enter into any details upon the subject. I
shall not allow the pension given by your royal grandfather
to be stopped by force; but I shall resign it for the
payment of my debts, and with it the name of English
subject, and the slavery that is at present annexed to it:
and, as your Majesty has given publicity to the business by
your orders to consular agents, I surely cannot be blamed in
following your royal example.
HESTER LUCY STANHOPE.
* * * * *
_Lady Hester Stanhope to Mr. Speaker Abercrombie._
Jôon, February 12, 1838.
Sir,
Probably the wheel-horse has forgotten his driver, but the
latter has not forgotten him.[28] I am told that the chief
weight of the carriage of state bears upon you; if so, it
must be a ponderous one indeed, if I can judge by a specimen
of the talent of those who guide it.
You, who have read and thought a great deal upon men and
manners, must be aware that there are situations almost
unknown in Europe from which persons, in what is called a
semi-barbarous country, cannot extricate themselves with
honour without taking a part either for or against humanity:
besides, there are extraordinary gusts of knowledge――of
extraordinary information――which, if you do not take
advantage of them at the moment, are lost to you for ever. I
have, therefore, exceeded my pecuniary means, but always
with the hope of extricating myself without the assistance
of any one; or at least (and ever before my eyes, should the
worst come to the worst) with that of selling the reversion
of what I possess. Your magnificent Queen has made me appear
like a bankrupt in the world, and partly like a swindler;
having given strict orders that _one_ usurer’s account must
be paid, or my pension stopped, without taking into
consideration others who have equal claims upon me. Her
Majesty has not thrown the gauntlet before a driveller or a
coward: those who are the advisers of these steps cannot be
wise men.
Whatever men’s political opinions may be, if they act from
conscientious motives, I have always respected them; and you
know that I have had friends in all parties. Therefore,
without any reference to the present or past political
career of ministers, or her Majesty’s advisers, their
conduct would appear to me, respecting myself, identically
as it was, gentlemanlike or blackguard. But, having had but
too strong a specimen of the latter by their attempting to
bully a Pitt, and to place me under consular control, it is
sufficient for me to resign the name of an English subject;
for the justice granted to the slave of despotism far
exceeds that which has been shown to me. Believe me, with
esteem and regard, yours,
HESTER LUCY STANHOPE.
* * * * *
Friday, February 2.――To-day, I found her ladyship busied in sorting
out certain articles of apparel, which had just before been brought
home for herself: they had been made by the wife of Lufloofy, the
person at Sayda who generally lodged English travellers. As the fair
sex may like to know what the texture of ladies’ under-garments is in
the East, these were made of half cotton and half silk, and, to the
appearance and touch, not unlike crape. Some women have them all silk.
Either kind is favourable for absorbing perspiration, and, under any
circumstances, never strikes cold to the body.[29]
There had arrived, also, from Marseilles six cases of claret, two of
brandy, one of rum, twelve baskets of champagne, one case of Kirsch
water; and from Leghorn six cases of Genoese _pâte_, two Parmesan
cheeses, some Bologna sausages, pots of preserve, one barrel of salmon
and tunny, one ditto of anchovies, brooms, scuppets, perfumery, two
chests of tea, and numberless other good things, to meet the wants of
her expected guest, the Baroness de Fériat, who was coming from the
United States. It was sad enough that Lady Hester herself, with
abundance of choice provisions and wines, was unable to partake of
any. However, when samples of them were brought in, as the cases were
opened one after another, to be shown her, her usual (what shall I
call it?) greediness of manner manifested itself. She tasted
everything, and swallowed a great deal: the natural consequence of
which was that she threw herself back in her bed, gasping for breath,
and suffering horribly. On these occasions, her favourite plan was to
relieve the succession of momentary symptoms by a host of palliatives,
never leaving her stomach empty or her digestive organs at rest, and
always fancying that it was want of nourishment that generated
uneasiness or caused the oppression on her chest, from both of which
she never was free; nor would she listen to any arguments that tended
to show she was in error.
February 4, Sunday.――This morning it was discovered in my house that a
silver spoon had been lost. I had a man-servant and a boy, the former
a Greek, the latter a Mahometan. The Greek had one of the most
sinister countenances I ever beheld: he was the same man who had
accompanied Mr. Moore and Mr. Beck to the Dead Sea,[30] and had been
sent to me from Beyrout by the innkeeper there: he was a knave, a
drunkard, and a liar. Suspicion fell on him, and he, to throw it on
others, first accused the milk-girl, and then the water-carrier.
Theft, in houses in Turkey, where many are suspected, generally leads
to the punishing of them all; and Logmagi suggested that he should
apply the korbàsh to all three, to elicit the truth. However, I
thought it more just to resort to the European way, saying if the
spoon were not found, the two servants must pay for it, not doubting
the innocence of the water-carrier, a hard-working fellow of good
repute. Logmagi objected to this. “You must flog that Greek,” said he,
“or you will lose, one by one, everything of value you possess.”
Here the matter rested, as the morning had been fixed for answering
Colonel Campbell’s letter: so I wrote from her ladyship’s dictation
the following laconic epistle to him, and the friendly one to Mr.
Moore, British consul at Beyrout. When I had finished them, I asked
Lady Hester what she would have me put at the close, and how she chose
to subscribe herself. “Say nothing,” replied she: “how many times I
have said I could never call myself the humble servant of any body. I
hate and detest all those compliments so unmeaning and so false: but
to Mr. Moore you may express my esteem and regard. I know I shall have
a great liking for Mrs. Moore, if ever I see her: is she so very
handsome as they say? When you go to Beyrout, you must tell her that I
consider it a duty to like her: she does not know why, no more do
you.”
