Louisiana,’ said the Archbishop, showing his study. ‘He was at one of
the conferences at Lambeth in Archbishop Tait’s time. When he went away
Mrs. Tait said to him, “Well, good-bye, Bishop; I hope you’ll come again
at the next conference.”--“No, Mrs. Tait, neither you nor I will be at
the next conference.”--“Oh, Bishop, but I hope we shall see you
again.”--“No, Mrs. Tait,” said the Bishop very solemnly, “neither you
nor I shall be at the next conference, but we shall meet again very
soon.” Three months after that--one in America, the other at
Edinburgh--the Bishop and Mrs. Tait died on the very same day.
“‘Bishop Willmer had the utmost simplicity of character, but he was a
true apostle. One day, crossing a green at Boston, he found a little boy
playing pitch-and-toss. He was very fond of little boys, and he stopped
and spoke to this one--spoke to him very kindly. “Now, are you a good
little boy?” he said at length. “Well, I sometimes say cuss words,”
answered the boy. “Oh, I’m sorry for that,” said the Bishop; “but at any
rate, I see you speak the truth.”--“Oh, only dogs tell lies,” said the
boy. “Well, now,” said the Bishop, “would you like to do me a
kindness?”--“Yes,” said the boy. “Well, I expect a parcel at the railway
station, and I want you to go for it, and bring it to a particular
house. There will be seven dollars to pay for that parcel, and here are
the seven dollars, and there are fifty cents for yourself.” The boy took
the $7.50 and went off.
“‘When the Bishop reached the house, he told what he had done, and was
heartily jeered at--that he should trust a Boston waif like that. There
was a very large party, and they all went in to dinner. Before it was
over, a servant came in and said that there was a boy there who wanted
to speak to the Bishop. The Bishop went out, and the whole company
followed him--they followed him into the hall, and there was the boy at
the door. He was not the least abashed, but, when he saw the Bishop,
said, “Well, I’ve brought the parcel, but it cost seven dollars fifty
cents: you did not see the fifty cents marked in the corner.”--“Well,
how did you get the parcel, then?”--” Oh, I paid the fifty cents you
gave me.”--“And how did you know you’d get the fifty cents again?”--“
Well, I thought as a chap as would trust me with seven dollars would
never make a trouble for fifty cents.”
“‘Well,’ said the Bishop, before they parted, ‘now I should like to give
you my blessing;’ and the boy knelt on the door-mat, and solemnly and
episcopally, before all the company, the Bishop gave the poor boy his
blessing.’
“The chapel here in the palace is thirteenth-century, and has been
restored by Archbishop Maclagan. The stained windows by Kempe are
beautiful, representing the Crucifixion, and the saints connected with
York. ‘I wished that the Saviour should be represented without any
appearance of suffering,’ said the Archbishop--‘as the offering of
humanity, not the sacrifice for sin. The suffering crucifixes only grew
up in mediaeval times with ideas of purgatory. The early artists wished
to excite faith, not pity, and represented the Saviour’s triumph over
death, even while enduring it. The earliest crucifix, in the Catacomb of
Pope Julius, given by Mrs. Jameson, but which totally disappeared a few
years since, represents on the cross a beautiful youth, draped from head
to foot, and without suffering.’
“I have had a delightful long drive with Augusta to Bramham. The old
house was burnt down sixty years ago, and has never been rebuilt. But
its glorious old gardens are kept up. There is nothing like them in
England. They were laid out by Le Nôtre when he laid out Versailles, and
are more like that than any other place. Eighty acres are intersected
by grand avenues with immense walls of clipped beech, ending in
summer-houses, statues, vases, or tanks walled in with stone and
surrounded by statues and vases of flowers. Mr. Fox, a most grand old
man, showed me everything, and talked of the change from the old times
of his youth, when Yorkshire country visits were so cheery, and the
chief dissipation of the county people was a ball at York. ‘Now every
man with three hundred a year and a daughter thinks he must go to
London.’ He talked of the degeneracy of Temple Newsam from the time when
three litters of cubs were regularly brought up in the woods near the
house. His sitting-room is full of hunting pictures and caricatures of
his old friends--a great enjoyment to him.
“I asked Augusta much about Mrs. (Adelaide) Sartoris, whom she had known
well. She said: ‘Edward Sartoris did not go with Adelaide when she went
to Vichy. Leighton, who was always as a slave to her, went with her,
took her lodgings, and did everything for her. Then he said, “You will
be very dull, knowing no one here; I know some young men here, and I
will introduce them to you. They are Burton and Swinburne, but you know
one is a believer in Buddhism, the other in nothing; so you must not
mind what they say.” Then Leighton left.
