me, headed ‘A Monument of Self-Sufficiency,’ which amused us both so
much? Dining at Lady Margaret Watney’s, I sate opposite to Mr. E. G. who
wrote it--a pleasant man and much liked--and longed to make acquaintance
with him, but had not the chance. Last night I dined with Lady
Ashburton, a quiet party, with all the beautiful Kent House pictures
lighted up. Mr. Henschel whistled like a bullfinch at dinner, and sang
gloriously ‘Der Kaiser’ afterwards. Mrs. F. Myers, who sate by me, was
most agreeable, and is one of those with whom one soon penetrates
‘l’écorce extérieur de la vie,’ as our dear S. Simon calls it. Amongst a
thousand interesting things, she told me that, at Cambridge, she found
Lord De Rothschild’s son especially difficult to get on with, till one
day he startled her by asking, ‘Have you got any fleas?’ She was
surprised, but found that special point of Natural History was just the
one thing he cared about, knew about, and would talk on for ever; and
she was able to get him some rare fleas from a friend in India, with
which he was greatly delighted.
“I also sate at dinner by ...whose father was ambassador at Vienna. He
rented Prince Clary’s house. One day, as a little girl, she was at the
end of the drawing-room with her mother, when they both saw a
chasseur--their own chasseur, they supposed--standing in an alcove at
the end of the room. ‘Oh, there is Fritz,’ said her mother. ‘What can he
be doing there? Run and tell him to go downstairs.’ She ran across the
room, but as she came up to the alcove the chasseur seemed to vanish.
This happened three times; then the mother said, ‘If we were
superstitious we might say we had seen a ghost, but it can be only a
question of angles.’ Soon afterwards her father met Prince Clary at
dinner and began, ‘Have you ever been troubled by any appearance?’ &c.
‘Oh, don’t speak of it,’ exclaimed Prince Clary; ‘it is a most painful
subject: the fact is, that, in a fit of anger, my father killed his
chasseur on that spot.’ Sir Augustus Loftus, who succeeded at the
Embassy, took the same house, and reproached them much for not warning
him of the apparition, on account of which he soon left and went to live
in a hotel.
“At Easter I was with the Carysforts at Elton, and was taken to see
Castor, with its fine Roman and Norman remains, and Stobbington, a very
interesting old house, with a most curious collection of rare living
fish, the pets of its owner. Lady Alwyn Compton, who was at Elton, told
me a curious story. It was one of the great commentators--Calamy, she
thought--who had occasion to go to a market-town in Devonshire, and take
a lodging there whilst the assizes were going on. In the evening a
servant came to his room and said that the master of the house hoped
that he would do him the honour of coming down to supper with him. He
said, ‘Oh, pray thank him very much, but say that I never take supper.’
But the servant came three times with the same message, and at last he
said to himself, ‘Well, he seems so anxious to have me that it is rather
churlish not to go,’ and he went. There were many people in the room,
quite a number of guests, and a great supper prepared. But, being a
religious man, before sitting down he said grace aloud, and, as he said
it, the whole thing vanished.
“Archbishop Benson told Lady Alwyn that two Americans were talking to
each other about spiritualism. Said one to the other, ‘You do not
believe in ghosts, do you?’--‘No, certainly not!’ ‘You would not believe
even if you saw one?’--‘No, certainly not.’ ‘Well, I am one!’ and he
vanished on the spot.
“Afterwards I saw Higham Ferrers on my way to stay at Ecton, such a
pleasant old house; and the next week I was with the George Drummonds at
Swaylands, which has the finest rock-garden in England, and drew with
Miss Henniker in the delicious old gardens of Penshurst Place.”
* * * * *
_To_ HUGH BRYAN _and_ JOURNAL.
“_Castle Hale, Painswick, June 17._--‘Voici venir les longs crépuscules
de juin,’[579] and I will employ one of them in writing to you. I have
had a Whitsuntide of visits, beginning with the Deanery of Hereford.
Mrs. Leigh[580] was full of her visit to Butler’s Island, from which she
was lately returned--her last visit, she thinks, but I expect she will
not long be able to keep away from the old home in the rice-swamps which
she loves so dearly. Before she left, she had a little feast for all the
older negroes, who had been slaves, and whose ancestors had been on the
place since her great-grandfather’s time. She thanked them for coming in
a little speech, expressing her attachment to them, but saying that as
her years were advancing, she might not meet them often again on earth,
but that she trusted to see them again hereafter. She was much moved
herself, and many of the negroes wept; then, as by a universal impulse,
they all sprang up and sang the Doxology! Her daughter Alice had a
supper for the younger negroes in another room. One of them, a young
man, made a speech, and ended it by saying, ‘I am sure that this
festival will be remembered by our offspring long after their forespring
are dead and gone.’