* * * * *
_Lady Hester Stanhope to Colonel Campbell._
Jôon, February 4, 1838.
Sir,
I shall give no sort of answer to your letter of the 10th of
January (received the 27th), until I have seen a copy of her
Majesty’s commands respecting my debt to Mr. Homsy, or of
the official orders from her Majesty’s Secretary of State
for Foreign Affairs, as also of Mr. Homsy’s claim, as well
as of the statement sent to England――to whom, and through
whom――in order that I may know whom I have to deal with, as
well as be able to judge of the accuracy of the documents.
I hope in future that you will not think it necessary to
make any apologies for the execution of your duty; on the
contrary, I should wish to recommend you all to put on large
Brutus wigs when you sit on the woolsack at Alexandria or at
Beyrout.
HESTER LUCY STANHOPE.
* * * * *
_Lady Hester Stanhope to Mr. Moore, British Consul at
Beyrout._
Jôon, February 4, 1838.
Sir,
The sacrifice which I have made of your acquaintance and
your society, that you might stand quite clear of everything
that affects me, appears to be to little purpose. You will
have some very disagreeable business to go through, as you
will be made Colonel Campbell’s honourable agent, and he the
agent of the wise Lord Palmerston, and he the agent of your
magnificent Queen. There is Colonel Campbell’s answer, which
I leave open for your perusal, as he did his.
If in the end I find that you deserve the name of a true
Scotchman, I shall never take ill the part that you may have
taken against me, as it appears to be consistent with your
duty in these dirty times.
I remain with truth and regard, yours,
HESTER LUCY STANHOPE.
* * * * *
Besides these letters, I wrote others for England and for Beyrout――in
all about a dozen. What with waiting and listening to her
conversation, I was with her five hours before dinner and five hours
after. I had to seal and put covers to all these; and just at the
moment when I was about to retire to my study, a little room set apart
for me in her house, to do this, Lady Hester stopped me, and returned
to the subject of the silver spoon. After some consideration, she
recommended also the use of the korbàsh.[31]
“How am I to live,” cried she, “with thirty servants in my house, and
such a man as you are that can’t say boh! to a goose? How do you
expect they will mind me, if you don’t keep them under? Hamâady is
coming to-morrow to Jôon: he must be sent for, and shall interrogate
the rascal; I warrant you, he’ll soon bring it to light.”
When I left her for dinner, she had said to me, “Send me word a
quarter of an hour before you return to say you are coming.” This, in
my hurry to get through so much writing for her, I had neglected to
do; and it, therefore, served now as the text for a new grievance.
“Didn’t I say,” she asked me, “let me know a quarter of an hour
beforehand when you are ready to come to me? that quarter of an hour
was everything to me: I wished to have more candles brought in on
account of your eyes, to have the paper and ink got ready, and to
collect my thoughts; but no! everybody must do as they like, and poor
I be made the sacrifice.――I _will_ live by the rule of grandeur.”
Then she called her maids in, one after another, poured on them a
torrent of abuse for their laziness, dirt, and insolence. My heart
sickened to think what would be the consequence of all this to
herself; for I knew very well that her whole frame, the next morning,
would be debilitated from such excitement: yet all this time her
passion was sublimely eloquent, and, sick though she was, terrible.
Her maids tumbled over each other from fright, and the thunder that
rolled in the sky (for a storm was raging at the time) was but a faint
likeness of her paroxysm. When it was over, we drank tea, and at
half-past one separated for the night.
February 5. The weather was still stormy. Snow fell in abundance on
the higher chains of Mount Lebanon, where it lay apparently very
thick.
When I paid my morning visit, Lady Hester held out her hand to me the
moment I approached her bedside. “I said too much last night,” she
observed; “think no more about it, doctor; but you know my
irritability, and you must bear with it.” She was pale, languid, and
extenuated: her hands and arms were jerked in convulsive flings.
Strong electrical shocks could not have shaken her so much. Alas! I
sympathised too deeply with her wrongs not to forget all her
ebullitions of anger the moment they were over.
When she found herself a little easier, she asked me to explain to her
Julius Cæsar’s calendar, which she had on some occasion lighted on in
Ainsworth’s dictionary. “When I was a girl,” said she, “I knew all the
constellations in the heavens, and was so quick at astronomy, that
they took my books and maps away, fearing I should give myself up to
it, to the neglect of my other studies. I had it all before my eyes,
just like a pocket-handkerchief. What day are the ides of March?” I
told her. “I think,” she continued, “the word Ides must be derived
from _âayd_, [Arabic: عيد].” I guessed at once what was passing in her
mind. It was an illusion with her that her destiny and Cæsar’s, or her
character and his, had some resemblance: and, when she mentioned
Brutus-wigs in her letter to Colonel Campbell, it had a reference to
the stabs they were giving her from England in depriving her of her
pension, and putting insults upon her.
She was deeply wounded in her pride by the treatment she had received
from home. “The Queen,” she would say, “should have desired her
ministers to write to me, and say, ‘It grieves me that you should have
exceeded your income, and incurred debts, which you know, when
complaints are made to me, I cannot countenance; endeavour to pay them
by instalments, and all may yet be well,’ or something to that
effect―― * * * * * * But no! she shall have my pension, and, if they
make me a bankrupt, why, let them pay the usurers themselves.”
