boudoir, "in light blue satin, the prettiest room we have seen," A----
says, we went, by appointment, to Westminster Abbey, where we spent two
hours under the guidance of Archdeacon Farrar. I think no part of the
Abbey is visited with so much interest as Poets' Corner. We are all
familiarly acquainted with it beforehand. We are all ready for "O rare
Ben Jonson!" as we stand over the place where he was planted standing
upright, as if he had been dropped into a post-hole. We remember too
well the foolish and flippant mockery of Gay's "Life is a Jest." If I
were dean of the cathedral, I should be tempted to alter the _J_ to
a _G_. Then we could read it without contempt; for life _is_ a
gest, an achievement,--or always ought to be. Westminster Abbey is too
crowded with monuments to the illustrious dead and those who have been
considered so in their day to produce any other than a confused
impression. When we visit the tomb of Napoleon at the Invalides, no
side-lights interfere with the view before us in the field of mental
vision. We see the Emperor; Marengo, Austerlitz, Waterloo, Saint Helena,
come before us, with him as their central figure. So at Stratford,--the
Cloptons and the John a Combes, with all their memorials, cannot make us
lift our eyes from the stone which covers the dust that once breathed
and walked the streets of Stratford as Shakespeare.
Ah, but here is one marble countenance that I know full well, and knew
for many a year in the flesh! Is there an American who sees the bust of
Longfellow among the effigies of the great authors of England without
feeling a thrill of pleasure at recognizing the features of his native
fellow-countryman in the Valhalla of his ancestral fellow-countrymen?
There are many memorials in Poets' Corner and elsewhere in the Abbey
which could be better spared than that. Too many that were placed there
as luminaries have become conspicuous by their obscurity in the midst of
that illustrious company. On the whole, the Abbey produces a distinct
sense of being overcrowded. It appears too much like a lapidary's
store-room. Look up at the lofty roof, which we willingly pardon for
shutting out the heaven above us,--at least in an average London day;
look down at the floor and think of what precious relics it covers; but
do not look around you with the hope of getting any clear, concentrated,
satisfying effect from this great museum of gigantic funereal bricabrac.
Pardon me, shades of the mighty dead! I had something of this feeling,
but at another hour I might perhaps be overcome by emotion, and weep, as
my fellow-countryman did at the grave of the earliest of his ancestors.
I should love myself better in that aspect than I do in this coldblooded
criticism; but it suggested itself, and as no flattery can soothe, so no
censure can wound, "the dull, cold ear of death."
Of course we saw all the sights of the Abbey in a hurried way, yet with
such a guide and expositor as Archdeacon Farrar our two hours' visit was
worth a whole day with an undiscriminating verger, who recites his
lesson by rote, and takes the life out of the little mob that follows
him round by emphasizing the details of his lesson, until "Patience on a
monument" seems to the sufferer, who knows what he wants and what he
does not want, the nearest emblem of himself he can think of. Amidst all
the imposing recollections of the ancient edifice, one impressed me in
the inverse ratio of its importance. The Archdeacon pointed out the
little holes in the stones, in one place, where the boys of the choir
used to play marbles, before America was discovered, probably,--centuries
before, it may be. It is a strangely impressive glimpse
of a living past, like the _graffiti_ of Pompeii. I find it
is often the accident rather than the essential which fixes my attention
and takes hold of my memory. This is a tendency of which I suppose I
ought to be ashamed, if we have any right to be ashamed of those
idiosyncrasies which are ordered for us. It is the same tendency which
often leads us to prefer the picturesque to the beautiful. Mr. Gilpin
liked the donkey in a forest landscape better than the horse. A touch of
imperfection interferes with the beauty of an object and lowers its
level to that of the picturesque. The accident of the holes in the stone
of the noble building, for the boys to play marbles with, makes me a boy
again and at home with them, after looking with awe upon the statue of
Newton, and turning with a shudder from the ghastly monument of Mrs.
Nightingale.
