and opposite him sat a City magnate of great wealth and influence. They
conversed pleasantly. Next day Lord Stanhope received a letter from him,
enclosing a hundred-pound note, and saying, ‘It was your Lordship’s kind
_loan_ of that sum many years ago that started me in life, and enabled
me to rise to have the honour of sitting opposite your Lordship at
dinner.’
“When I was a child, ‘Marmion’ made me long passionately to see Whitby,
and ‘Sylvia’s Lovers’ afterwards increased the longing. Now I have been
there, and what a wonderful place it is. I think nothing on the English,
or French, or Spanish, or German coasts is equal to it. The first
morning was a thick fog--a most blessed fog. I felt a presentiment of
what would happen. I was certain where the abbey was, and through the
dim streets, up the slippery steps, and between the gravestones of the
churchyard dripping with wet, I made my way to a certain field, which I
was sure was the right place, and there I waited. Soon out of the thick
mists rose, bathed in sudden sunlight, the grand ruin of an abbey, all
glorious in the heavens, but no earth visible. It was as the summit of
Mont Blanc is sometimes seen, but a New Jerusalem, in splendour beyond
words--‘And the building of the wall of it was of pure gold.’ And then
suddenly the fog came down again and it vanished, and in a few minutes,
when the veil drew up the second time, a noble ruined abbey stood there,
every arch and pillar reflected in the waters of a lonely tarn, but it
was only the bones of the glorious vision which had been.
“The old courthouse of the Cholmondeleys was the abbot’s house, and in
it was ‘Lady Anne’s Chamber,’ terribly haunted. A figure used to come
down from a picture over the chimney, and was seen by many still living.
Close by was a passage with an oubliette, down which ‘the nuns used to
throw their babies.’ All, except the offices, has been cleared away by
Sir C. Strickland, and a hideous modern house built. Down the steep way
below the house Sir Nicholas Cholmondeley used to drive his four-in-hand
furiously.
“The fog was fainter all the rest of that day, and oh! how I luxuriated
in the winding ways upon the cliffs, in the dark red roofs piled one
upon another, and the delicate grey distances of buildings or sea.
“Here, at Garrowby, I have been very happy with the Halifaxes. I always
feel better for the life with them, and I have especially liked the
spiritual part of it here, where there is no chaplain, as at Hickleton,
and where the services in the beautiful little chapel are led by
Charlie Halifax himself. Everybody joins, and a footman sings gloriously
at the very pitch of his voice. In everything Charlie recalls to me
something which I have read with a higher reference--‘Not by his
doctrines has Christ laid hold upon the heart of men, but by the story
of his life.’[535] He has ‘under all circumstances that just admixture
in the moral character of sweetness and dignity’ which Marcus Aurelius
speaks of. Unlike everything else is the simplicity and singleness of
heart and purpose written so distinctly on everything he says and does.
Action is easy and natural where faith is so absolute. ‘At all times a
man who would do faithfully must believe firmly,’ was a saying of
Carlyle. And though religion pervades everything, no house was ever so
gay as that of which Charlie is master. What merriment we have had over
our games in the evening: what fun over the mysterious disappearances by
day into the four secret chambers which make this house so curious: what
admirably good stories have been told; and while the loss of the dear
boys who are gone ever leaves a blank in the parents’ hearts, how happy
life is made for the children who remain! ‘La joie est très bonne pour
la santé: ce qui est sot, c’est d’être triste’[536]--this seems to be
one of the minor guides of action. The place is not very interesting,
but the house delightfully full of books and pictures. In the park are
African cows, Japanese deer, emus, and kangaroos. Lady Ernestine
Edgecumbe and Lady Beauchamp are here. It is a little society of those
who feel that ‘we may not only know the truth, but may live even in this
life in the very household and court of God.’”[537]
* * * * *
_To_ GEORGE COCKERTON.
“_Holmhurst, Oct. 9._--My return home was saddened by finding dear old
Harriet Rogers--Lea’s niece--in a dying state at her little cottage in
the grounds. She was just able to recognise me, and whispered
touchingly, ‘I thank you! I thank you!’ As in the many other people I
have now seen enter the shadow of death, there was no fear and no joy;
the power of mental emotion seemed past. Yesterday, whilst I was with
her, she died, passing the barrier quite painlessly. Yet what a change
for her! There is always something very awe-striking in it.