“‘Old Sie is my foreman,’ said Mrs. Leigh. ‘His grandfather lived with
my great-grandfather, the first of our family who established himself on
Butler’s Island. He was a very clever, efficient slave. Once, when all
the other slaves were out at another island trying to cultivate it--it
is called “Experiment” still--there came on one of those tremendous
hurricanes which are, happily, very rare with us. The slaves, who are
like sheep, all wanted at once to take to the boats and get home. Had
they succeeded in embarking, they would all have been lost, as many
other negroes were then, when all boats were swamped. But, at the point
of the whip, Sie’s grandfather drove them all back inland to a hut where
they could take refuge. Afterwards Sie was offered his freedom, but he
would not take it; so my grandfather had a silver cup made for him, with
an inscription recording what he had done. Last winter I said to Sie, “I
think you had better let me buy that cup from you; you are all free now,
and your children are not likely to care for it.” He considered awhile,
then he said, “No, Missus, I tink not: I keep cup;” and then he thought
a little more and said, “Missus, when I be gone done dead, you have de
cup.”’
“I went with the Leighs to see the wonderful old church of ‘Abbeydore in
the Golden Valley,’ as romantic as its name, and Kilpeck, a marvellous
old Norman building.
“I went next to Madresfield, a first visit in a new reign, and very
different it looked in its long grass and flowers, with the lovely
Malvern hills behind, from the frost-bound place I remember. Its young
master has spent all the time of his possession in beautifying it,
planting glorious masses of peonies, iris, and a thousand other flowers
in the grass, and making a herbaceous walk--winding--with a background
of yew hedge, which is a very dream of loveliness. I was very happy at
Madresfield, liking Beauchamp and Lady Mary so much, and all the many
guests were charming, especially the Arthur Walronds, genial Dick
Somerset, delightful Lady Northcote, the evergreen Duchess of
Cleveland--‘Aunt Wilhelmine’--and three pleasant young men, Charlie
Harris, Victor Cochran, and Lord Jedburgh. What a pleasure there is in
thoroughly well-bred society! There is a capital passage in Ouida’s last
book about this--‘You are always telling me that I wear my clothes too
long: you’ve often seen me in an old coat--a shockingly old coat; but
you never saw me in an ill-cut one. Well, I like my acquaintance to be
like my clothes. They may be out at elbows, but I must have ’em well
cut.’
“One afternoon we drove to Eastnor, which was in great beauty, and the
castle--hideous outside--a palace of art treasures within, infinitely
lovely from the flowers with which Lady Henry Somerset fills it.
“But most I liked the rambles about the inexhaustible gardens of
Madresfield itself, with my charming young host and hostess, and one or
other of the guests, and the practice inculcated by the oft-repeated
questions which they ask so cheerily--‘Is it wise? is it kind? is it
true?’ the very thought of which stops so much scandal; yet one has to
consider all the three questions together, for the last would so often
bring an affirmative where there would be a negative for the two others.
The house itself is full of interesting and precious things, old
furniture, miniatures, enamels, &c.
“Now I am with Mrs. Baddeley, whom you will remember as Helen Grant,
the second of the three beautiful sisters whom all the great artists
wanted to paint, but who have been such dear friends of mine from their
earliest childhood, and often at Holmhurst, whether I were there or not.
Helen’s husband, St. Clair Baddeley, is full of amusing stories, and his
adopted father, Mr. Christie, with whom they live, is the dearest of old
gentlemen. Just behind this house is the old courthouse where Charles I.
lodged in most troublous times, and whence he fled. Many of his
Cavaliers took refuge in the church, and numbers of them were afterwards
shot in the churchyard, where old helmets are still dug up, and where a
row of yews are said to mark their graves. There are ninety-nine yews
altogether, and it is said that a mystic power guards this number; if
any one tries to plant more, the old yews destroy them. In their shadow
are a number of fine tombs, executed by Italian workmen, who left the
place because they were not allowed to have their own chapel, but who
were brought over when Painswick was a very flourishing town from its
cloth factories, now transferred to Yorkshire.
“Just before her marriage, H. went to see Lady Burton at Mortlake, and
was taken to Burton’s mausoleum as a natural part of her visit.