February 9.――I did not see Lady Hester the whole of the preceding day:
she had sent me a message to say she did not wish to trouble me. I
attributed this to the state of the weather; for the wind was high,
the atmosphere wet and cold, and everything about the residence
uncomfortable. To go from my house to Lady Hester’s, I was obliged to
wear high wooden clogs and a thick Greek capote with a hood to it.
Umbrellas, from the gusts of wind, were out of the question. The
ground was like soap. But it was not the weather that made her decline
my visit: she had been closeted with a doctor of the country from Dayr
el Kamar, the son of that _Metta_ of whom mention has been made in a
former part of these pages as having bequeathed his family as a legacy
to her. He was come, as it was supposed, to give his opinion on her
case. I took no umbrage at this. Lady Hester and I differed _toto
cœlo_ on medical points; and she told me very often, after discussions
of this sort, that she had invited me to come this time, not as her
physician, but as a friend; one in whom she had confidence to settle
her debts.
The muleteers had been sent on the 7th of February to Mar Elias, to
bring away the effects which had been lying there, rotting and
spoiling, since Miss Williams’s death. I accompanied them to
superintend the moving, as also to pay a visit to General Loustaunau.
Heavens! what waste was I witness to! In one closet was a beautiful
wax miniature of Mr. Pitt, a portrait of the Duke of York, some other
pictures, stationery, glass, china, medicines, &c., enough for a
family. In one room were carpets, cushions, counterpanes, mattresses,
pillows, all completely destroyed by mould and damp. In a store-room
were large japan canisters with tea, preserves, sugar, wine, lamps,
&c. From another room, (the roof of which had fallen in at the time of
the great earthquake,) had disappeared, according to Lady Hester’s
account, 3 cwt. of copper utensils, in cauldrons, boilers, saucepans,
kettles, round platters, called _sennéyah_, and many other things. A
leather portmanteau lay with the lock cut out; a trunk had its hinges
wrenched off; and both were emptied of their contents. Everywhere
proofs of pillage were manifest, and the village of Abra was
notoriously thriving by it. For ten years this plundering system had
been going on, and yet what still remained would have almost filled a
house. Among other things were papers and boxes of seeds, roots, dried
plants, and a variety of such matters, which Lady Hester had
collected: “for,” she would say, “the importance of people’s pursuits
is judged in a different way by different individuals. For example,
Sir Joseph Banks would think I had done wonders if I found a spider
that had two more joints than another in his hind-leg; and Sir Abraham
Hume would embrace me if I had got a coin not in his collection; but I
have hoarded up something for everybody. And yet, whether I have done
good for humanity or for science, those English give me credit for
nothing, and never even once ask how I got into debt.”
February 10.――I spent four hours with Lady Hester Stanhope this
evening. She was very ill, and greatly convulsed during the greater
part of the time:――she moaned a good deal――yet, in the intervals of
ease that she got, she had two baskets of good things packed up as a
present to an old French widow, and two for an infirm old man, her
pensioner, residing at Sayda.
Monday, February 13.――Lady Hester to-day dictated the following letter
to Sir Edward Sugden:――
_Lady Hester Stanhope to Sir Edward Sugden._
Jôon, February 12, 1838.
Sir,
Born an aristocrat (for this assurance I received from your
father, whom it appeared to annoy as much as it delighted
me), with these genuine feelings it will not be necessary
for me to make any excuses for bringing so abruptly before
you a subject, which relates to this cause as well as that
of justice.
I will not bore you with long details; for it will be
sufficient for you to know that after my arrival in the East
I was not regarded by any class of persons with the same
eyes of suspicion as strangers generally are. I have had it
in my power, without making use of intrigue or subterfuge on
my part, or hurting the religious or political feeling of
others in any way, to hear and investigate things which had
never yet been investigated. This fortunate circumstance
does not relate to those who profess Islamism alone, but to
all the curious religions (not sects) which are to be found
in the different parts of the East. Not that I have learned
the secrets of one religion to betray them to another――on
the contrary, I have observed an inviolable silence with
all; but it has served to enlighten, as well as consolidate
my own ideas, and given me an opportunity of seeking
corroboratory evidence of many wonderfully important and
abstract things, which has been hitherto very satisfactory.
The revolutions and public calamities, which often take
place in what is called a semi-barbarous country, call for
great presence of mind and energy, and a degree of humanity
and liberality unknown in Europe. To have unfortunate
sufferers starving at your gate until you have had an
opportunity of inquiring into their private life and
character, and of investigating how far it is likely to
endanger your own life, or risk your property, in receiving
them――these reflections are not made in the East. One takes
one’s chance; and if one wishes to keep up the character of
either an Eastern monarch or an Eastern peasant, you must
treat even an enemy in misfortune _avec les mêmes égards_
that you would do a friend. Starting upon this principle
(which is, indeed, a natural one, and was always mine),
there were times in which I have been obliged to spend more
money than I could well afford, and this has been the cause
of my incurring debts; not that I owe a farthing to a poor
peasant or a tradesman, but all to usurers and rascals, that
have lent their money out at an exorbitant interest. You may
judge of their conscience. In the last levy of troops, made
about two months ago by Ibrahim Pasha, some rich peasants
gave 100 per cent. for six months for money to buy off their
sons who were conscripts.
I often abuse the English; and for why? because they have
nearly lost their national character. The aristocracy is a
proud, morose, inactive class of men, having no great
fundamental principles to guide them, and not half the power
that they give to themselves――very little more worthy of
being trusted by their Sovereign than by the people――full of
ideas, all egotistical, and full of their own importance and
weight in a country, which may differ from an ounce to a
pound in twenty-four hours by the wavering political line of
conduct that they may observe during that time, and which
neither secures the confidence of the people, nor the
friendship of their Sovereign. And these columns of state
may be reckoned a sort of ministers without responsibility,
but who ought to be willing at all times to make every
possible sacrifice for the honour of the crown and for the
good of the people in cases of emergency and misfortune.