‘And her smooth face sharpened slowly,’
is a line of the ‘Lady of Shalott’ which Tennyson afterwards removed, as
giving too painful an image of death; but it is exactly what happens.
To-day I feel it--yes, _odd_ to see the same farm and garden life, in
which she was interested and had a share, going on the same, and that
her part in it should be so suddenly over--snapped. How she must be
longing to tell one now what she felt at that momentous moment. I am
exactly like the person in ‘Hitherto’--‘I can’t get over expectin’ her
to come in and talk it all over. It seems as though she couldn’t do
nothin’ without tellin’ folk how!--But there, I dare say,--if ‘tain’t
wicked to think of it,--it’s half over heaven by this time.’
“‘Il faut mourir et rendre compte de sa vie, voilà dans toute sa
simplicité le grand enseignement de la maladie. Fais au plus tôt ce que
tu as à faire; rentre dans l’ordre, songe à ton devoir; prépare-toi au
départ; voilà ce que crient la conscience et la raison.’[538]
“My ‘North-Western France’ is now ready to appear. It has been an
immense labour, one compared with which ‘The Gurneys of Earlham’ is as a
drop to a river; but I have no doubt the latter will be more read, and
certainly more reviewed, for scarcely any Englishmen know enough of
France to be critical about descriptions of it. I have another little
book ready too--‘Biographical Essays’--which is sure to meet with plenty
of abuse, but does not deserve much, all the same. In it I have tried to
give such a picture of Arthur Stanley as may make people love him as a
friend, whilst they shrink from following him as a guide.”
XXX
IN MANY PLACES
“The whole value and meaning of life lies in the single sense of
conscience--duty.”--FRANCES ANNE KEMBLE.
“Do weel and dread nought though thou be espyit;
He is little gude worth that is not envyit:
Take thou nae heed what tales man tells;
If thou would’st live undeemed, gang where nae man dwells.”
--SIR WALTER SCOTT _in Orloff Davydoff’s Album_.
“True happiness is only to be obtained by devotedness to the will
of God. Seeking the universal good--the highest good of all. Life
can only be truly happy, not when we are in ecstasy, but when we
are doing right.”--THOMAS COOPER, _Thoughts at Fourscore_.
“Let nothing disturb thee,
Let nothing affright thee--
All passeth:
God only remaineth.
Patience wins all things;
Who hath God lacketh nothing:
Alone God supplieth.”
--ST. THERESA’S _Bookmark_.
Greatly as I always enjoy my little home of Holmhurst, dear as every
corner of it is to me, I never feel as if it was well to stay there too
long in winter alone. In summer, Nature itself can give sufficient
companionship; but when earth is dead and frost-bound, the silence in
the long hours after sunset becomes almost terrible, and I increasingly
feel that late autumn and winter are the best time for visits.
* * * * *
_To_ VISCOUNT HALIFAX.
“_Holmhurst, Nov. 25._--I have much enjoyed a visit from Mr. and Mrs.
Cummings, the Americans who were so kind to us on our terrible return
journey from Italy in 1860, and of whom the wife, at least, is so
clever, that she is suffering--as Mrs. Kemble said once of some
one--from a constipation of her talents. They came here fresh from a
visit to Haworth, much impressed with its severe desolation,--‘that any
one should be able to have any hope, or look forward to a future life,
on the top of Haworth hill is nothing short of a miracle.’ They have
made a Brontë museum there now, chiefly full of Branwell’s drawings, of
great interest, chiefly military. Did you know that Mr. Nichols hoped to
have been rector when Mr. Brontë died? But it was given by election, and
he was unpopular, and it went against him. He is still living in
Ireland, whither he took all the Brontë memorials he cared for. The rest
were sold by auction, and the butcher, baker, and candlestick-maker of
Haworth bought them. The sexton showed Mrs. Cummings some of Charlotte’s
underclothing, delicately marked by herself with her C. B., and her
wedding shoes, of some grey material to match her dress. He had often
seen her and her sister come out of the house, and go through the little
gate at the back to the moors, which at Haworth are grass, not heather.
After Charlotte married, Mr. Nichols would not let her write. His mind
was of the very narrowest, and he disapproved of novels, and when she
was pent up in that solitude, and all her secret thoughts were pent up
too, and never allowed to come out in writing, she--died.
[Illustration: IN THE WALKS, HOLMHURST.]
