and then mounted our horses, and set out just in time for a heavy
shower, but before getting quite wet we were across the bridge of
boats, and under shelter in the bazaar, through whose covered arcades
we paced on horseback, between silks and shawls, &c., with great
imperturbability. When we got to the end, the shower was over, and
passing the Mosque of Sultan Bajazet, and under the Seraskierat tower,
we went right ahead through strange Turkish lanes with pavements worse
than execrable, and in about two hours from starting reached the
ancient citadel of the Seven Towers, still all entire. There, under
some trees, we dismounted, and with some trouble got admittance into
the court, full of trees and shrubs of natural growth. The trees are
here more northern than in Greece--ashes, a sort of lime, planes not
abundant, wild figs, and the cypresses, which I suppose are almost all
planted; the cemeteries, of course, are perfect forests of them. So up
to the parapet, and up a tower for the view; the Sea of Marmora here,
the city there--a very fine view; then out and along the outside of
the ancient walls, for a long way, to a café at the Adrianople gate;
then inside to Belisarius’s castle, and on foot through a house full of
Jews (seven or eight girls pulling at us for baksheesh) to a parapet,
for another view of the Golden Horn. Thence through a horrible Jews’
quarter, and a not much better Greek quarter, across to the Patriarchal
Church, and so along the Golden Horn shore, but separated from it by
houses, to our former bridge, and so across to Pera and home, 11 A.M.
to 6 P.M.
May 23.
Yesterday, with some rain and some fatigue, we did the Seraglio (French
engravings and French goût), Kiosk of Amurath II. (better), St. Irene,
St. Sophia, the Mosque of Ahmed (all white, except some blue China
tiles, beautiful courtyard and fountains), the Hippodrome, and a Tomb
of Sultan Mahmoud--all this under the protection of the firman, and
in a party of nearly twenty strangers. Sultan Mahmoud’s is a sort of
conservatory tomb--large windows all round, with white curtains, light
and airy, and high-domed roof. The Sultan is buried there, with his
wife, sister, and four daughters.
The Seraglio was a good deal below one’s expectations; St. Sophia
certainly beyond mine. The amplitude of the dome is very impressive; it
is a sort of Pantheon exalted into a Monotheon. Michael Angelo ought to
have seen it.
How many times in the course of the day’s work we had to pull off
boots and shoes and put on slippers, I can’t dare to say. The weather
is still unsettled. The Bithynian Olympus is one long range of
snow-covered Alp. Till yesterday we had a fire in the sitting-room, and
yesterday we missed it. I have found great solace from a terrace on
the roof, which gives a tolerable view of the Strait, and the Seraglio
point, and Scutari, and the hills across the end of the Sea of Marmora,
and the snowy Olympus overtopping them.
May 24, 10 A.M.
This, you know, is the Mahometan Sunday, and the Sultan goes to mosque,
and we are to go and stare at him on his way. Mosque is at twelve
o’clock, and we start at eleven.
I dined yesterday with Dr. Beretta, who is a most amiable kind man,
but first I went with him to see Elizabeth Kondaxaky, the Cretan
sibyl, who prophesies, fortunately in English, as well as Greek, and
other tongues, whereof she has the gift. I have not exactly summed
up the result of her prophecies, but she seems to be for England and
Turkey--the latter as ‘a necessary evil,’ and the former as the natural
protector of necessary evils.
May 26.
On Friday we went to see the Sultan go to mosque, which he did in his
caïque of twenty oars or more. We were received into the house of Halil
Bey, a profane Frank-mannered Turk, with windows looking, some upon
the Bosphorus, where the caïque passed by, and some upon the court of
the mosque, where the Sultan disembarked, so we saw the poor creature
admirably; he looks quite ‘the sick man.’ When he got on shore, a sort
of chant was set up, interpreted to us, as ‘O Sultan! trust not in
yourself; there is God above, who is greater than you,’ which was not
saying very much.
Then I left my companions and went back to the hotel, and then over
to Scutari with Dr. Pincoff, and saw all Scutari, Barrack and General
Hospitals, and F. N.’s own tower, and rooms, and everything, of which
you shall hear when I return.
We went by steamer up the Bosphorus, to Buyukdere, and up a hill to see
the Black Sea.
Sunday, 5 P.M.
