I am so desperately indignant with you for writing me that short apology
for a note, and pretending to suppose that under any circumstances I
could fail to read with interest anything _you_ wrote to me, that I have
more than half a mind to inflict a regular letter upon you. If I were
not the gentlest of men I should do it!
Poor dear Haldimand, I have thought of him so often. That kind of decay
is so inexpressibly affecting and piteous to me, that I have no words to
express my compassion and sorrow. When I was at Abbotsford, I saw in a
vile glass case the last clothes Scott wore. Among them an old white
hat, which seemed to be tumbled and bent and broken by the uneasy,
purposeless wandering, hither and thither, of his heavy head. It so
embodied Lockhart's pathetic description of him when he tried to write,
and laid down his pen and cried, that it associated itself in my mind
with broken powers and mental weakness from that hour. I fancy Haldimand
in such another, going listlessly about that beautiful place, and
remembering the happy hours we have passed with him, and his goodness
and truth. I think what a dream we live in, until it seems for the
moment the saddest dream that ever was dreamed. Pray tell us if you hear
more of him. We really loved him.
To go to the opposite side of life, let me tell you that a week or so
ago I took Charley and three of his schoolfellows down the river
gipsying. I secured the services of Charley's godfather (an old friend
of mine, and a noble fellow with boys), and went down to Slough,
accompanied by two immense hampers from Fortnum and Mason, on (I
believe) the wettest morning ever seen out of the tropics.
It cleared before we got to Slough; but the boys, who had got up at four
(we being due at eleven), had horrible misgivings that we might not
come, in consequence of which we saw them looking into the carriages
before us, all face. They seemed to have no bodies whatever, but to be
all face; their countenances lengthened to that surprising extent. When
they saw us, the faces shut up as if they were upon strong springs, and
their waistcoats developed themselves in the usual places. When the
first hamper came out of the luggage-van, I was conscious of their
dancing behind the guard; when the second came out with bottles in it,
they all stood wildly on one leg. We then got a couple of flys to drive
to the boat-house. I put them in the first, but they couldn't sit still
a moment, and were perpetually flying up and down like the toy figures
in the sham snuff-boxes. In this order we went on to "Tom Brown's, the
tailor's," where they all dressed in aquatic costume, and then to the
boat-house, where they all cried in shrill chorus for "Mahogany"--a
gentleman, so called by reason of his sunburnt complexion, a waterman by
profession. (He was likewise called during the day "Hog" and "Hogany,"
and seemed to be unconscious of any proper name whatsoever.) We
embarked, the sun shining now, in a galley with a striped awning, which
I had ordered for the purpose, and all rowing hard, went down the river.
We dined in a field; what I suffered for fear those boys should get
drunk, the struggles I underwent in a contest of feeling between
hospitality and prudence, must ever remain untold. I feel, even now, old
with the anxiety of that tremendous hour. They were very good, however.
The speech of one became thick, and his eyes too like lobsters' to be
comfortable, but only temporarily. He recovered, and I suppose outlived
the salad he took. I have heard nothing to the contrary, and I imagine I
should have been implicated on the inquest if there had been one. We had
tea and rashers of bacon at a public-house, and came home, the last five
or six miles in a prodigious thunderstorm. This was the great success of
the day, which they certainly enjoyed more than anything else. The
dinner had been great, and Mahogany had informed them, after a bottle of
light champagne, that he never would come up the river "with ginger
company" any more. But the getting so completely wet through was the
culminating part of the entertainment. You never in your life saw such
objects as they were; and their perfect unconsciousness that it was at
all advisable to go home and change, or that there was anything to
prevent their standing at the station two mortal hours to see me off,
was wonderful. As to getting them to their dames with any sort of sense
that they were damp, I abandoned the idea. I thought it a success when
they went down the street as civilly as if they were just up and newly
dressed, though they really looked as if you could have rubbed them to
rags with a touch, like saturated curl-paper.
I am sorry you have not been able to see our play, which I suppose you
won't now, for I take it you are not going on Monday, the 21st, our last
night in town? It is worth seeing, not for the getting up (which modesty
forbids me to approve), but for the little bijou it is, in the scenery,
dresses, and appointments. They are such as never can be got together
again, because such men as Stanfield, Roberts, Grieve, Haghe, Egg, and
others, never can be again combined in such a work. Everything has been
done at its best from all sorts of authorities, and it is really very
beautiful to look at.
I find I am "used up" by the Exhibition. I don't say "there is nothing
in it"--there's too much. I have only been twice; so many things
bewildered me. I have a natural horror of sights, and the fusion of so
many sights in one has not decreased it. I am not sure that I have seen
anything but the fountain and perhaps the Amazon. It is a dreadful thing
to be obliged to be false, but when anyone says, "Have you seen ----?" I
say, "Yes," because if I don't, I know he'll explain it, and I can't
bear that. ---- took all the school one day. The school was composed of
a hundred "infants," who got among the horses' legs in crossing to the
main entrance from the Kensington Gate, and came reeling out from
between the wheels of coaches undisturbed in mind. They were clinging to
horses, I am told, all over the park.
When they were collected and added up by the frantic monitors, they were
all right. They were then regaled with cake, etc., and went tottering
and staring all over the place; the greater part wetting their
forefingers and drawing a wavy pattern on every accessible object. One
infant strayed. He was not missed. Ninety and nine were taken home,
supposed to be the whole collection, but this particular infant went to
Hammersmith. He was found by the police at night, going round and round
the turnpike, which he still supposed to be a part of the Exhibition. He
had the same opinion of the police, also of Hammersmith workhouse, where
he passed the night. When his mother came for him in the morning, he
asked when it would be over? It was a great Exhibition, he said, but he
thought it long.
As I begin to have a foreboding that you will think the same of this act
of vengeance of mine, this present letter, I shall make an end of it,
with my heartiest and most loving remembrances to Watson. I should have
liked him of all things to have been in the Eton expedition, tell him,
and to have heard a song (by-the-bye, I have forgotten that) sung in the
thunderstorm, solos by Charley, chorus by the friends, describing the
career of a booby who was plucked at college, every verse ending:
I don't care a fig what the people may think,
But what WILL the governor say!
which was shouted with a deferential jollity towards myself, as a
governor who had that day done a creditable action, and proved himself
worthy of all confidence.
With love to the boys and girls,
Ever, dear Mrs. Watson,
Most sincerely yours.
[Sidenote: Mr. Frank Stone.]
"HOUSEHOLD WORDS," _Sunday, July 20th, 1851._