Marchese Lotteria Lotharingo della Stufa. It is reached by driving from
Florence through the low envineyarded country for five miles. Then, on
the left, under the hills, one sees what looks like a great old barrack,
grimy, mossy, and deserted. This is the villa. All outside is decay, but
when you enter, there are charming old halls and chambers, connected by
open arches, and filled with pictures, china, books, and beautiful old
carved furniture. A terrace, lined with immense vases of lilies and
tulips, opens on a garden with vine-shaded pergolas and huge
orange-trees in tubs; and beyond are the wooded hills.
[Illustration: CAMALDOLI.][173]
“The Marchese is charming, living in the hearts of his people, sharing
all their interests, working with them--taking off his coat and tucking
up his sleeves to join in the sheep-shearing, gathering the grapes in
the vintage, &c. But the presiding genius of the place is Mrs. Ross
(Janet Duff Gordon), who has redeemed lands, planted vineyards,
introduced new plans for pressing the grapes--whose whole heart and soul
are in the work here.”
* * * * *
_To_ MISS WRIGHT.
“_Vicenza, May 20, 1875._--I have been to Genoa and Pegli, and to
Piacenza again for a tremendous excursion of sixty-eight miles,
eighteen riding on a white mule, to the grave of S. Columbano in the
high Apennines. After this, the Italian lakes were comparative rest. I
thought the Lago d’Iseo far the most beautiful of them all. To-day I
have been on a family pilgrimage to Valdagno, where my grandmother lived
so happily, and where my uncle Julius Hare was born. There is much also
here in Vicenza to remind me of a later past, for opposite the window of
this room are the trees in the Marchese Salvi’s garden, where my dearest
Mother took her last walks.”
[Illustration: BOBBIO.][174]
* * * * *
JOURNAL.
“_Herrenalb, in the Black Forest, June 14._--A week at Venice was a
great refreshment. Then I crossed the S. Gothard to Lucerne and came on
here. The semi-mountain air of this lovely place is as refreshing to the
body as the pure high-minded Bunsen character is to the soul. A little
branch railway brought me from the main line to Gernsbach, a pretty
clean German village with picturesque gabled houses girding a lovely
river. Hence it is a charming drive of two hours through forest into the
highlands, where the wood-clad hills break occasionally into fine crags.
Herrenalb itself takes its name from the abbey on the little river Alb,
while a monastery for women on the same stream a few miles off gives its
name to ‘Frauenalb.’ The former is Protestant now, the latter is still
Catholic, but in the valley of Herrenalb are the immense buildings of
the abbey, its great granaries with wooden pillars, and the ruins of its
Norman church.
[Illustration: LOVERE, LAGO D’ISEO.][175]
[Illustration: _Frances Baroness Bunsen 1874_]
“Frances de Bunsen and one of her Sternberg nieces met me in the
valley, and we were soon joined by the dear old Frau von Bunsen in her
donkey-chair. At eighty-six her wonderful power of mind and charm of
intellect and conversation are quite unimpaired. She has still the rare
art, described by Boileau, ‘passer du grave au doux, du plaisant au
sévère.’ The whole family breakfast at seven, and for an hour before
that the dear Grandmother is in the little terraced garden, examining
and tending her flowers. The house is full of souvenirs: in the
Baroness’s own room is a large frame with photographs of all her
numerous descendants, sent by the Grand Duchess of Baden to greet her
first arrival in this her new country home.”
* * * * *
To this happy visit at Herrenalb, and to the long conversations I used
to have with my dear old friend, walking beside her donkey-chair in the
forest, I owe the power of having been able to write her Memoirs two
years afterwards. It was my last sight of this old friend of my
childhood. I returned from Herrenalb to England.
* * * * *
JOURNAL.
“_London, June 23, 1875._--Called on Mrs. Leslie in her glorious old
house in Stratford Place, which is beautiful because all the colour is
subdued, no new gilding or smartness. She herself sat in the window
embroidering, with the bright sunlight just glinting on her rippled hair
and sweet face, at once a picture and a poem.”
* * * * *
[Illustration: LAMBETH, INNER COURT.][176]
“_June 26._--A great party at Lambeth Palace, the lawn and its many
groups of people very charming. Going in to tea with Miss Elliot down a
narrow passage, I came suddenly upon Arthur Stanley. In that moment I am
sure we both tried hard to recollect what had so entirely separated us
for five years, but we could not, and shook hands. The Spanish Lady
Stanley seeing this, threw up her hands--‘Gratias a Deo! O gratias a
Deo! una reconciliatiōn!’