We have been to see the dancing dervishes, really not an unedifying
spectacle in the way of a divine service. ‘O God, what a wonderful
Creator Thou art! Thou hast made so many thousand human beings, black
and white; and whom Thou pleasest, black or white, Thou canst raise to
be distinguished.’ To such words and other such, chanted with musical
instruments accompanying, twenty men, in presence of their chief, in
solemn silence, go twirling about with extended arms and spinning long
petticoats. ‘O God, what a wonderful Creator Thou art!’ &c., &c. Adieu.
_To C. E. Norton, Esq._
London: July 4, 1861.
On coming back from abroad ten days ago I received two letters from
you, one of which I had received by copy from my wife at Athens.
Many thanks for them; they were very interesting, and I hope you
will not be discouraged by my brief acknowledgments from writing
further. I am still invalided, and am to go abroad again the day after
to-morrow. I have achieved a good deal already, having seen Athens
and Constantinople. I was half tempted to come over to pay you the
visit you so kindly proposed, but I should have had to return early in
September, and I hope some year to spend a September on your side. I
have just made a call on a former acquaintance in America, Miss E. H.,
of Concord, who brought me a letter from Emerson moreover. She tells
me that in New England, she believes, people do not expect that the
Southern States will ever be brought back into the Union, and that it
is not the object simply to make them return; it being indeed hardly
possible that the States, North and South, should ever again live
together in union, but that the war is rather in vindication of the
North and its rights, which have been trampled upon by the South. Is
this true, in your judgment? Certainly it does seem hardly conceivable
that South Carolina should ever return. On what terms then would the
North be willing to make peace, and what conditions would it require
_in limine_ before entering upon the question of separation?
As for the feeling here, you must always expect statesmen to be cold
in their language, and the newspapers impertinent and often brutal.
Beyond this, I think people here had been led to suppose at the outset
that the Northern feeling was strong against civil war (and so it
was, I suppose), and that the principle of separation was conceded;
the indignation being merely at the mode adopted for obtaining it.
And the attack on Fort Sumter, which caused so sudden a revulsion of
feeling with you, was naturally attended with no such change here. But
coexisting with all this, I believe there is a great amount of strong
feeling in favour of the North.
Technically we are wrong, I suppose, and as a matter of feeling, we are
guilty of an outrage in recognising the South as a belligerent power,
but as a matter of convenience between your Government and ours, I
suppose the thing is best as it is.
Miss H. will take to Emerson four photographs of Rowse’s picture of me;
one for you: it may be better than nothing.
My nervous energy is pretty well spent for to-day, so I must come to a
stop. I have leave till November, and by that time I hope I shall be
strong again for another good spell of work.
Lord Campbell’s death is rather the characteristic death of the English
political man. In the cabinet, on the bench, and at a dinner party,
busy, animated, and full of effort to-day, and in the early morning
a vessel has burst. It is a wonder they last so long. I shall resign
if it proves much of a strain to me to go on at this official work.
Farewell.
_To his Wife_
Mont Dore-les-Bains, Auvergne: July 16, 1861.
This is a queer place, a French watering-place, a village, scarcely
even a village, metamorphosed by having a square of hotels on three
sides and a bath establishment on one side, with a sort of terrace or
esplanade stuck down into it. The place is some 3,000 feet above the
sea, a green Swiss-like valley, right in the mountains, with fir-trees
standing out from the green mountain sides, just as in Switzerland.
There is a hot spring, or rather a quantity of hot springs, issuing
from the volcanic rock, known and used by the Romans, and re-discovered
or re-established for use under the first Napoleon, to whose time the
buildings seem to belong. They are about sufficient for the 500 or 600
people who come. We were fifty, I think, at dinner yesterday, in one of
the hotels.
The journey here in the diligence was agreeable, right over the chain
of hills, of which Puy de Dôme is the highest, from the valley of
the Allier (flowing to the Loire) to the valley here flowing to the
Gironde. We mounted to about 3,300 or 3,400 feet above the sea, and
descended 300 or 400 to this place; the high land was a green pastoral
district with rounded hills mostly; no very distinct craters on the
route; a lake a little way off was one, I suppose.
This is really an odd enough place to be in; déjeuner at ten, dinner at
half-past five; two tables of about twenty-five people, all French; we
also have a drawing-room where we meet before meals, and sit generally
(only I don’t); gentlemen unbeknown to ladies give their arms to
ladies aforesaid, to conduct them into dinner, and occasionally out
from dinner. I sit near some pleasant people at dinner, a Parisian
of the Parisians on one hand, and a Marseilles opulent-seeming
seeming-merchant with a wife, a sister and some children, on the other.