“‘The next evening Adelaide was having her coffee in the gardens, when
the two young men came up and sat down by her. At first they made
themselves very agreeable. Then at length they began to air their
opinions, and to say things evidently intended to shock. Adelaide laid
down her cup, looked at Burton, and said very slowly, “You believe, I
think, in _Juggernaut_, therefore, with regard to Juggernaut, I shall be
very careful not to hurt your feelings. And you, Mr. Swinburne (turning
to him), believe, I think, in _nothing_, but if anything is mentioned in
which you _do_ believe, I shall be very careful not to hurt your
feelings either, by abusing it: now I expect that you will show the same
courtesy to me.”
“‘The young men laughed, and for some days all went well. Then the
impression passed, and one day they began to talk as before. Adelaide
again laid down her cup, and began again in the same slow tones--“You
believe, Mr. Burton, I think, in Juggernaut”.... Then they burst out
laughing, and they always behaved themselves in future.’
“‘When I was a girl,’ said Augusta, ‘I was with Mary at Madame de
l’Aigle’s near Compiègne. There was to be a little function in the
village, and some music was got up for it. We assisted at the practices,
and Leighton also, who was there as a beautiful young man. But before
the day of the function came he had to go. “Oh, Fay, why should you
desert us? what can we do without our tenor?” said Madame de l’Aigle.
But she implored him in vain; he said he _must_ go. We all continued,
however, to urge him, and at last he said, “Well, I’ll tell you what
I’ll do: I must go, but I’ll come back.”--“What! all the way from
London?” “Yes.” And he did. It was not long after that we found out why
he thought himself obliged to go: it was because the sale of the
pictures of that poor artist, Mason, who had died leaving his wife and
children terribly unprovided for, was going to take place, and Leighton
thought that if he were present at the sale, and seen bidding for the
pictures, they would fetch higher prices. It was only one of a thousand
kindnesses Leighton has done.... People have sometimes called him
affected, but he was not. His manners were perfectly natural: he could
not help being the spoiled darling of society.
“‘George IV., as Prince Regent, was very charming when he was not drunk,
but he generally was. Do you remember how he asked Curran to dinner to
amuse him--only for that? Curran was up to it, and sat silent all
through dinner. This irritated the Prince, and at last, after dinner,
when he had had a good deal too much, he filled a glass with wine and
threw it in Curran’s face, with “Say something funny, can’t you!”
Curran, without moving a muscle, threw his own glass of wine in his
neighbour’s face, saying, “Pass his Royal Highness’s joke.”
“‘That story reminds me of the old Queen of Sweden. She was furious at
the appointment of Bernadotte, and would have nothing to do with him; at
which people congratulated him rather, because if she had seen him, they
said, she would certainly have killed him. But at last she seemed to get
tired of her estrangement, and she invited Bernadotte to a banquet. He
was delighted--so glad to be friends; but as he was going to her palace,
a paper was put into his hands inscribed--by whom he never knew--with
the words, “If she offers you food or drink, as you value your life,
refuse it.” He arrived, and the Queen was most affable, courtesy and
kindness itself. After dinner a cup of coffee was brought on a golden
salver, and, with the most exquisite grace, the Queen offered it to
Bernadotte. He was just about to drink it when he remembered the
warning, and he returned it to her, saying, “Après vous, Madame.” The
Queen turned deadly pale, looked him full in the face, and--drank it.
Next day Stockholm was agitated by terrible news. The Queen-Dowager had
died in the night.’
“The dining-room here is hung with Archbishops, a very fine set of
portraits. Sir Joshua painted Archbishop Harcourt, and came down with
the picture to Bishopthorpe. At dinner, the chaplain, who was afterwards
Archbishop Markham, said, ‘Who is the fellow who has painted that vile
picture of the Archbishop?’--‘The fellow is me,’ said Sir Joshua, who
was sitting by him; but he was so struck by what Markham said that he
insisted on taking the picture back with him to London, and repainted it
as it is now. Talking of the portraits led to Sir T. Lawrence, who was
an endless time over his pictures. That was the case with his portrait
of Lady Mexborough and her child. Lord Mexborough asked to have it home
again and again, but it was no use. At last he said he _must_ have the
picture. ‘Well,’ said Sir Thomas, ‘I’ve been a long time, I allow; but
I’ve got well forward with Lady Mexborough: it’s the baby wants
finishing. Now if Lady Mexborough would kindly bring the baby and give
me another sitting, I really will finish.’--‘Well, Sir Thomas,’ said
Lord Mexborough, ‘my wife will be happy to give you another sitting
whenever you like, but _the baby’s in the Guards_!’”