Afterwards Lady Burton wrote to her saying that she wanted to ask a very
great favour. It was that she would never wear again the hat in which
she had come down to Mortlake. H. liked her hat very much--a pretty
Paris hat in which she fancied herself particularly, but she said she
would do as an old friend of her future husband wished, though utterly
mystified. Afterwards Lady Burton wrote that when H. had come into the
room on her visit, she was horrified to see three black roses in her
hat; that they were the mark of a most terrible secret sect in Arabia,
mixed up in every possible atrocity, and that--especially as worn by a
girl about to be married--they were a presage of every kind of
misfortune; that, in another case of the same kind, she had given the
same warning, and the girl, who disregarded it, died on the day before
her wedding. H. wore her hat again, but took out the black roses.
“Sir Richard Burton died of syncope of the heart--died twenty minutes
before Lady Burton’s priest could arrive; so her report of his having
been received into the Roman Catholic Church was a complete delusion.
“H. says that Count Herbert Bismarck went lately to a great function in
Russia. While he wished to be incognito, he still did not see why he
could not have the advantages of his cognito. ‘Stand back; you must keep
the line,’ said an official as he was pushing through. ‘You do not know
who I am: I am Count Herbert Bismarck.’ ‘Really? Well that quite
_explains_, but it does not _excuse_ your conduct,’ rejoined the
officer.
“At the silver wedding of the Prince and Princess of Wales, a northern
town wished to present an address, but there was a great discussion as
to its wording; for some time they could not agree at all. ‘Conscious as
we are of our own unworthiness,’ was universally condemned, but when
some one proposed, ‘Conscious as we are of each other’s unworthiness,’
it was agreed to to a man.
“Mr. P----, Q.C., who has just been here, has called to mind that the
Queen’s name is neither Victoria nor Guelf. Her real name is Victorina
Wetting (pronounced Vettine). She was christened Victorina, and then
there was a little girl called Victorina who played a most unpleasant
part in Queen Caroline’s trial, and the Duke and Duchess of Kent changed
their child’s name to Victoria, that it might not be the same. And
Wetting is her husband’s--the real Saxe-Coburg name.
“H. had been at Oxford when Max Müller one day received a letter which
pleased him so much that he insisted on sending a very nice letter in
return, though it was evidently only written to get an autograph. It
asked if there was any reason, other than coincidence, for _meche_ and
_mechant_: wick, wicked. One day an American was shown in to Max Müller,
saying, ‘I have come, sir, four thousand miles to see you,’ &c. The
professor was terribly pressed for time, and bored too; but as to the
latter, felt that in a quarter of an hour he would be released, as he
had a lecture to deliver. So he was civil, and then excused himself,
saying that he was afraid he must go to his lecture, but that if his
visitor wished to go to hear it, he could. ‘No,’ said the American, ‘I
will not go with you, for I am rather deaf; but I can make myself
perfectly happy here, and you shall find me here on your return.”
“St. Clair has been talking of Mrs. Procter, whom he knew well, and how
she used to say, ‘Never tell anybody how you are, because nobody wants
to know.’ All her circle are gone now, Lowell, Matthew Arnold, Browning,
Adelaide Sartoris. When she was dying, her nun-daughter came and tried
to get a priest in, but she would not have it. She had preserved the
letters of Thackeray, Dickens, and others in three tin boxes. Mrs.
Procter left Browning and two others her executors, but the nun wanted
all the papers to be given to a young Nottingham doctor, to be published
just as she wished, and, when they would not have it so, she put the
whole of the correspondence on the kitchen-fire: it was her vendetta on
her mother for having refused the priest.
* * * * *
_To the_ COUNTESS OF DARNLEY.
“_Holmhurst, June 29, 1897._--I said I would tell you about the Jubilee.
For the first few days I was with the hospitable Lowthers, and thence,
on Sunday, went to the Thanksgiving service at St. Paul’s. Going very
early, I had perhaps the best place in the choir, and enjoyed seeing the
gradual gathering of so much of the bravery, learning, and beauty of
England beneath the dusky arches and glistening mosaics. When the long
file of clergy went out to meet the royal procession at the west door,
the faint distant song was very lovely, gradually swelling, and lost in
the blare of trumpets, the roll of drums, and the triumphant shout of
welcoming voices as the clergy re-entered the choir. The most important
figure was the Bishop of Finland in a white satin train with two
gorgeous train-bearers; but the newspapers tell this, and how the lines
of royal persons sate on crimson chairs opposite the entrance of the
choir, and how the Bishop of London preached touchingly, not effusively,
about the Queen and her reign, and officiated at the altar in a gorgeous
mitre and cope.
