The strong and intense Evangelicalism of Miss Marryat colored the whole
of my early religious thought. I was naturally enthusiastic and fanciful,
and was apt to throw myself strongly into the current of the emotional
life around me, and hence I easily reflected the stern and narrow creed
which ruled over my daily life. It was to me a matter of the most intense
regret that Christians did not go about as in the "Pilgrim's Progress",
armed to do battle with Apollyon and Giant Despair, or fight through a
whole long day against thronging foes, until night brought victory and
release. It would have been so easy, I used to think, to do tangible
battle of that sort, so much easier than to learn lessons, and keep one's
temper, and mend one's stockings. Quick to learn, my lessons of Bible and
Prayer Book gave me no trouble, and I repeated page after page with
little labor and much credit. I remember being praised for my love of the
Bible, because I had learned by heart all the epistle of St. James's,
while, as a matter of fact, the desire to distinguish myself was a far
more impelling motive than any love of "the holy book;" the dignified
cadences pleased my ear, and were swiftly caught and reproduced, and I
was proud of the easy fashion in which I mastered and recited page after
page. Another source of "carnal pride"--little suspected, I fear, by my
dear instructress--was found in the often-recurring prayer meetings. In
these the children were called on to take a part, and we were bidden pray
aloud; this proceeding was naturally a sore trial, and being endued with
an inordinate amount of "false pride"--the fear of appearing ridiculous,
_i.e._, with self conceit--it was a great trouble when the summons came:
"Annie dear, will you speak to our Lord". But the plunge once made, and
the trembling voice steadied, enthusiasm and facility for cadenced speech
always swallowed up the nervous "fear of breaking down", and I fear me
that the prevailing thought was more often that God must think I prayed
very nicely, than that I was a "miserable sinner", asking "pardon for the
sake of Jesus Christ". The sense of sin, the contrition for man's fallen
state, which are required by Evangelicalism, can never be truly felt by
any child; but whenever a sensitive, dreamy, and enthusiastic child comes
under strong Evangelistic influence, it is sure to manifest "signs of
saving grace". As far as I can judge now, the total effect of the
Calvinistic training was to make me somewhat morbid, but this tendency
was counteracted by the healthier tone of my mother's thought, and the
natural gay buoyancy of my nature rose swiftly whenever the pressure of
the teaching that I was "a child of sin", and could "not naturally please
God", was removed.
In the spring of 1861, Miss Marryat announced her intention of going
abroad, and asked my dear mother to let me accompany her. A little nephew
whom she had adopted was suffering from cataract, and she desired to
place him under the care of the famous Düsseldorf oculist. Amy Marryat
had been recalled home soon after the death of her mother, who had died
in giving birth to the child adopted by Miss Marryat, and named at her
desire after her favorite brother Frederick (Captain Marryat). Her place
had been taken by a girl a few months older than myself, Emma Mann, one
of the daughters of a clergyman who had married a Miss Stanley, closely
related, indeed if I remember rightly, a sister of the Miss Mary Stanley
who did such noble work in nursing in the Crimea.
For some months we had been diligently studying German, for Miss Marryat
thought it wise that we should know a language fairly well before we
visited the country of which it was the native tongue. We had been
trained also to talk French daily during dinner, so we were not quite
"helpless foreigners" when we steamed away from St. Catherine's Docks,
and found ourselves on the following day in Antwerp, amid what seemed to
us a very Babel of conflicting tongues. Alas for our carefully spoken
French, articulated laboriously. We were lost in that swirl of disputing
luggage-porters, and could not understand a word! But Miss Marryat was
quite equal to the occasion, being by no means new to travelling, and her
French stood the test triumphantly, and steered us safely to a hotel. On
the morrow we started again through Aix-la-Chapelle to Bonn, the town
which lies on the borders of the exquisite scenery of which the
Siebengebirge and Rolandseck serve as the magic portal. Our experiences
in Bonn were not wholly satisfactory. Dear Auntie was a maiden lady,
looking on all young men as wolves to be kept far from her growing lambs.