“In the evening there was an immense party at Lady Salisbury’s to meet
the Sultan of Zanzibar.[177] He had a cold, so sent to say he could not
have the windows opened; the consequence of which was, that with
thousands of wax-lights and crowds of people, the heat was awful,
positively his native climate. The Sultan has a good, sensible, clever,
amused face, but cannot speak a word of any language except Arabic, of
which Lady Salisbury said that she had learnt some sentences by the end
of the evening, from hearing them repeated so often through the
interpreter, and at last ventured to air her new acquirements herself.
When the Sultan went away, the suite followed two and two--a picturesque
procession. Lord Salisbury walked first, leading the Sultan, or rather
holding his right hand in his own left, which it seems is the right
thing to do. The Sultan was immensely struck by Lady Caithness, and no
wonder, for her crown of three gigantic rows of diamonds, and then huge
diamonds and emeralds, had the effect of a sunlit wave in the
Mediterranean.”
* * * * *
“_June 27, Sunday._--To Holland House. Lady Holland sat at the end
window, looking on the garden, with a group round her. I went out with
Lord Halifax, then with Everard Primrose, who appeared as usual from the
library, and a third time with Lord Stanhope, who took me afterwards in
his carriage to Airlie Lodge. There the garden was in great beauty, and
we met Lady Airlie sauntering through its green walks with the Duke of
Teck. We went to sit in a tent, where we found Mr. Doyle, Mr. Cheney,
and a young lady who greeted me with, ‘Now, Mr. Hare, may I ask if you
never _can_ remember me, or if you always intend to cut me on purpose?’
It was Miss Rhoda Broughton.
“Lady Airlie talked of the death of Madame Rossetti. Her husband[178]
felt so completely that all his living interests were buried with his
wife, that he laid his unpublished poems under her dead head, and they
were buried with her. But, after a year had passed, his feeling about
his wife was calmed, while the longing for his poems grew daily, and
people urged him that he was forcing a loss upon the world. And the
coffin of the poor lady was taken up and opened to get at the poems, and
behold her beautiful golden hair had grown and grown till the whole
coffin was filled with it--filled with it and rippling over.[179] Lady
Airlie had the account from an eye-witness. For one moment Madame
Rossetti was visible in all her radiant loveliness, as if she were
asleep, then she sank into dust. She was buried with her Testament under
her pillow on one side and her husband’s poems on the other.
“The Duke of Teck looked very handsome and was most pleasant and
amiable. He said that an old lady in Germany, an ancestress of his, had
the most glorious pearl necklace in the world, and when she died, she
desired that the pearl necklace might be buried with her. And the family
were very sorry to part with their aged relative, but they were still
more sorry to part with the family jewels; and in time their grief for
the old lady was assuaged, but their grief for the pearl necklace was
never assuaged at all, and at last there came a moment when they dug up
the coffin, and took the pearl necklace from the aged neck. But behold
the pearls were quite spoilt and had lost all their lustre and beauty.
Then pearl-doctors were summoned, men who were learned in such things,
and they said that the only thing which would restore the beauty of the
pearls would be if three beautiful young ladies would wear them
constantly, and let the pearls drink in all their youth and beauty. So
the eldest daughter of the house took them and wore them constantly, and
all the beauty and brilliancy of her loveliness flowed into the pearls,
which grew brighter and better every day. And as her beauty faded,
another daughter of the house took them, and so three beautiful young
ladies took them and wore them in three generations, till, when sixty
years were passed, the pearls were so beautiful and glorious, so filled
with youth and radiancy, that there is no such pearl necklace in the
whole world.”
* * * * *
“_June 28._--Luncheon with dear old Lady Grey. Then to Lady Wharncliffe,
who looked very lovely seated beneath a great blue-green vase filled
with lilies.
“The way young men now weary their friends to ask for invitations for
them is almost as contemptible as the conduct of the ladies who ask
others to invite their guests for them that they may ‘get into society.’
‘Que ne fait-on pour trouver un faux bonheur!’ says Fénélon; ‘quels
rebuts, quelles traverses n’endure t’on point pour un fantôme de gloire
mondaine! quelles peines pour de misérables plaisirs dont il ne reste
que des remords.’”
* * * * *
“_June 29._--With the Archbishop of Dublin, Miss Trench, and Lady
Charles Clinton to Strawberry Hill, the ‘little plaything house’ of
Horace Walpole. It had been so wet that one had almost to wade from the
station to the house, and the beautiful breakfast was sopping in a tent
on the mossy lawn, so little being left in the house that the Princess
of Wales had to drink her tea out of a tumbler in a corner. Still the
interior of the house was full of interest--the historic pictures,
especially those of the three beautiful Waldegrave sisters, and of
Maria, Duchess of Gloucester; and then in the gallery are, by Sant and
Bucknor, all the especial friends of the house--all the beautiful
persons who have stayed there.