“On Monday Miss Lowther and I went to tea with my friend (minor-canon)
Lewis Gilbertson at his lovely little house in Amen Court, and then were
taken, by one of the many secret staircases of the cathedral, to emerge
over the portico for the rehearsal of the next day’s ceremony. Perhaps,
in some ways, this was more impressive than the reality, as none of the
vast surrounding space was kept clear; all was one sea of heads, whilst
every window, every house-top, even every chimney-pot, was crowded with
people. Never was anything more jubilant than the ‘Te Deum,’ more
reverent than the solemn Lord’s Prayer in the open air--every hat off.
When the appointed programme was over, the crowd very naturally asked
for ‘God save the Queen,’ and after some hesitation, and goings to and
fro of dean and canons, it was begun by the bands and choristers, and
taken up vigorously by the mile of people as far as Temple Bar. How
grand it was!
“That evening the dear Queen said to Miss ... ‘To-morrow will be a
_very_ happy day for me;’ and I think it must have been. Where are
anarchists and socialists before such a universal burst of loyalty--not
of respect only, but of heartfelt filial _love_?--Nowhere! Their very
existence seems ridiculous. I saw all from the Beaumonts’ in Piccadilly
Terrace, where a most kind hostess managed all most beautifully for us,
and, entering through the garden, we had neither heat nor crowd to fear.
No small part of the sight was the crowd itself--the unfailing
good-humour increased by the extreme kindness of the police towards
fainting women and all who needed their help. The Colonial procession
was charming--its young representatives rode so well, and were in
themselves such splendid specimens of humanity, and so picturesquely
equipped. Then the group of old English generals on horseback drew every
eye, and the sixteen carriages of princesses, amongst whom the Duchess
of Teck was far more cheered than any one except the Queen herself. And
lastly came the cream-coloured horses with their golden-coated footmen,
and the beloved Lady herself--the ‘Mother of the Land,’--every inch a
queen, royal most exceedingly, but with an expression of such love, such
gratitude, such devotion, such thankfulness! Oh, no one felt for and
_with_ her only as a sovereign; it was a far closer tie than that.
“In the evening, Mrs. Tilt and her sister went with me to the
Maxwell-Lytes on the top of the Record Tower, whence we saw the bonfires
round London light up one by one, and St. Paul’s in silver light--a
glorified spiritual church rising out of the darkness of the city
against the deep blue sky. Far more than the illuminations of the noisy
streets, it was a fitting end to so solemn and momentous a day.
“And on Wednesday I was in the Green Park, and heard the thousands of
school-children sing their farewell to the Queen as she went away to
Windsor.”
* * * * *
_To_ MRS. C VAUGHAN.
“_March 1897._--I think the reviews of the first three volumes of my
‘Story’ must be coming to an end now. I have had them all sent to me,
and very amusing they have been, mostly recalling the dictum of
Disraeli, that ‘critics are those who have failed in art and
literature.’ Many criticisms have been kind. One or two, but not more,
have been rather clever, and some of the fault-finding ones would have
been very instructive if I had not so entirely agreed with them at the
outset on all their main points--that I was a mere nobody, that my life
was wholly without importance, and that it was shocking to see parts of
the story in print, especially the painful episode which I called ‘The
Roman Catholic Conspiracy;’ for reviewers, of course, could not know the
anguish it cost when I was led to publish that chapter, by its being my
_one_ chance of giving the true version of a story of which so many
false versions had been given already. However, it is as Zola says,
‘Every author must, at the outset, swallow his toad,’ _i.e._, some
malicious attack in the periodicals of the day; only I think my toads
become more numerous and venomous as years go on.
“Some of the reviews are very funny indeed. The _Saturday Review_ of ‘A
Monument of Self-Sufficiency’ contrives to read (oh! where?) ‘how sweet
and amenable and clever Augustus was,’ but is so shocked by a book
‘wholly without delicacy’ that it--‘cannot promise to read any more of
it’!! The _British Review_, which thinks me an absolute beast, has a
stirring article on ‘Myself in Three Volumes.’ The _Pall Mall Gazette_
dwells upon their ‘bedside sentiment and goody-goody twaddle,’ and is
‘filled with genuine pity for a man who can attach importance to a life
so trivial.’ The _Athenæum_ describes me as a mere ‘literary valet.’