Bonn was a university town, and there was a mania just then prevailing
there for all things English. Emma was a plump, rosy, fair-haired typical
English maiden, full of frolic and harmless fun; I a very slight, pale,
black-haired girl, alternating between wild fun and extreme pensiveness.
In the boarding-house to which we went at first--the "Château du Rhin", a
beautiful place overhanging the broad blue Rhine--there chanced to be
staying the two sons of the late Duke of Hamilton, the Marquis of Douglas
and Lord Charles, with their tutor. They had the whole drawing-room
floor: we a sitting-room on the ground floor and bedrooms above. The lads
discovered that Miss Marryat did not like her "children" to be on
speaking terms with any of the "male sect". Here was a fine source of
amusement. They would make their horses caracole on the gravel in front
of our window; they would be just starting for their ride as we went for
walk or drive, and would salute us with doffed hat and low bow; they
would waylay us on our way downstairs with demure "Good morning"; they
would go to church and post themselves so that they could survey our pew,
and Lord Charles--who possessed the power of moving at will the whole
skin of the scalp--would wriggle his hair up and down till we were
choking with laughter, to our own imminent risk. After a month of this,
Auntie was literally driven out of the pretty _Château_, and took refuge
in a girls' school, much to our disgust, but still she was not allowed to
be at rest. Mischievous students would pursue us wherever we went;
sentimental Germans, with gashed cheeks, would whisper complimentary
phrases as we passed; mere boyish nonsense of most harmless kind, but the
rather stern English lady thought it "not proper", and after three months
of Bonn we were sent home for the holidays, somewhat in disgrace. But we
had some lovely excursions during those months; such clambering up
mountains, such rows on the swift-flowing Rhine, such wanderings in
exquisite valleys. I have a long picture-gallery to retire into when I
want to think of something fair, in recalling the moon as it silvered the
Rhine at the foot of Drachenfels, or the soft mist-veiled island where
dwelt the lady who is consecrated for ever by Roland's love.
A couple of months later we rejoined Miss Marryat in Paris, where we
spent seven happy workful months. On Wednesdays and Saturdays we were
free from lessons, and many a long afternoon was passed in the galleries
of the Louvre, till we became familiar with the masterpieces of art
gathered there from all lands. I doubt if there was a beautiful church in
Paris that we did not visit during those weekly wanderings; that of St.
Germain de l'Auxerrois was my favorite--the church whose bell gave the
signal for the massacre of St. Bartholomew--for it contained such
marvellous stained glass, deepest purest glory of color that I had ever
seen. The solemn beauty of Notre Dame, the somewhat gaudy magnificence of
La Sainte Chapelle, the stateliness of La Madeleine, the impressive gloom
of St. Roch, were all familiar to us. Other delights were found in
mingling with the bright crowds which passed along the Champs Elysées and
sauntered in the Bois de Boulogne, in strolling in the garden of the
Tuileries, in climbing to the top of every monument whence view of Paris
could be gained. The Empire was then in its heyday of glitter, and we
much enjoyed seeing the brilliant escort of the imperial carriage, with
plumes and gold and silver dancing and glistening in the sunlight, while
in the carriage sat the exquisitely lovely empress with the little boy
beside her, touching his cap shyly, but with something of her own grace,
in answer to a greeting--the boy who was thought to be born to an
imperial crown, but whose brief career was to find an ending from the
spears of savages in a quarrel in which he had no concern.
In the spring of 1862 it chanced that the Bishop of Ohio visited Paris,
and Mr. Forbes, then English chaplain at the Church of the Rue
d'Aguesseau, arranged to have a confirmation. As said above, I was under
deep "religious impressions", and, in fact, with the exception of that
little aberration in Germany, I was decidedly a pious girl. I looked on
theatres (never having been to one) as traps set by Satan for the
destruction of foolish souls; I was quite determined never to go to a
ball, and was prepared to "suffer for conscience sake"--little prig that
I was--if I was desired to go to one. I was consequently quite prepared
to take upon myself the vows made in my name at my baptism, and to
renounce the world, the flesh, and the devil, with a heartiness and
sincerity only equalled by my profound ignorance of the things I so
readily resigned. That confirmation was to me a very solemn matter; the
careful preparation, the prolonged prayers, the wondering awe as to the
"sevenfold gifts of the Spirit", which were to be given by "the laying on
of hands", all tended to excitement. I could scarcely control myself as I
knelt at the altar rails, and felt as though the gentle touch of the aged
Bishop, which fluttered for an instant on my bowed head, were the very
touch of the wing of that "Holy Spirit, heavenly Dove", whose presence
had been so earnestly invoked. Is there anything easier, I wonder, than
to make a young and sensitive girl "intensely religious".