* * * * *
“_Lincoln, Oct. 18._--Between York and this, I turned aside to visit
Howden, a most grand church. In the vicarage garden I saw an old lady
feeding chickens, and I could not help going up to her and saying, ‘Were
you not once a Miss Dixon?’ She was so exactly like her sister, who was
with Miss Dixon, the miniature-painter, at the little Holmhurst hospice
last year. Her husband, Mr. Hutchinson, showed me all the relics, the
remains of the shrine of S. John of Howden, bearing a statue of the
Virgin with the dove whispering into her ear, as S. Gregory is so often
represented at Rome: the Saltmarshe Chapel, with its old tombs and its
stone altar with five crosses: and the lovely ruined choir, with
exquisite chantry chapels opening from it. Then, in the vicarage garden,
are remains of an old palace of the Bishops of Durham, with a beautiful
old gateway.
“I also saw Selby, a very fine church with a Norman nave, but less
interesting than Howden.
“Lincoln is altogether delightful, with its crown of yellow-grey towers
rising high above the red roofs of the town. And it is most pleasant in
staying with the beloved Precentor Venables to go back into the old
Hurstmonceaux days, which he, and almost no one else, remembers, even
though I could not join in his loyal reverence for Uncle Julius, when it
was extended to Aunt Esther also. Time seems to have stood still with
him and Mrs. Venables more than with any one I know, and it is difficult
to believe that it is more than half a century since they came to
Hurstmonceaux as bride and bridegroom--half a century of such entirely
happy married life, that one cannot contemplate one surviving the
other.[528]
“We visited the delightful and beautiful old Bishop King, who now has
fitted up the ruins of the old palace, and lives appropriately in the
heart of the cathedral society--‘very rightly placed,’ he says, ‘below
the church, and far above the world.’ He has an expression of gentle
benignity which I never saw equalled except by Pius IX., and a manner in
which the greatest dignity of office and the most perfect personal
humility are marvellously blended. He was sitting in what I thought was
a purple dressing-gown, but was told it was a cassock: a jewelled cross
was on his breast. I hoped to have seen him mitred in the cathedral, but
he only appears thus on great festivals. He talked of the Church in
France, and I urged him to visit Ars and enjoy its atmosphere of
spiritual love and blessing: he said he should go there. We also visited
Dean Wickham and his delightful wife, who is Gladstone’s daughter,
thinking her father’s principles always right, but so full of goodness,
gentleness, and beneficence herself, that it is impossible to connect
her with his practice.”
* * * * *
“_Nov. 16._--At Letton, the pleasant house of the Gurdons in Suffolk, I
have met a large party, including the Hamonds of Westacre, into whose
courtyard an invisible horse and rider clatter whenever any death is
about to occur in their family. I have been taken to see Hingham, where
the church contains the very fine tomb of Thomas, Lord Morley, of 1435.
Another day we went to Dereham. S. Werburga was the great saint of the
place, and was stolen by the Abbot of Ely, that her body might be
venerated there with her two sainted sisters. By her empty grave a
miraculous spring gushed forth to console the people of Dereham. So many
children died from being bathed in it, that it is now shut off by a
railing. In the church is the feeble monument of Cowper and Mrs. Unwin.
“Several curious stories were told:--
“Some young men once determined to frighten the famous naturalist
Cuvier. One of them got horns, hoofs, and a tail, and appeared by
Cuvier’s bedside. ‘I am the devil,’ he said, ‘and I am come to eat you.’
Cuvier looked at him. ‘Carnivorous! horns--hoofs--impossible!
Good-night;’ and he turned over and went to sleep.
“Mrs. Hall Dare had told of a young girl friend of hers. She was with a
number of other girls, foolish and frivolous, who went to consult an old
woman who had the reputation of being a witch, and who was supposed to
have the power of making them see their future husbands. She said they
must say their prayers backwards, perform certain incantations with
water, lock their doors when they went to bed, and then they would see
whom they were to marry, but they would find their doors locked in the
morning.
“The girl followed all the witch’s directions. Then she locked her
door, went to bed, and waited. Gradually, by the firelight, a young man
seemed to come in--to come straight through the locked door--a young man
in uniform; she saw him distinctly.