Last night, from eight to half-past nine, was a soirée magicale, things
coming out of hats, &c., followed by a divertissement of a poet and
improvisatore, who did _boutrimé_. The company supplied him for his
last _épreuve_ with about fourteen or sixteen words, rhymes masculine
and feminine, mitraille, canaille, volcan, encan, ending with baigneur
and bonheur, which gave him the opportunity (the subject by the way
being also given him after the rhymes, viz. vin de champagne) to wish
in conclusion to _chaque aimable baigneur_ I don’t know how much
_bonheur_, which of course drew the house. The poet’s face was a great
round simple-looking piece of countenance, and he was fat but alert,
and knew more tricks than one, I dare say.
July 19.
Went to Lac Guéry and the Plateau with Jean. Wages three francs a day,
and for harvest three francs and victuals: the same as at Marseilles.
The schoolmaster has 600 francs.
July 20.
Talked with M. Chabuy. He is percepteur of all taxes. They are
impérial, départemental, communal. (There are three classes of
percepteurs, the third, viz. of communes de canton, is named by the
préfet.) He is bound within a certain time to pay all to the trésor.
His accounts are verified by the préfecture, and inspectors come
every now and then--one every year into each department--who have the
right of looking into the accounts, examining the caisse communale.
It would not do to leave it to the conseil and maire. There is very
little malversation. The church payments for chaires, burials, &c., are
regulated by the bishop. Government pays all the ministers--Catholic,
Protestant, and Jews. If a place of worship of any kind is to be built,
the commune pays, and everybody is _contribuable_, of whatever religion.
_To the same._
Mont Dore-les-Bains: July 21.
My plans are changed. This morning about 8.30, going across the place
to the café, whom should I see but Tennyson. They are all here. They
go to the Pyrenees, and I am to follow them. I want to come home in
September, and see no sufficient reason yet for not returning to work
in November. I don’t at all want to spend a winter abroad away from
the children, and were I to be brought to do so, I should want to come
home first. Coming home did me good. I now propose to go to some place
in the Pyrenees and ride about. Bagnères de Luchon will be the first
trial, as the Tennysons will be there.
_To the same._
Bagnères de Luchon, Pyrénées: July 30.
I came on here yesterday; a ten hours’ drive in the banquette of
a diligence, but it was a fine day and not excessively hot. The
place is exceedingly crowded, a sort of mountain Brighton. This
Franco-Gallo-cockney-Chamouni is, however, not unbearable, if taken
in the right way. It is in a rich valley, an almost perfect level
here of corn, maize especially, and vegetables, running in like an
estuary among the mountains. At the head of it, between sides of wooded
mountains, you see the rocky peaks with snow in their clefts, filling
up the gap. But there are no Alpine eternal-snowy peaks visible here.
August 4.
On Friday I went in a sort of public conveyance some six or eight
miles up the valley to the Hospice, and thence walked with my
fellow-passengers up the Port de Venasque into Spain. You see the whole
Maladetta, and it’s the principal thing to do here. Yesterday I went
up into the Vallée de Lys, full of waterfalls; and to-day I have been
a longish ride, starting at 6 A.M., to the Lac d’Oo, really a very
beautiful mountain lake, the lowest of four or five; the others are a
good way higher up.
August 6.
I have been my ride, five hours over hills, looking out upon the
glaciers of the main chain; these hills are called the Super Bagnères,
and rise right above here. Then down about eleven o’clock to the châlet
of the Vallée de Lys, where I stayed about three hours, breakfasting,
going up to some waterfalls, and sheltering from a brief storm, and so
home.
August 8.
Providence overruled my mind not to go out riding to-day as I had
intended, so I got the letter telling of the new little daughter in
good time. I think you must call the little girl Blanche Athena.
The Tennysons are at Bigorre. I am very glad to have the prospect
of joining them, for it is rather too solitary work going about
Pyreneeing with a horse and a guide, or even say _two_ horses and a
guide. However, the two men I have had here have been good company
in their way--two cousins, both having served as soldiers, one six
years, the other eight or nine. One was in the Crimea, and all through
the campaign in Italy, and means to be a soldier again. He had just
finished his time when his brother was drawn in the conscription. His
brother had just married, so he said he would serve two years for him,
and when the two years were ended and he came home, somehow or other
the brother was let off. Eighteen went from Luchon to the Crimea, ten
or twelve of them cousins; thirteen came back, and they are, I think,
all here as baigneurs, guides, &c. This fine young fellow was a hussar,
and went out straight to Algiers, where he set to work and ate so many
figs and oranges that he had a fever at once, and was in the hospital
for three months. He was wounded just at the end of the Crimean war,
a fortnight before the peace, and was in hospital at Constantinople
for three months. He made great friends with the English, apparently.