“Lady Waldegrave[180] (assisted by art) looked twenty-five years younger
than she did twenty-five years ago. The Princess of Wales, in a pink
dress under black lace and a little hat to match, copied as a whole from
pictures of Anne Boleyn, looked lovely.
“In the evening I went to Lady Salisbury’s reception. At the latter was
the Sultan of Zanzibar. Suddenly, in the midst of the party, he said to
Lady Salisbury, ‘Now, please, it is my time to say my prayers: I should
like to go into your room, and to be alone for ten minutes.’ And he did,
and he does it four times a day, and never allows anything whatever to
interfere with it. The Archbishop of Dublin, when presented, said, ‘I am
glad to have the honour of being presented to a man who has made a
promise and _kept_ it.’ The Sultan answered, ‘It can only be your
goodness which makes you say that.’”
* * * * *
_To_ MISS LEYCESTER.
“_How_ glad I am that we do not agree about Sunday. I think your view of
‘the Sabbath’ so entirely derogatory to all the dignity and beauty of
Christianity, and I cannot understand any one not becoming an infidel,
if they think God so _mean_ as to suppose that He would consider ‘His
day’ (though Sunday is only the Church’s day, all days are God’s days)
dishonoured by walking with one’s intimate friends in a garden, or
having tea in another garden with several persons, all infinitely better
and wiser than oneself. ‘I am amazed,’ says Professor Amiel, ‘at the
vast amount of Judaism, of formalism, that still exists, eighteen
centuries after the Redeemer’s declaration that the letter killeth....
Christian liberty has yet to be won.’”
* * * * *
JOURNAL.
“_June 30._--A very pleasant party in the Duke of Argyll’s garden, in
spite of a wet afternoon; all the little golden-haired daughters of the
house very kind in entertaining the guests. I returned with Louisa, Lady
Ashburton, to her beautiful Kent House. The rooms, hung with yellow,
with black doors and picture-frames, are very effective. There are some
semi-ruined cartoons of Paul Veronese upon the staircase.
“In the evening I went to Lady Margaret Beaumont’s to meet the Queen of
the Netherlands, ‘La Reine Rouge,’ as she is often called from her
revolutionary tendencies. She sat at the end of the room, a pleasant
natural woman, with fuzzy hair done very wide in curls, and a quaint
little diamond crown as an ornament at the back. She was most agreeable
in conversation, and, as Prosper Merimée says in one of his letters to
Panizzi, ‘would have been quite perfection, if she had not wished to
appear a Frenchwoman, having had the misfortune to be born in
Würtemburg.’”
* * * * *
“_July 1._--Luncheon at Lord Stanhope’s to meet Miss Rhoda Broughton.
Lord Stanhope aired one of his pet hobbies--the virtues of the novel
‘Anastasius.’ Mrs. Hussey says that his father used to say of him, ‘My
son is often very prosy, but then he has been _vaccinated_;’ for the
fourth Earl Stanhope had a familiar of whom he always spoke as ‘Tesco,’
and Tesco had inveighed against vaccination to him, and had told him
that to be vaccinated had always the effect of making the recipient
prosy.
“Mrs. Hussey mentioned this at a dinner to Mr. John Abel Smith, who
exclaimed, ‘Oh, that accounts for what has always hitherto been a
mystery to me. I went with that Lord Stanhope to hear a man named
Belloni lecture on “the Tuscan Language,” and we sat behind him on the
platform. He was most terribly lengthy. Suddenly, Lord Stanhope caught
him by the coat, and, arresting the whole performance, said, “Pray, sir,
have you ever been vaccinated?”--“Certainly, my Lord,” said the
astonished lecturer. “Oh, that is quite enough; pray continue,” said
Lord Stanhope, and the lecture proceeded, and Lord Stanhope composed
himself to sleep.’”
* * * * *
“_July 2._--A large sketching party at Holland House. We sat for three
hours in the Lily Garden, with birds singing, fountains playing, and
flowers blooming, as if we had been a hundred miles from London. Our
sketches were all sent in afterwards to Lady Holland, who sent them out
in the order of merit--Mrs. Lowther’s first, mine second.