“He went to the end of the room and returned. As he passed the bed his
sword caught in the curtain and fell upon the floor. Then he seemed to
pass out. The girl fainted.
“In the morning at first she thought it was a dream, but there, though
her door was still locked, lay the actual sword upon the floor! Greatly
aghast, she told no one, but put it away and kept it hidden. It was a
terrible possession to her.
“The following year, at a country-house, she met the very young man she
had seen. They fell violently in love and were married. For one year
they were intensely--perfectly--happy.
“Then her husband’s regiment had to change its quarters. As she was
packing up, with horror which was an instinct, she came upon the sword
put away among her things. Just then, before she could hide it, her
husband came in. He saw the sword, turned deadly pale, and in a stern
voice said, ‘How did you come by that?’ She confessed the whole truth.
“He was rigid. He said, ‘I can never forgive it; I can never see you
again;’ and nothing she could say or do could move him. ‘Do you know
where I passed that terrible night?’ he said; ‘I passed it _in hell_!’
He has given up three-quarters of his income to her, but she has never
seen him since.
“A Miss Broke, a niece of our host, told me even a more curious story.
“A few years ago there was a lady living in Ireland--a Mrs.
Butler--clever, handsome, popular, prosperous, and perfectly happy. One
morning she said to her husband, and to any one who was staying there,
‘Last night I had the most wonderful night. I seemed to be spending
hours in the most delightful place, in the most enchanting house I ever
saw--not large, you know, but just the sort of house one might live in
one’s-self, and oh! so perfectly, so deliciously comfortable. Then there
was the loveliest conservatory, and the garden was so enchanting! I
wonder if anything half so perfect can really exist.’
“And the next morning she said, ‘Well, I have been to my house again. I
must have been there for hours. I sat in the library: I walked on the
terrace; I examined all the bedrooms: and it is simply the most perfect
house in the world.’ So it grew to be quite a joke in the family. People
would ask Mrs. Butler in the morning if she had been to her house in the
night, and often she had, and always with more intense enjoyment. She
would say, ‘I count the hours till bedtime, that I may get back to my
house!’ Then gradually the current of outside life flowed in, and gave a
turn to their thoughts: the house ceased to be talked about.
“Two years ago the Butlers grew very weary of their life in Ireland. The
district was wild and disturbed. The people were insolent and
ungrateful. At last they said, ‘We are well off, we have no children,
there’s no reason why we should put up with this, and we’ll go and live
altogether in England.’
“So they came to London, and sent for all the house-agents’ lists of
places within forty miles of London, and many were the places they went
to see. At last they heard of a house in Hampshire. They went to it by
rail; and drove from the station. As they came to the lodge, Mrs. Butler
said, ‘Do you know, this is the lodge of my house.’ They drove down an
avenue--‘But this _is_ my house!’ she said.
“When the housekeeper came, she said, ‘You will think it very odd, but
do you mind my showing _you_ the house: that passage leads to the
library, and through that there is a conservatory, and then through a
window you enter the drawing-room,’ &c., and it was all so. At last, in
an upstairs passage, they came upon a baize door. Mrs. Butler, for the
first time, looked puzzled. ‘But that door is not in my house,’ she
said. ‘I don’t understand about your house, ma’am,’ said the
housekeeper, ‘but that door has only been there six weeks.’
“Well, the house was for sale, and the price asked was very small, and
they decided at once to buy it. But when it was bought and paid for, the
price had been so extraordinarily small, that they could not help a
misgiving that there must be something wrong with the place. So they
went to the agent of the people who had sold it and said, ‘Well, now the
purchase is made and the deeds are signed, _will_ you mind telling us
why the price asked was so small?’
“The agent had started violently when they came in, but recovered
himself. Then he said to Mrs. Butler, ‘Yes, it is quite true the matter
is quite settled, so there can be no harm in telling now. The fact is
that the house has had a great reputation for being haunted; but you,
madam, need be under no apprehensions, for you are yourself the ghost!’
“On the nights when Mrs. Butler had dreamt she was at her house,
she--her ‘astral body’--had been seen there.”