So much for Pierre Redonnet, with whom I rode on Tuesday over Super
Bagnères to the Vallée de Lys. The day before I had his cousin Jean,
who is a family man, and unambitious of military service.
I have seen here a certain Comte de ----, an Italian, a Tuscan, who
knew some friends of yours at Rome. He is a Confederation man, and
declaims against this premature attempt at a united Italy. I met him
at the Lac d’Oo. He has just been here, and all but embraced me in his
obscurantist arms, and has bidden me adieu, ‘God bless you.’ He talks
English, which he mixes a little with German, and I mix my English with
a little Italian. Who can he be? and why has he so nearly embraced me?
Luchon is a very Parisian place; people flaunt about, and wear strange
Parisian mountain-costumes, ‘tours-de-tête’ of all kinds. The French
upper classes seem to me to be strongly possessed with the feeling that
the Italian kingdom is very much against French interests; and partly
also with the feeling that the Emperor is driven into it by England,
who knows it to be bad for France. Sardinia would pacify them, no
doubt. But after Ricasoli’s declaration, can he, and after Lord John’s
speech, can he, assent? All things perhaps are possible.
August 9.
To-day comes a note to say that the Tennysons are all coming here this
evening, and I have already taken my place for Luz, _viâ_ Bigorre! Go I
must, and start early to-morrow morning.
_To the same._
Luz, St. Sauveur: August 13.
This (Luz) is the place where all the Barèges things are made. The
old women are all busy with distaff and spindle. The things are made
not at Barèges, but here and at Bigorre. The old women go about in
scarlet hoods; the men all wear light-blue caps: the younger women
handkerchiefs, brown, with yellow stripes. I have nothing to relate, so
I send you some verses made this morning, called ‘Currente Calamo.’[20]
August 17.
I have been laid up for some days, but am well again, and this morning
walked up to Barèges, four miles up a high valley east of this. It
is a regular pool of Bethesda, only the diseased and impotent people
seem to have learnt to play at cards; a desolate place with a staring
_établissement_ and a soldiers’ hospital, and everybody on crutches,
and the only apparent enjoyment playing at cards in shabby cafés. A
high road with electric telegraph leads up to it and ends with it.
August 18.
To-day, as soon as I got the letters, I set off for Gavarnie; the
horses were waiting at the door for the postman. We got away at 7.20
A.M., and riding up the Gave, or riverside, reached Gavarnie village
in two hours; here there is a hotel of a quiet kind. Soon after
passing through this, you come in fair sight of the Cirque. The ground
is mostly level, except a rise at the end, which brings you to the
platform of the Cirque itself, and to the cottage which is the end of
the riding. A little beyond it there is snow, forming a bridge over the
stream, and you have the vast cascade in full sight, but far off. One
waits till noon for the sun to get on the cascade and turn it into a
white cloud. It is the finest thing, certainly, that I have seen in the
Pyrenees.
August 19.
Yesterday was very hot, cloudless, though not without air. To-day there
is a ‘brouillard sec’ all over the hill-tops, a north wind blowing, and
no sunshine.
August 20.
To-day again is the blessed brouillard, keeping all the world cool, but
preventing the ascent of hills.
August 23.
I have been to Cauterets by diligence two days ago. Yesterday at 6
A.M. went to Lac de Gaube, which is very good, returned to Cauterets
and lounged about the rest of the day, and this morning at 6.30 came
back on horseback over the hills and got here at eleven. Cauterets is
certainly beautiful, more beautiful than this, only it is a busyish
water-place, which this is not; the water-place here, St. Sauveur,
being a mile off, and very little frequented. Cauterets is right in the
real granite, and the stream is absolutely clear, which no other large
stream yet seen by me in these parts is.
August 31.