“I dined with the Ralph Duttons and sat by Lady Barker, who was full of
Moody and Sankey, to whom she has been often with the Duchess of
Sutherland, who insists upon going every day. She says the mixture of
religious fervour with the most intense toadyism of the Duchess was
horribly disgusting; that the very gift of fluency in the preachers
contaminated and spoilt their work. Sometimes they would use the most
excellent and powerful simile, and then spoil it by something quite
blasphemous. Speaking of the abounding grace of God, Moody compared Him
to a banker who scolded the man who only drew for a penny, when he might
draw for a pound and come again as often as he liked. So far the sermon
was admirable, and all understood it; but then he went on to call it the
‘Great I Am Bank,’ and to cut all sorts of jokes, whilst the audience
roared with laughter; that when a man presented his cheque, however
large--‘Here ye are, says I Am,’ &c.
“Went on to the ball at Dorchester House, which was beautiful; the
Prince and Princess of Wales and the Tecks were there. The great charm
of the house is in the immensely broad galleries, which are so effective
when filled with beautiful women, relieved, like Greek pictures, against
a gold background. Miss Violet Lindsay, in a long white dress
embroidered with gold and a wreath of gold oak-leaves, was quite
exquisitely lovely.”
[Illustration: DORCHESTER HOUSE.][181]
* * * * *
“_July 3._--Breakfast with Sir James Lacaita to meet Mr. Gladstone, Lord
Napier and Ettrick, and the Marchese Vitelleschi. The great topic was
Manning. About him and Roman Catholicism in general, Gladstone seems to
have lost all temperance, but told much that was curious. He described
the deathbed of Count Streletski and Manning’s attempts to get in.
Lacaita said that there was a lady still living to whom Manning had
been engaged--‘fatto l’impégno’--and that he had jilted her to marry one
of two heiress sisters: now, whenever she hears of any especial act of
his, she says, ‘As ever, fickle and false.’
“‘False,’ said Gladstone, ‘always, but never fickle.’
“Lacaita described the illness, the apparently hopeless illness, of
Panizzi, when he and Mr. Winter kept guard. The Padre Mela came and
tried to insist upon seeing the patient. He told the Padre it was quite
impossible, but, upon his insisting, he assured him that if Panizzi
rallied, he would at once mention the Padre’s wish. At that time it was
‘impossible, as Panizzi was quite unconscious.’ When the Padre heard
that Panizzi was insensible, he implored and besought an entrance ‘basta
anche un’istante,’ but was positively and sternly refused.
“The next day Panizzi rallied, upon which both Lacaita and Mr. Winter
thought it necessary to mention the strong wish of the Padre Mela to see
him. ‘Oh, il birbone!’ said Panizzi, ‘vuol dunque convertirmi,’ and he
was so excited, that in order to content him they were obliged to engage
a policeman to stand constantly at the door to keep the priests out.
“Gladstone said he knew that the Pope (Pius IX.) had determined against
declaring the doctrine of _personal_ infallibility, till Manning had
fallen at his feet, and so urged and implored him to do so, that at
length he had consented. He (Gladstone) upheld that there was no going
back from this, and that even in case of the Pope’s death, the condition
of the Roman Church was absolutely hopeless. Vitelleschi agreed so far,
that if a foreign Pope were chosen, for which an effort would be made,
there was no chance for the Church; but if an Italian were elected--for
instance, Patrizi or Bilio, who had especially opposed the doctrine of
personal infallibility--the sense of the doctrine would be so far
modified that it would practically fade into nothingness, and that every
advantage would be taken of the Council not being yet closed to make
every possible modification.
“Vitelleschi lamented the utter want of religious education in modern
Italy--that he had been in schools where, when asked who Jesus Christ
was, all the boys differed, one saying that he was a prophet, another
something else; that when the question was put to Parliament how
morality was to be taught without religion, the answer was, ‘Faremmo un
trattato morale.”
“Lord Napier every now and then insisted on attention, and delivered
himself of some ponderous paragraph, on which occasions Gladstone
persistently and defiantly ate strawberries.”
* * * * *
“_July 4._--Tea at the Duchess of Cleveland’s. Lord John Manners was
there. They were full of the dog Minos and his extraordinary tricks. In
invitation cards to parties, ‘To meet the dog Minos’ is now constantly
put in the corner. When told to take something to the most beautiful
woman in the room, however, he made a mistake, and took it to the Queen,
who flicked him with her pocket-handkerchief; and then he took it to the
Princess of Wales. Being left alone in the room with a plate on which
there were three sandwiches, he could not resist eating them, but found
three visiting cards and deposited them in their place!”
* * * * *
“_July 7._--A party at Holland House. The old cedars, the brilliant
flowers, and more brilliant groups of people, made a most beautiful
scene.”
* * * * *
“_July 8._--A party at Lady Airlie’s for the Queen of Holland--very
pleasant.”