* * * * *
“_Ashridge, Nov. 19._--I arrived here by tea-time, passing in the beech
woods Lady Lothian, who reminded me of Lady Waterford, as I saw her in
her long black dress and black hat, backed by the leafless trees against
the golden sunset. Then Lady Brownlow came in, still radiant in her
marvellous Bronzino-like beauty. There is much charm too in the
guests--Mrs. Dallas Yorke, with her subtle refinement, Mrs. Norman
Grosvenor, the Jerseys, pleasant Jack Cator, and many others. Before
dark, Lady Lothian took me to the drawing-room, built entirely from
designs of Lord Brownlow, and thoroughly Italian in its marble pillars,
green hangings, and many fine pictures, a Mona Lisa which disputes
originality with that at Paris, a beautiful Lo Spagna of a saint, and
the sketch for the Tintoret of the Presentation of the Virgin. The
dinner was lighted from brilliant sconces on old boiserie from a Flemish
sacristy. In the evening ‘Critic’ was acted as a charade, led by Lady
Jersey.
“Breakfast was at small tables. Lord Brownlow, at ours, talked of a
neighbouring house where a Lady Ferrers, a freebooter, used to steal out
at night and rob the pilgrims coming from St. Albans. She had a passage
from her room to the stables. In the morning one of the horses was often
found tired out and covered with foam: no one could tell why. At last
the poor lady was found dead on her doorstep in her suit of Lincoln
green. She constantly haunts the place. Mr. Ady, who lives there now,
meets her on the stairs and wishes her good-night. Once, seeing her with
her arms stretched out in the doorway, he called out to his wife who was
outside, ‘Now we’ve caught her!’ and they rushed upon her from both
sides, but caught--nothing.
“Lady Brownlow came over to our table. ‘I’ve come to join in your
conversation.’--‘Well, you’ve stopped it,’ said Lord B. ‘However, I
bring you this story. A man in a foreign hotel took a loaded pistol to
bed with him. By-and-by he saw a terrible deformed hand brandished at
the foot of the bed. “If you don’t go, I’ll fire,” he shouted. It did
not go and he fired. It was at his own foot.’
“It was Sunday, but I did not go to church, and walked with Lady Lothian
through the sunlit green glades and russet woods of autumn. The house is
of immense length of frontage, and behind it rises the chapel like a
great church. ‘Can you tell me in what part of this _village_ Lord
Brownlow lives?’ asked an American when he came to Ashridge. In the
evening we went to service in the chapel through the splendid
conservatory, with long falling festoons of Ipomea. There was a full
congregation and singing. Two panes of Holbein glass recall that
Ashridge was the palace of Edward VI. and Elizabeth when young, but she
hated it.
“We knew what you would say if you found Lady Waterford’s drawings all
lying about,’ said Lady Brownlow, ‘so we worked hard to hang them up
the day before you came.’ And they looked grand together, and such a
variety--the supreme desolation of the Hagar, the self-abandonment of
the Prodigal’s repentance, the proud Othello, the lovely springing,
leaping children.”
* * * * *
“_Middleton, Dec. 9._--A very agreeable visit to Lord and Lady Jersey.
The country is hideous, but the house pleasant and comfortable, and a
large new ball-room is hung with many fine portraits--the first Duke of
Buckingham by Mytens and by Van Somer; Frances, Countess of Jersey,
beloved by George IV., who was sent to meet Queen Caroline and persuaded
her to eat onions--‘There is nothing the king likes so much as the smell
of onions’--and Sarah, Countess of Jersey, the queen of Almack’s, a huge
noble picture by Lawrence. Joining the village church is the mortuary
chapel which she built, with her tomb, a copy of the Scipio tomb at
Rome, and lovely medallions of her daughters, Sarah, Princess Esterhazy,
and Lady Clementina Villiers. The font is said to have been that of
Edward the Confessor at Islip, but is of Gothic, not Saxon date.
“Conversation fell on Christine, Lady Saye and Sele, who had three
husbands. When she married the first surreptitiously, she took the bull
by the horns, and said to her father at dinner, ‘Father, I’m
married!’--‘Well, my dear, but at least wait till Thomas has left the
room.’--‘No, father, Thomas need not leave the room, for Thomas is the
man I’ve married.’”
My home life this year was very quiet and uneventful, only marked by my
books. The Edgeworth family had placed Maria Edgeworth’s letters in the
hands of Lionel Holland, now a publisher, and desired him to find an
editor. He asked me to accept the office--certainly not a remunerative
one, as I only received fifty pounds for it, the whole large profits of
the book falling to the publishers. I demurred at first, but eventually
undertook it, and became interested in the work, and the simple,
high-toned, unselfish character of the lady whose letters I was
selecting; and the book at once became popular, and had a very large
circulation.