My mother came over for the confirmation and for the "first communion" on
Easter Sunday, and we had a delightful fortnight together, returning home
after we had wandered hand-in-hand over all my favorite haunts. The
summer of 1862 was spent with Miss Marryat at Sidmouth, and, wise woman
that she was, she now carefully directed our studies with a view to our
coming enfranchisement from the "school-room." More and more were we
trained to work alone; our leading-strings were slackened, so that we
never felt them save when we blundered; and I remember that when I once
complained, in loving fashion, that she was "teaching me so little", she
told me that I was getting old enough to be trusted to work by myself,
and that I must not expect to "have Auntie for a crutch all through
life". And I venture to say that this gentle withdrawal of constant
supervision and teaching was one of the wisest and kindest things that
this noble-hearted woman ever did for us. It is the usual custom to keep
girls in the school-room until they "come out"; then, suddenly, they are
left to their own devices, and, bewildered by their unaccustomed freedom,
they waste time that might be priceless for their intellectual growth.
Lately, the opening of universities to women has removed this danger for
the more ambitious; but at the time of which I am writing no one dreamed
of the changes soon to be made in the direction of the "higher education
of women".
During the winter of 1862-1863 Miss Marryat was in London, and for a few
months I remained there with her, attending the admirable French classes
of M. Roche. In the spring I returned home to Harrow, going up each week
to the classes; and when these were over, Auntie told me that she thought
all she could usefully do was done, and that it was time that I should
try my wings alone. So well, however, had she succeeded in her aims, that
my emancipation from the school-room was but the starting-point of more
eager study, though now the study turned into the lines of thought
towards which my personal tendencies most attracted me. German I
continued to read with a master, and music, under the marvellously able
teaching of Mr. John Farmer, musical director of Harrow School, took up
much of my time. My dear mother had a passion for music, and Beethoven
and Bach were her favorite composers. There was scarcely a sonata of
Beethoven's that I did not learn, scarcely a fugue of Bach's that I did
not master. Mendelssohn's "Lieder" gave a lighter recreation, and many a
happy evening did we spend, my mother and I, over the stately strains of
the blind Titan, and the sweet melodies of the German wordless orator.
Musical "At Homes", too, were favorite amusements at Harrow, and at these
my facile fingers made me a welcome guest.
A very pleasant place was Harrow to a light-hearted serious-brained girl.