Had I been an English peer, do you suppose I would have
allowed the Duke of York’s debts to remain unpaid? I should
have laid down a large sum, and have engaged my brethren to
have done the same. If I had not succeeded, I should have
broken my coronet, and have considered myself of neither
greater nor smaller importance than the sign of a duke’s
head in front of a public-house. But, ever willing to come
forward with my life and property, I should expect that the
Sovereign would treat me with respect, * * * * * *
I have been written to by the Consul-General for Egypt and
Syria, Colonel Campbell, that, if I do not pay _one_ of my
numerous creditors, I shall be deprived of my pension. I
should like to see that person come forward who dares to
threaten a Pitt! Having given themselves a supposed right
over the pension, they may take it all. In the early part of
my life, there was nothing I feared so much as plague,
shipwreck, and debt; it has been my fate to suffer from them
all. Respecting my debts, of course I had expectations of
their being settled; but if I was deceived in these
expectations, I kept in view the sale of my pension, as well
as of an annuity of £1500 a-year, left me by my brother, if
the worst came to the worst. The importance of the plan I
was pursuing must, as you can easily imagine, have appeared
most arbitrary, from my coolly deliberating that the moment
might arrive when I should make myself a beggar; but I
should have done my duty. What sort of right, then, had the
Queen to meddle with my affairs, and to give orders, in
total ignorance of the subject, upon the strength of an
appeal from a man whose claims might be half fabulous, and
to offer me the indignity of forbidding a foreign consul to
sign the certificate that I was among the number of the
living, in order to get my pension into her hands? * * I
have written a few lines on the subject, and there is my
final determination:――“I shall give up my pension, and with
it the name of an English subject, and the slavery that is
entailed upon it.” I have too much confidence in the great
Disposer of all things, and in the magnificent star that has
hitherto borne me above the heads of my enemies, to feel
that I have done a rash act. I can be anything but ignoble,
or belie the origin from which I sprang.
I have been assured by those not likely to deceive me, that
a large property has been left me in Ireland, which has been
concealed from me by my relations. I have put this business
into the hands of Sir Francis Burdett; but should I in
future require a law opinion upon the subject, _the little
aristocratical rascal_ (whose acquaintance I was about to
make when a child, had not a democratical quirk of my
father’s been the reason of shutting up his family for some
time in the country, and preventing the execution of your
father’s intention of presenting you to me) will not, I
hope, take it ill that I should apply to his superior
talents for advice.
There is a horrible jealousy respecting the friendship that
exists between me and Mr. Henry Guys, the French Consul at
Beyrout. His grandfather, a learned old gentleman, was in
constant correspondence with the great Lord Chesterfield. It
is natural, therefore, that his son, the present Mr. Guys’
father, should feel interested about me when I first came
into the country, and Mr. Henry Guys has always put into
execution his father’s friendly intentions towards me. He is
a very respectable man, and stands very high in the
estimation of all classes of persons: and, as at one time
there was no English consul or agent at Sayda, the French
agent sent a certificate of my life four times a-year to
England. At the death of this man, Mr. Guys sent it himself.
If you honour me with a reply, I request you to address your
letter to him (_aux soins de M. le Chevalier Henri Guys,
Consul de France à Beyrout_), notwithstanding he has been
named for Aleppo; as it is the only way I am likely to
receive my letters unopened, or perhaps at all.
Believe me, with esteem and regard, yours,
H. L. STANHOPE.
* * * * *
I was much exhausted to-day. I had written six hours to her dictation
the preceding day, and now sat talking until midnight; but, from the
late hour at which I left her, it was as usual impossible for me to
note down even a hundredth part of what she said. For example, it is
now nearly one o’clock in the morning; and much as I could wish,
whilst my recollection is fresh, to make a few memorandums of the many
things she has been saying, my eyelids droop, and I am forced to lay
down my pen: yet one anecdote I must try to commit to paper. In
reading over the letter to Sir Edward Sugden, she made the following
remark: “The peers in England may be compared to doctors who have made
their fortunes: if they continue to practise, they do it out of regard
to some particular families, or from humane motives. They know better
than those who are sick what is good for them, because they have had
long practice; and, if their sons are no doctors, they have heard so
much talk about the matter, that they sit in a corner, and watch the
effect of the medicine.”
I was struck with the resemblance of Lady Hester’s style to Junius’s
in her letter to Sir Edward. This led me to reflect, as I had observed
on many occasions, that Lady Hester’s language was the counterpart of
her grandfather’s, whether Lord Chatham might not have been the author
of Junius’s Letters; but it has since been suggested to me that there
would be an absurdity in such a supposition (for I had no opportunity
of consulting books where I was), because some of the most eloquent
passages of Junius are his panegyrics on Lord Chatham, and it is not
likely that he would have been guilty of writing a eulogium on
himself; however, I mentioned it to her. She answered, “My grandfather
was perfectly capable and likely to write and do things which no human
being would dream came from his hands. I once met with one of his
spies,” continued she, “a woman of the common class, who had passed
her life dressed in man’s clothes: in this way she went, as a sailor,
to America, and used to write him letters as if to a sweetheart,
giving an account of the enemy’s ships and plans in a most masterly
way, in the description of a box of tools, or in something so unlike
the thing in question that no suspicion could be had of the meaning of
the contents. This woman by accident passed me at a watering-place,
whilst I was sitting near the sea-side talking to my brother, and
stopped short on hearing the sound of my voice, which was so much like
my grandfather’s that it struck her――and there is nothing
extraordinary in this: I have known a horse do the same thing. My
father had two piebald horses: they were very vicious, and hated one
of the grooms so, that, one day, whilst he was taking them out for
exercise, one threw him, and the other flew at him, and attempted to
strike him with his fore-feet; but, as he could not succeed, the
other, that had run off, turned back, seized the groom with his teeth,
and bit him and shook him: that very horse went blind, and got into an
innkeeper’s hands, who made a post-horse of him. One day, on the high
road, I saw him, and made an exclamation to somebody who was with me.