“Mrs. Cummings says we should not like America; ‘it is a country utterly
without perspective; one must go up to the Indians and the Jesuit
missionaries for that.’ She has been describing Miss Louisa
Alcott,[539] the well-known authoress. ‘She lived with her old father
and her beautiful mother and her three sisters. They used to write
little stories. One day her sisters said, “Louisa, you must write
something more than these.”--“I would, but I can’t do it here,” she
answered. So the sisters clubbed their little savings together, and they
sold a few things, and Louisa went to Boston. There she called upon
Roberts, the publisher of all American good things, and said, “I want to
write a story.”--“Very well,” he answered; “what kind will you
take?”--“Oh, I can’t make up anything,” said Louisa; “I can only just
write what I know.”--“Oh, you can just write what you know,” said
Roberts; “then don’t stay talking here; go away at once and begin.” So
she went and lived by herself and wrote, and in five weeks she brought
him her “Little Women.” He took it and said, “Come again to-morrow.” And
when she went next day he said, “Well, I will take your story, and I
will offer you one of two things; either you can take two hundred
dollars down for it, or you can take your chance.”--“But what would you
do if you were me?” asked Miss Alcott. Roberts said he had never been
placed in such an awkward predicament in his life, but he spoke the
truth and said, “I would take my chance.” She did, and soon after he had
to pay her 10,000 dollars.[540] She wrote “Little Men” afterwards, but
it did not answer as well; boys do not take books to their pillows as
girls do.’
“‘I love crying,’ said Mrs. Cummings, ‘but then I must have somebody to
cry to. I cried as a little girl because I thought my mother might die,
but I cried most because I thought that then I should have no one to cry
_to_.’ Miss Alcott said to her, ‘My dear, I shouldn’t mind dying if it
wasn’t for the funeral.’
“‘Mr. Tennyson was very rude and coarse,’ said Mrs. Cummings, ‘but he
died well--reading his little book in the moonlight: he really couldn’t
have done it better.’
“‘Louisa Payson, who wrote “The Pastor’s Daughter” and many other
books,[541] would not say “thank you” when she was a little girl. Her
father, the stern minister, punished her in various ways, but it was no
good--she said she couldn’t. So at last, at five years old, he turned
her out of doors late on a winter’s evening. He went to his affairs,
forgot her, I suppose; but her mother was in an agony, and she prayed
for her child with all the spirit that was in her. At last she could
bear it no longer, and she opened the door a little way, and then she
heard a little wail of “I can’t say thank you: I can’t say thank you.”
What was the end I do not know, but at any rate Louisa did not die, and
lived to write books.’
“These are some snatches from the Holmhurst tea-table.”
* * * * *
_To_ HERBERT VAUGHAN.
“_Kingston Vicarage, Wareham, Nov. 10._--You would have liked going with
us to Wool, on a ‘Tess of the D’Urbervilles’ pilgrimage, for there,
rising by the reedy river-side, is the old gabled house to which Tess
was taken after her marriage. It is exactly as Hardy describes it;[542]
even the plank bridge remains across which Angel carried her in his
sleep to the stone coffin at Bindon Abbey. The two old pictures
mentioned in the book really hang at the top of the staircase, and the
lady in one of them is supposed to blow out the candle of any one who
ventures up the stairs after midnight. The whole country-side is full of
memories of the D’Urbervilles, and there are many still living who
depose to having met their phantom coach and four with outriders. The
family still exists at Kingston as--Tollerfield!
“We had an awful storm last night, but such hurricanes are the fashion
in Purbeck. A Mr. Bellasye, returning home, met, not his
bathing-machine, but his bathing-_house_ coming to meet him across the
hedges and ditches. Mr. and Mrs. Wordsworth had a huge hole blown into
their roof by one gust; but that did not much signify, as the next gust
blew a haystack on to the roof and filled the hole up. All the cabbages
and other vegetables in the kitchen-garden are frequently blown out of
the earth and into a heap in a corner, and on one occasion those in the
rectory-garden were all blown into the church porch.”
* * * * *
_To_ VISCOUNT HALIFAX.
“_Elvedon, Thetford, Nov. 14._--All the way back from Dorsetshire did I
come for the pleasure of meeting the Duchess of York here (at Lord and
Lady Iveagh’s); but that was not to be, as an impending event is
considered too near for her to travel with safety. The Duke is here, and
very unaffected and pleasant, really a very nice prince, and quite
good-looking. He never fails to be punctual to the moment--a grand
quality for a prince, and due, probably, to naval discipline. He talks a
great deal, and talks well, but in reality princes have no chance--no
chance at all--conversationally, as no one ever contradicts them,
however much they disagree; no subjects are aired but those which they
choose for themselves, and the merest commonplaces from royal lips are
listened to as if they were oracles.