The picked men of the Schools of Oxford and Cambridge came there as
junior masters, so that one's partners at ball and croquet and archery
could talk as well as flirt. Never girl had, I venture to say, a brighter
girlhood than mine. Every morning and much of the afternoon spent in
eager earnest study: evenings in merry party or quiet home-life, one as
delightful as the other. Archery and croquet had in me a most devoted
disciple, and the "pomps and vanities" of the ballroom found the happiest
of votaries. My darling mother certainly "spoiled" me, so far as were
concerned all the small roughnesses of life. She never allowed a trouble
of any kind to touch me, and cared only that all worries should fall on
her, all joys on me. I know now what I never dreamed then, that her life
was one of serious anxiety. The heavy burden of my brother's school and
college-life pressed on her constantly, and her need of money was often
serious. A lawyer whom she trusted absolutely cheated her systematically,
using for his own purposes the remittances she made for payment of
liabilities, thus keeping upon her a constant drain. Yet for me all that
was wanted was ever there. Was it a ball to which we were going? I need
never think of what I would wear till the time for dressing arrived, and
there laid out ready for me was all I wanted, every detail complete from
top to toe. No hand but hers must dress my hair, which, loosed, fell in
dense curly masses nearly to my knees; no hand but hers must fasten dress
and deck with flowers, and if I sometimes would coaxingly ask if I might
not help by sewing in laces, or by doing some trifle in aid, she would
kiss me and bid me run to my books or my play, telling me that her only
pleasure in life was caring for her "treasure". Alas! how lightly we take
the self-denying labor that makes life so easy, ere yet we have known
what life means when the protecting mother-wing is withdrawn. So guarded
and shielded had been my childhood and youth from every touch of pain and
anxiety that love could bear for me, that I never dreamed that life might
be a heavy burden, save as I saw it in the poor I was sent to help; all
the joy of those happy years I took, not ungratefully I hope, but
certainly with as glad unconsciousness of anything rare in it as I took
the sunlight. Passionate love, indeed, I gave to my darling, but I never
knew all I owed her till I passed out of her tender guardianship, till I
left my mother's home. Is such training wise? I am not sure. It makes the
ordinary roughnesses of life come with so stunning a shock, when one goes
out into the world, that one is apt to question whether some earlier
initiation into life's sterner mysteries would not be wiser for the
young. Yet it is a fair thing to have that joyous youth to look back
upon, and at least it is a treasury of memory that no thief can steal in
the struggles of later life.
During those happy years my brain was given plenty of exercise. I used to
keep a list of the books I read, so that I might not neglect my work; and
finding a "Library of the Fathers" on the shelves, I selected that for
one _piéce de résistance_. Soon those strange mystic writers won over me
a great fascination, and I threw myself ardently into a study of the
question: "Where is now the Catholic Church?". I read Pusey, and Liddon,
and Keble, with many another of that school, and many of the seventeenth
century English divines. I began to fast--to the intense disapproval of
my mother, who cared for my health far more than for all the Fathers the
Church could boast of--to use the sign of the cross, to go to weekly
communion. Indeed, the contrast I found between my early Evangelical
training and the doctrines of the Primitive Christian Church would have
driven me over to Rome, had it not been for the proofs afforded by Pusey
and his co-workers, that the English Church might be Catholic although
non-Roman. But for them I should most certainly have joined the Papal
Communion; for if the Church of the early centuries be compared with Rome
and with Geneva, there is no doubt that Rome shows marks of primitive
Christianity of which Geneva is entirely devoid. I became content when I
found that the practices and doctrines of the Anglican Church could be
knitted on to those of the martyrs and confessors of the early Church,
for it had not yet struck me that the early Church might itself be
challenged. To me, at that time, the authority of Jesus was supreme and
unassailable; his apostles were his infallible messengers; Clement of
Rome, Polycarp, and Barnabas, these were the very pupils of the apostles
themselves. I never dreamed of forgeries, of pious frauds, of writings
falsely ascribed to venerated names. Nor do I now regret that so it was;
for, without belief, the study of the early Fathers would be an
intolerable weariness; and that old reading of mine has served me well in
many of my later controversies with Christians, who knew the literature
of their Church less well than I.
To this ecclesiastical reading was added some study of stray scientific
works, but the number of these that came in my way was very limited. The
atmosphere surrounding me was literary rather than scientific. I remember
reading a translation of Plato that gave me great delight, and being
rather annoyed by the insatiable questionings of Socrates. Lord Derby's
translation of the Iliad also charmed me with its stateliness and melody,
and Dante was another favorite study. Wordsworth and Cowper I much
disliked, and into the same category went all the 17th and 18th century
"poets," though I read them conscientiously through. Southey fascinated
me with his wealth of Oriental fancies, while Spencer was a favorite
book, put beside Milton and Dante. My novel reading was extremely
limited; indeed the "three volume novel" was a forbidden fruit. My mother
regarded these ordinary love-stories as unhealthy reading for a young
girl, and gave me Scott and Kingsley, but not Miss Braddon or Mrs. Henry
Wood. Nor would she take me to the theatre, though we went to really good
concerts. She had a horror of sentimentality in girls, and loved to see
them bright and gay, and above all things absolutely ignorant of all evil
things and of premature love-dreams. Happy, healthy and workful were
those too brief years.