What a life must be that of one whose years are passed chiefly in and
about the great Abbey! Nowhere does Macbeth's expression "dusty death"
seem so true to all around us. The dust of those who have been lying
century after century below the marbles piled over them,--the dust on
the monuments they lie beneath; the dust on the memories those monuments
were raised to keep living in the recollection of posterity,--dust,
dust, dust, everywhere, and we ourselves but shapes of breathing dust
moving amidst these objects and remembrances! Come away! The good
Archdeacon of the "Eternal Hope" has asked us to take a cup of tea with
him. The tea-cup will be a cheerful substitute for the funeral urn, and
a freshly made infusion of the fragrant leaf is one of the best things
in the world to lay the dust of sad reflections.
It is a somewhat fatiguing pleasure to go through the Abbey, in spite of
the intense interest no one can help feeling. But my day had but just
begun when the two hours we had devoted to the visit were over. At a
quarter before eight, my friend Mr. Frederick Locker called for me to go
to a dinner at the Literary Club. I was particularly pleased to dine
with this association, as it reminded me of our own Saturday Club, which
sometimes goes by the same name as the London one. They complimented me
with a toast, and I made some kind of a reply. As I never went prepared
with a speech for any such occasion, I take it for granted that I
thanked the company in a way that showed my gratitude rather than my
eloquence. And now, the dinner being over, my day was fairly begun.
This was to be a memorable date in the record of the year, one long to
be remembered in the political history of Great Britain. For on this
day, the 7th of June, Mr. Gladstone was to make his great speech on the
Irish question, and the division of the House on the Government of
Ireland Bill was to take place. The whole country, to the corners of its
remotest colony, was looking forward to the results of this evening's
meeting of Parliament. The kindness of the Speaker had furnished me with
a ticket, entitling me to a place among the "distinguished guests,"
which I presented without modestly questioning my right to the title.
The pressure for entrance that evening was very great, and I, coming
after my dinner with the Literary Club, was late upon the ground. The
places for "distinguished guests" were already filled. But all England
was in a conspiracy to do everything possible to make my visit
agreeable. I did not take up a great deal of room,--I might be put into
a seat with the ambassadors and foreign ministers. And among them I was
presently installed. It was now between ten and eleven o'clock, as
nearly as I recollect. The House had been in session since four o'clock.
A gentleman was speaking, who was, as my unknown next neighbor told me,
Sir Michael Hicks-Beach, a leading member, as we all know, of the
opposition. When he sat down there was a hush of expectation, and
presently Mr. Gladstone rose to his feet. A great burst of applause
welcomed him, lasting more than a minute. His clean-cut features, his
furrowed cheeks, his scanty and whitened hair, his well-shaped but not
extraordinary head, all familiarized by innumerable portraits and
emphasized in hundreds of caricatures, revealed him at once to every
spectator. His great speech has been universally read, and I need only
speak of the way in which it was delivered. His manner was forcible
rather than impassioned or eloquent; his voice was clear enough, but
must have troubled him somewhat, for he had a small bottle from which he
poured something into a glass from time to time and swallowed a little,
yet I heard him very well for the most part. In the last portion of his
speech he became animated and inspiriting, and his closing words were
uttered with an impressive solemnity: "Think, I beseech you, think well,
think wisely, think not for a moment, but for the years that are to
come, before you reject this bill."
After the burst of applause which followed the conclusion of Mr.
Gladstone's speech, the House proceeded to the division on the question
of passing the bill to a second reading. While the counting of the votes
was going on there was the most intense excitement. A rumor ran round
the House at one moment that the vote was going in favor of the second
reading. It soon became evident that this was not the case, and
presently the result was announced, giving a majority of thirty against
the bill, and practically overthrowing the liberal administration. Then
arose a tumult of applause from the conservatives and a wild confusion,
in the midst of which an Irish member shouted, "Three cheers for the
Grand Old Man!" which were lustily given, with waving of hats and all
but Donnybrook manifestations of enthusiasm.