“Anything more odious or annoying than being a prince certainly cannot
be imagined. Such a wearisome round of dullest duties and painful
‘pleasures’ as it is their life’s-work to live in like a tread-mill.
Then, every fault of manner, far more of conduct and character, is
commented, dwelt on, and exaggerated. I should be sorry for any prince,
but am really dreadfully sorry for this one, as he would have been
charming, and might have been extremely happy if the misfortune of his
birth had not condemned him to the severe and miserable existence of
princedom, in which all minor faults are uncorrected because
unsuggested, though I believe such a true friend and fine character as,
for instance, Lord Carrington, would always notice any sufficiently
grave to be of consequence either to the country or the royal family.
“I floated here in the luxurious saloon carriage of a special train, but
felt rather shy, because whereas all the rest of the party were on terms
of christian-name intimacy, I knew none of them before except Lord
Rowton, who is, however, always very kind and pleasant. But I was
interested to see those who are so frequently part of the royal circle,
and liked them all, especially and extremely Lord and Lady Carrington;
but then--everyone does!
“I wonder if you know this house of Elvedon. It was Duleep Singh’s, and
he tried to make it like an Indian palace inside. Much of his decoration
still remains, and the delicate white stucco-work has a pretty effect
when mingled with groups of tall palms and flowering plants. Otherwise
the house (with the kindest of hosts), is almost appallingly luxurious,
such masses of orchids, electric light everywhere, &c. However, a
set-off the other way is an electric piano, which goes on pounding away
by itself with a pertinacity which is perfectly distracting. In the
evenings singing men and dancing women are brought down from London, and
are supposed to enliven the royal guest.
“You know, probably, how this place is the most wonderful shooting in
England. The soil is so bad that it is not worth cultivating, and
agriculture has been abandoned as a bad business. Game is found to be
far more profitable. The sterile stony fields are intersected at
intervals by belts of fir; the hedges, where they exist, are of Scotch
fir kept low; and acres of thick broom are planted. Each day I have gone
out with the luncheon party, and we have met the shooters at tents
pitched at different parts of the wilderness, where boarded floors are
laid down, and a luxurious banquet is prepared, with plate and flowers.
The quantity of game killed is almost incredible, and the Royal Duke
shot more than any one, really, I believe, owing to his being a very
good shot, and not, as so often is the case in royal battues, from the
birds being driven his way.
“A great feature of the party is Admiral Keppel, kindest, most
courteous, and most engaging of old gentlemen, so captivating that there
is always a rivalry amongst the ladies as to who shall walk with him,
and amongst the men to get hold of his stories. He told me of how his
father first started him on his naval career, and, while he talked it
over at Holcombe, made him sit in the same chair in which he had talked
the same subject over with Nelson when he was starting _him_.
“He described the prayers at Holcombe on Sunday evening in his boyhood.
After dinner the men were allowed an hour or two over their wine. Then
the prayer-bell rang, and they all went in. Afterwards an old servant
stayed to take up those who could not get up from their knees, and carry
them to bed by turns when they were too drunk to go by themselves.
“He remembered Charles James Fox reeling down the corridor at Holcombe,
falling helplessly from side to side. His father followed him, and he
followed his father, who kept exclaiming, ‘Good God! drunk! Good God!
drunk again!’ for the expression had not gone out then.
“He said that the present Lord Leicester and his father had married at
exactly a hundred years apart.”
* * * * *
_To_ W. H. MILLIGAN _and_ JOURNAL.
“_Nov. 27, Hornby Castle, Bedale._--I came here yesterday. Several
people were in the castle omnibus when I got into it at the station, of
whom a grand lion-like old man turned out to be Mr. Bayard, the American
Ambassador. It was dark when we arrived. We found the Duchess (of
Leeds), tall, gracious, and most winning in manner, and indeed all the
family, in a noble hall, coved at the top, with busts in the upper
niches, like the halls of Roman palaces, and looking (by daylight) into
a courtyard, which is very picturesque and curious.
“Lady Harewood is here, sweet-looking and very white, with a pleasant
daughter, Mr. and Lady Alice Shaw Stewart, and several young men. Mr.