The horse, although blind, knew my voice, and stopped short, just like
the woman. I too was struck with the woman’s manner; and, without
saying anything, went next morning at daylight, before anybody was
about, to the same spot, and, finding the woman there again, inquired
who and what she was. A conversation ensued, and the woman was
delighted, she said, to behold once again something that reminded her
of her old employer. As for the ministers of the present day, she
observed, they are good for nothing: when I went to prefer my claim
for a pension, one called me Goody-two-shoes, and told me to go about
my business.
“A government should never employ spies of the description generally
chosen――men of a certain appearance and information, who may be
enabled to mix in genteel society: they are always known or suspected.
My grandfather pursued quite a different plan. His spies were among
such people as Logmagi* *――a hardy sailor, who would get at any risk
into a port, to see how many ships there were, and how many effective
men――or a pedlar, to enter a camp――and the like. This was the way he
got information as to the state of the armament at Toulon: and such a
one was the woman I have just told you about, who knew me by the sound
of my voice.
“There were two hairdressers in London, the best spies Buonaparte had.
A hairdresser, generally speaking, must be a man of talent――so must a
cook; for a cook must know such a variety of things, about which no
settled rules can be laid down, and he must have great judgment.
“Do you think I did not immediately perceive that those four Germans
we met at ―――― were spies?――directly. I never told B**** and Lord
S**** because they would have let it out again: François was the only
one who knew it besides myself. He took an opportunity one day of
saying to me, when nobody was by, ‘My lady, one of those
Germans....’――‘Yes, yes, François, I understand you,’ answered I,
before he had said three words: ‘you need not put me on my guard, but
I am much obliged to you.’――‘Why, my lady,’ said François, ‘when I was
one day standing sentry at Buonaparte’s tent, there was one of those
very gentlemen I have seen go in and out: I recollect his face
perfectly.’ François was right, doctor: there they were――there was
the sick one, and the learned one, and the musician, and the
officer――for all sorts of persons.
“You recollect, when we were at Constantinople, one day I went to meet
the Count de la Tour Maubourg on the banks of the Bosphorus, and he
intimated to me that I had kept him waiting. ‘Yes,’ said I, ‘there was
a spy following my boat: I knew him directly, and wanted to prevent
his dogging me.’ ‘Pooh! nonsense,’ replied Mr. de la T. M.: but we had
not talked for half an hour, when, lo! there he was, taking a look at
us. Next day, when I saw Mr. Canning, ‘Oh! Lady Hester,’ said he, ‘how
did you spend your day yesterday?’――‘Why,’ answered I, ‘your spy did
not spoil it.’――‘Ah!’ rejoined he, laughing――for he perceived at once
it was of no use to make a mystery of what he had done――‘you should
not do such things――I must write it home to government.’――‘Yes,’ said
I, ‘I’ll write a letter, too, in this way:――My lord, your excellent
young minister, to show his gallantry, has begun his diplomatic career
by watching ladies in their assignations, &c., &c.’ and then I laughed
at him, and then I talked seriously with him, till I worked on his
feelings in a way you can’t think!
“Spies, as I said before, should never be what are called gentlemen,
or have the appearance of such; for, however well they may be paid,
somebody else will always pay them better;――unless fortune should
throw in your way a man of integrity, who, from loyalty or a love of
his country, will adventure everything for the cause he is engaged in:
such a man is another sort of a thing!”
February 14.――Being Wednesday, I was, as usual, deprived of the honour
of seeing Lady Hester until night; I therefore remained with my
family, and, having recovered the lost spoon, which my servant
produced out of fear of Hamâady’s examination, pretending to have
found it, I took the opportunity of settling his wages and turned him
away.
After sunset I waited on her. She was in low spirits. “I am very
weak,” said she. “Look at my veins――they did not use to be so: look at
my arms, too――mere skin and bone.” She pointed to the state of her
room: “See how filthy it is again already,” she observed; “and if I
say a word, those wretches seem not to mind me――they snub me, doctor.”
She attempted to dictate the letter she proposed writing to the Duke
of Wellington, but was unable. We drank tea. “Do you know,” she said,
“when old Malti” (this was the name Mr. Abella, the English agent, was
generally designated by) “came in such a hurry, the other day, with
Colonel Campbell’s letter, and made such a fuss about delivering it
with his own hand, people fancied I was going to die, and that he was
come up to seal my effects the moment the breath should be out of my
body. But, if I do die, they sha’n’t seal anything of mine, I’ll take
care of that; for I am no longer an English subject, and therefore
they have nothing to do with me.”