* * * * *
“_July 9._--Luncheon at Mrs. Harvey of Ickwellbury’s. The whole family
were full of Nigger stories:--of a man who, being pursued by an Indian
for the sake of his scalp, and finding escape hopeless, pulled off his
wig and presented it with a bow, upon which the Indian fell down and
worshipped him as a god!--Of a negro who, on being told that the strait
path to heaven was full of thorns and difficulties, said, ‘Den dis ere
nigger take to the woods!’”
* * * * *
“_July 11._--To hear Mr. Stopford Brooke preach. It was most
interesting--upon the love of God. He began by saying that he would not
undertake to prove the existence of God, for ‘God is, and those who love
Him know it.’
“He said, ‘Think in everything which you are about to do, whether it
will be for the good of the human race; if not, if it is only good for
yourself, your family, your society, don’t do it: that is the love of
God.
“‘Fight against all power which in the name of religion seeks to narrow
it. Fight against all, whether of caste or family, which seeks to
elevate one power to the exclusion of another; for the perfection of the
_whole_ human nature, that is God’s will. This is the service we must
give to Him, which separates worship from selfishness, and makes it more
praise than prayer: thus, with our sails filled with the winds of God,
may we drive over the storms of the human race to the harbour of
unity.’”
* * * * *
“_July 12._--To luncheon at Lord Northampton’s, but, except Lady Marion
Alford, I do not much like the Comptons. Lady Alwyn, who is charming,
was very amusing about them. ‘Lord Alwyn pretends not to hear; that is
because he is displeased, for he thinks I am abusing the Comptons. He
cannot bear me to find fault with any of his ancestors, however remote
they may be, for he thinks that the Comptons are quite perfect, and
always have been. When I first married, I hoped to have made a
compromise, and I told Lord Alwyn that if he would give up to me his
great-grandfather, I would spare all the rest; but he wouldn’t.... After
all, the Comptons were quite ruined, and we owe everything to old Sir
John Spencer who lived at Crosby Hall in the City, and _he_ had so poor
an opinion of the Comptons, that he wouldn’t let the Lord Northampton of
that day marry his daughter on any account. But Lord Northampton dressed
up as the baker’s boy and carried his bride off on his head in a basket.
He met Sir J. Spencer on the stairs, who gave him a sixpence for his
punctuality, and afterwards, when he found out that his daughter was in
that basket, swore it was the only sixpence of his money Lord
Northampton should ever see. But the next year Queen Elizabeth asked him
to come and be ‘gossip’ with her to a newly-born baby, whom she hoped he
would adopt instead of his disinherited daughter, and he could not
refuse; and you may imagine whose that baby was.’
[Illustration: CROSBY HALL.][182]
“Five-o’clock tea at Ashburnham House. The pictures there are
beautiful, a Mantegna and several Ghirlandajos, and it is a charming old
house in itself. In the evening to a party at the Duchess of Cleveland’s
given to the blind Duke of Mecklenburg and his Duchess.”
* * * * *
“_Highcliffe, July 18._--The usual party are here.... Lady Jane Ellice
is full of a theory that she is an Israelite, that we are all members of
the lost tribes of Israel, that our royal family are the direct
descendants of Tepha, the beautiful daughter of Zedekiah, who was
brought to Ireland by Jeremiah, and married to its king.
“Mrs. Hamilton Hamilton has much that is interesting to tell of her old
embassy life in France. She was at S. Leu the day before the Duc de
Bourbon’s death. She would not go in, though urged to do so, because
‘that woman, Madame de Feuchères,’ was there, but heard how well the
Duke was, preparing for the chase, ‘never better in his life.’ The next
day, in returning to Paris, their carriage was passed and repassed by
quantities of royal servants riding to and fro. At last they asked why
it was. The Duc de Bourbon was dead, found hung up to the blind of the
window.
“A few days before, the Duke had declared his intention of altering his
will in favour of the Comte de Chambord. Previously Chantilly had been
settled upon the Duc d’Aumale. Madame de Feuchères had said long before
to Louis Philippe, ‘Leave it all to me.’
“Madame de Feuchères (once an orange-girl at Southampton) was left
enormously rich. She promised to settle all her property on the Duc
d’Aumale if the Duchess of Orleans would receive her. Mrs. Hamilton
Hamilton was seated at the end of the room between the Duchesse Decazes
and another great lady of the old régime. Suddenly the Duchess of
Orleans got up and crossed the whole room to receive some one at the
door. Generally she remained in her place, making only one step even for
a duchess. It was Madame de Feuchères who entered.