Bayard came down to dinner much delighted with a book he had found in
his room--the ‘Life of Agrippina’--in which ‘What news from Armenia?’ is
anxiously asked, showing how the same subject occupied conversation then
as now, at a distance of nineteen centuries. He said, ‘When bad men
_conspire_, good men ought to _confederate_.’
“This morning, in the library, I had much and delightful talk with Mr.
Bayard. He gave an interesting account of the allotment of land in
America: how a reserve was left to the Indians, but they were dying out,
chiefly because of their catching all the vices of Europeans, especially
their love of alcohol. He said they were like the buffaloes. These used
to come down and swoop through the country in vast herds, and devour all
the spring produce; and later, in their vast battalions they would
swoop back again; but now, fettered and shut in by barriers and fences,
they pined, starved, and died; and so it was with the Indians. He
described how, after an unjust woman had published a libel on her
country,[543] the greatest suffering had resulted to the slaves, who
would follow their former masters to suffering, wounds, imprisonment,
and death. A Southern lady, when ‘the army of liberation’ approached,
had entrusted all her silver and jewels to her slaves, and they had
brought it all back safely after the army had passed.
“He talked of the Banco di S. Giorgio at Genoa--‘one of the most
interesting buildings in the world;’ that whereas the Bank of London had
lasted two centuries, that of Genoa had lasted five: that the Bank was
the greatest evidence of the philosophy of nations. No aspersion was
ever cast upon it, and this was because those who administered it had
never derived any profit from it, only honour. An instance of its
usefulness as a record-office occurred lately, when a man in America
offered Mr. H. an autograph letter of Columbus. To all appearance it was
genuine, but Mr. H. asked leave, which was readily granted, to have a
photograph facsimile made of it before purchasing. In the Banco di
Giorgio the original letter was found, and, when compared with the
facsimile, proved that the copy was false. This was especially
fortunate, as, after Napoleon I., ‘that great collector of other
people’s property,’ took away the archives of Genoa, though most were
restored, all were not.
“The library at Hornby is full of interest, but I can only remember a
fifteenth-century ‘Roman de la Rose;’ a first edition of Shakspeare,
which came to its present owners through Henrietta, Duchess of
Marlborough, who inherited it from William Congreve; and a copy of
‘Dionysius the Areopagite,’ by Beghir, ‘the one-eyed scribe of
Brabant’--most delightful name--with notes by Dean Colet.
“The Duchess has shown us the house minutely and delightfully. The
family portraits were full of interest, beginning with that of Sir
William Hewitt, whose daughter married William Osborne, the apprentice
who saved her when she fell over London Bridge, and who founded the
Leeds family. In a curious Hogarth of ‘The Beggar’s Opera,’ the Duke of
Bolton is represented watching the acting of Polly Peachum, whom he
afterwards married: the picture is here because Sir Conyers d’Arcy, an
ancestor of the house, is also represented. Mr. Bayard was delighted to
find portraits of the wife of the seventh Duke, who was Miss Caton, one
of four beautiful American sisters.[544] The Duchess was amused that I
had never heard of ‘Godolphin Arabian,’ the ancestor of a succession of
famous racehorses.[545] In one of the rooms is the miniature
spinning-wheel of Madame de Pompadour; in another, a bed of such
glorious embroidery that when Lady Marian Alford was here, she could not
get up for looking at it.”
* * * * *
“_Nov. 29._--At breakfast, at one of several little round tables, Mr.
Bayard talked pleasantly of a grave in the cemetery at Nuremberg. It is
one of Adam Kraft’s iron tombstones, and it bears no name. Affixed to it
is a human skull, exquisitely modelled, with a jaw which opens and
shuts. In the forehead--the bronze forehead--is a white patch of some
other metal. The story is that the owner of that skull was very
unhappily married. His misery drove him from home, drove him into very
bad company, and he sank lower and lower. One day he suddenly died and
was buried; but soon afterwards his family began to suspect foul play,
and he was exhumed. At first his body seemed to bear no witness, but
then, in his forehead, under his hair, a large nail was found, buried up
to the hilt, hammered in so accurately that no blood had come. Every one
believed that it was his wife who had done it, but it could not be
brought home to her; his associates were too bad for their evidence to
be trusted. But the model of his skull was laid upon his grave, and his
wife left the place; she could not continue to exist near it.