Again she asked me to take my pen and paper, and returned to the Duke
of Wellington’s letter. “I can’t collect my ideas,” she said: “one
while I am thinking of what Mr. Pitt said of him; then of the letter
he wrote when invited down to the country ball; then of what he is
now: so put down your paper, and ring for a pipe. The duke is a man
self-taught, for he was always in dissipation. I recollect, one day,
Mr. Pitt came into the drawing-room to me――‘Oh!’ said he, ‘how I have
been bored by Sir Sydney coming with his box full of papers, and
keeping me for a couple of hours, when I had so much to do!’ I
observed to him that heroes were generally vain: ‘Lord Nelson is so.’
‘So he is,’ replied Mr. Pitt; ‘but not like Sir Sydney: and how
different is Arthur Wellesley, who has just quitted me! He has given
me details so clear upon affairs in India! and he talked of them, too,
as if he had been a surgeon of a regiment, and had nothing to do with
them; so that I know not which to admire most, his modesty or his
talents: and yet the fate of India depends upon them.’ Then, doctor,
when I recollect the letter he wrote to Edward Bouverie, in which he
said that he could not come down to the ball which Bouverie had
invited him to, for that his only corbeau coat was so bad he was
ashamed to appear in it, I reflect what a rise he has had in the
world. Bouverie said――‘You would like to dance with him amazingly,
Lady Hester: he is a good fellow.’
“He was at first, doctor, nothing but what hundreds of others are in a
country town――a man who danced, and drank hard. His star has done
every thing for him; for he is not a great general.[32] He is no
tactician, nor has he any of those great qualities that make a Cæsar,
or a Pompey, or even a Buonaparte. As for the battle of Waterloo, both
French and English have told me that it was a lucky battle for him,
but nothing more. I don’t think he acted well at Paris: nor did the
soldiers like him.”
Thursday, February 15.――This morning, the letter to the Duke of
Wellington was written.
* * * * *
_Lady Hester Stanhope to the Duke of Wellington._
Jôon, February 13, 1838.
My dear Duke,
If you merit but half the feeling and eloquent praise I
heard bestowed upon you shortly before I saw you for the
first time, you are the last man in the world either to be
offended or to misconstrue my motives in writing to you upon
the subject in question, or not to know how to account for
the warmth of the expressions I may make use of, which are
only characteristic of my disposition.
Your Grace’s long residence in the East will have taught you
that there is no common rate character in England an
adequate judge what manner of living best answers among a
semi-barbarous people, and how little possible it is to
measure one’s expenses where frequent revolutions and petty
wars are carried on without any provision for the sufferers,
from its being considered the duty of every one to assist
them as his humanity may dictate or as his circumstances may
afford.
Acre besieged for seven months! some days, 7,000 balls
thrown in in twenty-four hours!――at last, taken by storm,
and little more than 200 of the garrison remaining!――then
the wretched inhabitants, who expected to find succour from
their old friends in the country, finding their backs turned
upon them in the dread and awe they stood in of Ibrahim
Pasha; nay, it is very strange to say that the Franks
likewise held back in a most extraordinary manner.
Therefore, these unhappy people had no resource but in me,
and I did the best I could for them all. Mahomet Ali,
Ibrahim Pasha, Sheriff Pasha, all set at me at once, in
order to make me give up certain persons, who immediately
would have lost their heads for having fought well in the
cause which they were engaged in. I opposed them all round
single-handed, and said that I neither protected these
persons in the English or French name, but in my own, as a
poor Arab, who would not give up an unhappy being but with
his own life; that there was no other chance of making me
bend by any other means than by attempting mine. In this
manner I saved some unfortunate beings, whom I got rid of by
degrees, by sending them back to their own country, or
providing for them at a distance in some way or another. Can
you, as a soldier, blame me for what I have done? I should
have acted in the same way before your eyes to the victims
of your own sword. Then the host of orphans, and widows, and
little children, who, to feed or clothe for nearly two
years, took away all the ready money with which I ought in
part to have paid my debts, and caused new ones!――yet I am
no swindler, and will not appear like one. Your Queen had no
business to meddle in my affairs. In due time, please God, I
should have known how to arrange to satisfy everybody, even
if I left myself a beggar. If she pretends to have a right
to stop my pension, I resign it altogether, as well as the
name of an English subject; for there is no family that has
served their country and the crown more faithfully than mine
has done, and I am not inclined to be treated with _moins
d’égards_ than was formerly shown to a gentleman-like
highwayman.
I have been every day in expectation of a reply from Sir F.
Burdett respecting a large property which is said to have
been left me in Ireland, and which has been concealed from
me for many years. In case of its coming into my hands, I
shall still not keep my pension, in order to cut off every
communication with the English Government, from whom only
proceed acts of folly, which any moment may rebound upon an
individual. I chose Sir Francis Burdett to look into my
affairs, because I believe him to be a truly conscientious
honest man. Although we always disagreed upon politics, we
were always the best friends, and it appears to me that he
is beginning to see things in their proper light. * * * *
All that I have to entreat of your Grace is to allow me to
appear in the light in which I really stand――attached to
humanity, and attached to royalty, and attached to the
claims that one human being has upon another. Nor can I
allow myself to be deemed an intriguer; because I have said
here, in all societies, that persons who abet those who
attempt to shake the throne of Sultan Mahmoud shake the
throne of their own sovereign, and, therefore, commit high
treason: and among that class of persons I do not choose to
rank myself. Nor am I to be reckoned an incendiary, when I
seek to vindicate my own character, that never was marked
with either baseness or folly:――it may have been, perhaps,
with too little consideration for what are called by the
world my own interests, and which I, in fact, despise, or at
least only consider in a secondary point of view. There is
nobody more capable of making the Queen understand that a
Pitt is a unique race than your Grace: there is no trifling
with them.