The _New York Tribune_ finds the book ‘the continuous wail of a very
garrulous person.’ The reviewer in the _Bookbuyer_ speaks of the
‘irritation and occasional fierce anger’ which the book arouses in
him(!). The _New York Independent_ dwells upon my ‘want not only of all
kindly sense of humour, but also of propriety.’ It is long since the
_National Observer_ has met with an author ‘so garrulous or so
self-complacent.’ Finally, the _Allahabad Pioneer_ (what a name!) votes
that Mr. Hare’s chatter is ‘becoming a prodigious nuisance,’ and ‘if it
had its deserts his book would make its way, and pretty quickly, to the
pastry-cook and the trunk-maker.’
“What fun! Yet I am glad that most of the more respectable reviews say
exactly the opposite, and certainly the public does not seem to agree
with those I have quoted; it would be terribly expensive if it did. They
are only birds of prey with their beaks cut and their claws pulled out,
and if a book is found to be interesting, people read it whatever they
say. They influence nobody, except just at first those who choose books
for lending libraries.
“What is really almost irritating is the very ragtag and bobtail of
reviews, whose writers can scarcely even glance at the books they are
penny-a-lining--such as the _Table_, which ‘explains’ that ‘my
grandmother was the wife of Archdeacon Hare;’ as another (I have lost it
now) which speaks of ‘Priscilla Maurice, second wife of Julius Hare;’ as
the _Weekly Register_, which reviews the life of ‘Esmeralda,’ or the
student of the book who writes in _The Dial_ and describes my life at
‘Balliol College,’ or _Household Words_ (copied by the _Free-thinker_
and several other even inferior reviews), which ‘quotes’ in full a long
story about Mr. Gladstone and Father Healy which is not to be found in
the ‘Story’ at all.
“Then, did you see Mr. Murray’s letter to the _Times_, which certainly
gives a touching picture of the spirit of self-sacrifice which actuates
publishers in their daily life, for he announces that my ‘Handbook of
Berks, Bucks, and Oxon,’ which had three editions before his father’s
death, and on which the author was only paid _altogether_ £152, left, at
that death, a deficit of £158!! I was sorry, all the same, that he was
annoyed at my description of his father wrapt in his _enveloppe de
glace_; for old Mr. Murray (who had cut me dead for all the years since
the appearance of my Italian Handbooks) asked me to shake hands with him
once again a few months before he died, which I did most cordially.”
* * * * *
_To_ FRANCIS COOKSON.
“_Holmhurst, August 29, 1897._-- ...With me, life has rippled on through
several months, only I have been away for some days with the Lowthers to
draw under Carlandi, and quite lately I have sorrowed bitterly at the
early death of my dear Inverurie, kindest and most affectionate of young
friends. I feel his being taken so much myself that I cannot bear even
to think of what it must be to his nearest belongings; and yet--while
absolutely free from all humbug--surely never was there any young man
more simply and trustfully prepared for an early death.
[Illustration: IN THE WALPOLE CORRIDOR, HOLMHURST.]
“He cared less for ‘the world’ than any young fellow I have ever known,
and was more in love with his family, his homes, and their surroundings.
‘Felix ille animi, divisque simillimus ipsis.
Quem non mordaci resplendens gloria fuco
Sollicitat, non fastosi mala gaudia luxus
Sed tacitos sinit ire dies et paupere cultu
Exegit innocuae tranquilla silentia vitae.’[581]
“Last week I was for three nights at Hurstmonceaux, actually--for the
first time in thirty-seven years--at my old home of Lime. What a mixture
of emotions it was; but within all is so changed, I could not recall my
mother and Lea there; and the present inhabitants, the young Baron and
Baroness von Roemer, were boundlessly good to me. Outside, there were
many spots alive with old memories, especially in the garden, where my
mother and I lived so much alone--our earthly Paradise. Did you know
that the word Paradeisos means a garden?
“How I should like you to know the peculiar surroundings of Lime,
different to those of any other place I have seen--the brown parched
sun-dried uplands, the bosky ferny hollows, the reedy pools fragrant
with mint, the eternal variety of pink lights and grey shadows on the
soft downs beyond the wide Levels, which recall O’Hara’s lines--
‘Where the herds are slowly winding over leagues of waving grass,
And the wild cranes seek the sedges, and the wild swans homeward pass.’
[Illustration: WARBLETON PRIORY, ON APPROACHING.]
[Illustration: WARBLETON PRIORY, SEEN FROM BEHIND.]