I have been over to Luchon to see the Tennysons, whom I found very
comfortably established in pleasant lodgings out of the town, in
maize fields, not far from the river. These places are beginning to
lose their beau monde. It was a two days’ journey. I rode on Saturday
through Barèges, up to the Tourmalet Pass, and down to Grip, up again
to Col d’Aspin, and so down to Arreau. Next day left Arreau at 6.30
A.M., and came up a long valley to the top of another col, and so down
to Luchon before half-past eleven. It was agreeable enough to be worth
doing twice, so I came back on horseback the same way, leaving Luchon
on Tuesday. I rode to Arreau in the afternoon, then reascended the Col
d’Aspin, when the view this time was complete and much finer; from
Maladetta east to the Pic du Midi de Bigorre west; saw, with a slight
haze in the air, Maladetta and Port de Venasque perfectly, the glaciers
about the Vallée de Lys, the Lac d’Oo, the Pic du Midi, and the Barèges
mountains, all quite clear. I reached Luz about six on Wednesday.
I did one new thing yesterday, and went up the Pic des Bergons, whence
there is really a fine view of Pic du Midi on the one hand, and Mont
Perdu and Brèche de Roland on the other. I send you another Pyrenean
fragment:--
She fed her cows, the mountain-peaks between.[21]
September 1.
The Tennysons arrived at 6.30 yesterday. Tennyson was here, with Arthur
Hallam, thirty-one years ago, and really finds great pleasure in the
place; they stayed here and at Cauterets. ‘Ænone,’ he said, was written
on the inspiration of the Pyrenees, which stood for Ida.
September 6.
Yesterday we went up the Pic du Midi, which proved fully equal to all
expectations, though there was haze over the plain and over the remoter
ends of the chain. It is a very complete view of the chain as we saw
it, only from the Maladetta to the Pic du Midi d’Ossau; our Pic du
Midi lying detached, or only tacked-to by the thin Col de Tourmalet,
some way to the north.
Tennyson and ---- have walked on to Cauterets, and I and the family
follow in a calèche at two.
Cauterets: September 7.
To-day is heavy brouillard down to the feet, or at any rate ankles, of
the hills, and little to be done. I have been out for a walk with A. T.
to a sort of island between two waterfalls, with pines on it, of which
he retained a recollection from his visit of thirty-one years ago, and
which, moreover, furnished a simile to ‘The Princess.’ He is very fond
of this place, evidently, and it is more in the mountains than any
other, and so far superior.
A CONSIDERATION OF OBJECTIONS
AGAINST THE
RETRENCHMENT ASSOCIATION AT OXFORD
DURING THE IRISH FAMINE IN 1847.
The first obvious, and, if sound, obviously fatal, objection to this
Association, is directed not against the intention, but against the
means employed. Why _associate_? Cannot we be temperate without joining
a temperance society? cannot we give alms without printing our names?
To those who think and speak thus, may it not be said, If you think
thus, and speak thus, then do thus? It is by no means the object to
form a great joint-stock charity-doing monopoly: the more numerous
and the more active those are whose names do not appear, the better
satisfied, I am sure, will be those whose names do appear. If you do
not like charity by association, see that private charity is energetic;
and those you complain of will not complain of you.
But I think they will flatter themselves that at the same time your
private efforts will be powerfully seconded by the organisation
you dislike. Will it not be easier for you to retrench now that
retrenchment is not likely to be mistaken? Breakfast parties, and wine
parties, &c., &c., are as it were the currency of hospitality: you
cannot alter this ‘coin of the realm’ of entertainments without coming
to some common understanding. And to come to that common understanding
some degree of undesirable publicity may surely be endured.
A second objection, of a different kind, rests upon the statement
that a great number of undergraduates receive no fixed allowance from
home: what they do not spend, they do not receive. Of course in those
cases, where all that can be saved is welcome at home, nothing further
can be said: no retrenchment can be urged, because it is presumed no
retrenchment can be made. In all others may it not be asked, Is it true
that you have not, in point of fact, what comes to the same thing as an
allowance? a sum of money which you are expected to call for, beyond
which you are expected not to go, and up to which you would think
yourself justified in spending for your own gratification? The sum
which last year the paternal purse would have freely given for ices,
will it this year refuse for almsgiving? What with a safe conscience
you would have asked for then, will not your conscience suffer you to
petition for now? But be this as it may--for economy is a duty towards
friends and parents sadly enough neglected in Oxford--one thing may
and must be said. Do not, in the name of common sense, first refuse
to give, because the money is not yours, and then go and spend on
yourself, because it is your father’s.