I have sent a duplicate of the enclosed letter to Her
Majesty to my Lord Palmerston, through the hands of the
English Consul, Mr. Moore. If it has not reached her safe, I
hope that you will see that this one does: or otherwise I
shall put it in the _Augsburg Gazette_, or in an American
newspaper.[33]
* * * * *
HESTER LUCY STANHOPE.
* * * * *
At eleven at night I joined her at tea in her bed-room. She then asked
me to read all the letters over, to see if anything wanted correction.
After that, calling for her old parchment-covered blotting-book, she
took them one by one, and folded them herself, “in order,” as she
said, “to give me instructions on that head.” Generally speaking, she
never seemed more happy than when she had a huge packet of despatches
to put up: I dare say it reminded her of former times.
She began――“Now, doctor, a letter to a great man should fold over
exactly to the middle――thus. Lord! what counting-house paper have you
got here?――this will never do” (it was the thin paper common in France
as letter-paper). I told her it was the very best there was in the
house, and added, to quiet her, that thick paper, when fumigated in
quarantine, as this must be, generally seemed to me to suffer more
than thin; which is the fact. “Humph――ah! well, it is too late now to
alter it; so it must go as it is.” She then folded the cover with
great exactitude; but, looking round her, she cried, “There, now, that
black beast has not given me the seal!” (ding, ding). “Zezefôon,
where’s the seal?” Zezefôon was the only servant who was permitted to
touch the seal, and she always had orders to put it away carefully, so
that the other maids should not know where it was, for fear they
should lend it to some rascal, (like Girius Gemmel, she would say,)
who would put her signature to some forged letter or paper: and
Zezefôon, as is customary with uneducated persons, hid it very often
so carefully that she could not find it herself. After turning books
and papers upside down, at last she produced it.
Whilst melting the wax in the candle, Lady Hester went on:――“Doctor,
you never now can seal a letter decently: you once used to do it
tolerably well, but now you have lost your memory and all your
faculties, from talking nothing but rubbish and empty nonsense to
those nasty women; and that’s the reason why you never listen to
anything one says, and answer ‘yes,’ and ‘no,’ without knowing to
what.”
I gave her the letters in succession to seal, until exhausted by the
effort――for now the least thing was too much for her――she fell back in
her bed. She roused herself again, and said, “Now let’s direct them:
where is the one to the Queen? Write Victoria Regina――nothing else――in
the middle ... that will do very well. Whose is that?――the Speaker’s:
very well. I wonder if it _is_ the brother I used to play driving
horses with; for there were several brothers. Now, look for his
address――James――ah! that’s him: direct ‘To the Right Hon. Speaker’ ...
no, stop: put ‘To the Right Hon. James Abercrombie, with three et
ceteras, Carlton Gardens.’”
The next letter was the Duke of Wellington’s. Lady Hester said, “Let
me see――he’s a field marshal――ah, never mind: you must begin――‘To His
Grace the Duke of Wellington, K.G.’” I accordingly did so, and, not
knowing how much more was coming to complete the superscription, I put
it all, for fear of wanting room, into one line. Her eye was on me as
I wrote. “What’s that?――show it me?” she cried out; and, taking the
letter in her hands, she put on her spectacles. What an exclamation
burst from her! “Good God, doctor! are you mad?――what can you
mean?――what is this vulgar ignorance, not to know that ‘His Grace’
should be in one line, and ‘The Duke of Wellington, K.G.’ in the
other: what people will he fancy I am got among! why, the lowest clerk
in the Foreign Office would not have made such a blunder: this is your
fine Oxford education!” and then she gave a deep sigh, as if in utter
despair, to think that a letter should go forth from her hands so
different in paper, seal, and address, from those of her early days,
when she reigned in Downing Street, co-equal with Mr. Pitt. Now it was
a rickety old card-table, a rush-bottomed chair, a white pipe-clay
inkstand, wax that would not be used in a counting-house in Cheapside;
and both the Sultaness and her vizir (for so I shall presume to style
her and myself), fitting their spectacles on their noses, equally
blind, equally old, and almost equally ailing.
I finished the address to the Duke. “How many et ceteras have you
put?” asked Lady Hester:――“what! only two? I suppose you think he’s a
nobody!” The remaining letters were directed without farther trouble,
but, by some unaccountable blunder, Sir Edward Sugden was made a Sir
Charles of. A long deliberation ensued, whether the letter to Her
Majesty should be enclosed in a cover to Lord Palmerston, or whether
it should be left to be seen by the English consul at Beyrout, to
frighten him.
It was now three o’clock in the morning. I quitted Lady Hester, and
had Ali Hayshem, the confidential messenger, called out of his bed. I
repeated to him Lady Hester’s instructions as follows:――“You are to
take this packet, and start at sunrise precisely――not before, and not
after――and to take care you deliver the letters into M. Guys’s hands
before sunset: for it is Friday, and Friday is an auspicious day.
There are ten piasters for your two days’ keep, and let no one know
where you are going, nor for what.”
Ali was accustomed to this business――laid his hand on his head to
signify that should answer for his fidelity――made a low salàam――went
to the cook for his five bread-cakes――turned in again upon his
libàd――pulled his counterpane over his body, face and all, and, I dare
say, was punctual to his hour and his instructions. Men of this sort,
who are generally chosen from the peasantry, are invaluable as
foot-messengers. With a _naboot_ or small bludgeon, well knobbed at
one end, and with a few bread-cakes in their girdle, they will set off
at any hour, in any weather, for any place, and go as quick as a
horseman. They sleep anywhere and anyhow, and deliver their messages
and letters with exceeding punctuality. Ali was a handsome fellow, the
picture of health, fearless of danger, and a great favourite with Lady
Hester, to whose service he was devoted; therefore, at every Byràm,
Ali was sure to be seen in a new suit of clothes, the envy of the men,
and the admiration of all the girls of Jôon: but he knew how to make a
proper use of his money. Already he had begun to trade with some
success in silk, advancing small sums in the winter to the poor women
who breed silkworms, for which he received silk in payment: this he
resold in the city; and those who may chance to meet with Ali ten
years hence might find in him a warm tradesman, smoking his pipe in
the midst of his obsequious dependants, and dignified with the title
of Shaykh or Maalem.
FOOTNOTES:
[24] Lady Hester one day said, “I have a little angel under
my command, the angel of my star――such a sweet little
creature!――not like those ridiculous ones who are
fiddling in Italian pictures. What fools painters are,
to think angels are made so!”
[25] Mr. Joseph Green, lecturer on anatomy at the Royal
Academy.
[26] There is a passage in an interesting domestic
tale recently published (_The History of Margaret
Catchpole_, by the Rev. Mr. Cobbold), which has a
strange coincidence with the superstitious belief of
the Syrians, considering how widely the English are
separated from them. It is as follows: “He told me he
was the most venemous snake in the country. His bite
is attended with swelling and blackness of the body,
and, _when the sun goes down_, death ensues.”――Vol.
ii., p. 188.
[27] I once showed Lady Hester Stanhope Raphael’s Madonna
della Seggiola, to hear what she would say about it.
“The face,” she observed, “is congruous in all the
lineaments; they all belong to the same star; but I
don’t like that style of face――that is not the star
that pleases me;” and she returned me the engraving,
with some signs of impatience. I imagined, as there
was a maid in the room, that she did so, lest the girl
should report that she adored the Virgin Mary. I then
showed her a painting of the Nozze Aldobrandini. “Ah!”
said she, after examining it, “that figure,” pointing
to the one farthest on the spectator’s right hand,
“is the star I like, only the eyes do not belong to
that countenance: if the eyes were as they ought to
be, that figure would be charming.” There was much
truth in the observations she made on the blunders
of artists and sculptors in giving incongruous
features to their works. An ordinary observer has
only to look at the statues of the ancients, and he
will find that the forehead, nose, mouth, ears, and
limbs of a Minerva, are such as he will see in grave
and dignified women, totally different from the same
features in a Diana or a Venus. Each temperament, each
class of beings in nature, has its external marks,
which never vary in character, but only in degree. But
painters are accustomed to make a selection of what
they suppose the most perfect Grecian lines, and to
clap them on to a body, whether it be for a muse, an
amazon, a nymph, or a courtezan: this is obviously
false. “There are some women who are born courtezans,”
Lady Hester would say, “and whatever their station
in life is, they must be so. Thus, Lady ―――― was so
by nature; from the time she first came out, she had
the air of a woman of the town: Mademoiselle de ――――,
who married one of the ――――, nothing could have ever
altered her. There was a woman for great passions! it
was almost indecent to be where she was.”
[28] This alludes to the childhood of Lady Hester Stanhope,
when she had played at horses with Mr. Abercrombie.
[29] Lady Hester one day showed me fourteen of these
articles of ladies’ apparel, six or seven of which
were in slits and holes, so that a maid-servant in
England would not have accepted them as a gift: she
said her maids had torn them by their rough handling
in dressing her. I had them sent to my house, and they
were all mended. She expressed herself as grateful for
this little service to my daughter and the governess,
as if she had been a pauper clothed at their door!
[30] I was once speaking of the great results which might
be expected from Messrs. Beck and Moore’s successful
investigation of the natural phenomena of the Dead
Sea: but Lady Hester damped my admiration of those
gentlemen’s hazardous undertaking, by exclaiming that
all English travellers were a pack of fools, and
that they entirely neglected the objects that ought
to be inquired into. “There are none of them,” said
she, “that know half as much as I do. I’ll venture to
say they never heard of the forty doors, all opening
by one key, in which are locked the forty wise men
who expect the Murdah. Didn’t I tell you the story
the other day?” I answered, if she had, I must have
forgotten it, which was fortunate, as I was always
reluctant to show my dissent from her opinions;
having, by experience, learned how necessary it was
to proceed cautiously in doing so. “Yes, so it is,”
rejoined Lady Hester: “I talk for half a day to you,
wasting my breath and lungs, and there you sit like a
stock or a stone――no understanding, no conviction!”
[31] The korbàsh is a thong of the raw hide of the buffalo
or rhinoceros, about the length of a hand-whip, and
cut tapering in a similar form. In the hand of a
powerful flagellant it becomes an instrument of great
torture.
[32] There is a strong resemblance between Lady Hester’s
character of the Duke of Wellington and that of
Frederick the Great of Prussia: for see what Lord
Malmesbury says of the latter, in his _Diaries and
Correspondence_, vol. i., p. 8:――
“His _fort_ is not so much his courage, nor what we
generally understand by conduct; but it consists in a
surprising discernment, in the day of battle, how to
gain the most advantageous ground, where to place the
proper sort of arms, whether horse or foot, and in the
quickest _coup d’œil_ to distinguish the weak part of
the enemy.”
[33] Several lines are here wanting, owing to a half sheet
of paper having been lost in the confusion created
by fumigating papers in quarantine. They were highly
complimentary to his grace, and their omission is to
be regretted.