I forgot to mention that I had a very advantageous seat among the
diplomatic gentlemen, and was felicitating myself on occupying one of
the best positions in the House, when an usher politely informed me that
the Russian Ambassador, in whose place I was sitting, had arrived, and
that I must submit to the fate of eviction. Fortunately, there were some
steps close by, on one of which I found a seat almost as good as the one
I had just left.
It was now two o'clock in the morning, and I had to walk home, not a
vehicle being attainable. I did not know my way to my headquarters, and
I had no friend to go with me, but I fastened on a stray gentleman, who
proved to be an ex-member of the House, and who accompanied me to 17
Dover Street, where I sought my bed with a satisfying sense of having
done a good day's work and having been well paid for it.
III.
On the 8th of June we visited the Record Office for a sight of the
Domesday Book and other ancient objects of interest there preserved. As
I looked at this too faithful memorial of an inexorable past, I thought
of the battle of Hastings and all its consequences, and that reminded me
of what I have long remembered as I read it in Dr. Robert Knox's "Races
of Men." Dr. Knox was the monoculous Waterloo surgeon, with whom I
remember breakfasting, on my first visit to England and Scotland. His
celebrity is less owing to his book than to the unfortunate connection
of his name with the unforgotten Burke and Hare horrors. This is his
language in speaking of Hastings: "... that bloody field, surpassing far
in its terrible results the unhappy day of Waterloo. From this the Celt
has recovered, but not so the Saxon. To this day he feels, and feels
deeply, the most disastrous day that ever befell his race; here he was
trodden down by the Norman, whose iron heel is on him yet.... To this
day the Saxon race in England have never recovered a tithe of their
rights, and probably never will."
The Conqueror meant to have a thorough summing up of his stolen
property. The Anglo-Saxon Chronicle says,--I quote it at second
hand,--"So very straitly did he cause the survey to be made, that there
was not a single hyde, nor a yardland of ground, nor--it is shameful to
say what he thought no shame to do--was there an ox or a cow, or a pig
passed by, and that was not down in the accounts, and then all these
writings were brought to him." The "looting" of England by William and
his "twenty thousand thieves," as Mr. Emerson calls his army, was a
singularly methodical proceeding, and Domesday Book is a searching
inventory of their booty, movable and immovable.
From this reminder of the past we turned to the remembrances of home;
A---- going to dine with a transplanted Boston friend and other ladies
from that blessed centre of New England life, while I dined with a party
of gentlemen at my friend Mr. James Russell Lowell's.
I had looked forward to this meeting with high expectations, and they
were abundantly satisfied. I knew that Mr. Lowell must gather about him,
wherever he might be, the choicest company, but what his selection would
be I was curious to learn. I found with me at the table my own
countrymen and his, Mr. Smalley and Mr. Henry James. Of the other
guests, Mr. Leslie Stephen was my only old acquaintance in person; but
Du Maurier and Tenniel I have met in my weekly "Punch" for many a year;
Mr. Lang, Mr. Oliphant, Mr. Townsend, we all know through their
writings; Mr. Burne-Jones and Mr. Alma Tadema, through the frequent
reproductions of their works in engravings, as well as by their
paintings. If I could report a dinner-table conversation, I might be
tempted to say something of my talk with Mr. Oliphant. I like well
enough conversation which floats safely over the shallows, touching
bottom at intervals with a commonplace incident or truism to push it
along; I like better to find a few fathoms of depth under the surface;
there is a still higher pleasure in the philosophical discourse which
calls for the deep sea line to reach bottom; but best of all, when one
is in the right mood, is the contact of intelligences when they are off
soundings in the ocean of thought. Mr. Oliphant is what many of us call
a mystic, and I found a singular pleasure in listening to him. This
dinner at Mr. Lowell's was a very remarkable one for the men it brought
together, and I remember it with peculiar interest. My entertainer holds
a master-key to London society, and he opened the gate for me into one
of its choicest preserves on that evening.
I did not undertake to renew my old acquaintance with hospitals and
museums. I regretted that I could not be with my companion, who went
through the Natural History Museum with the accomplished director,
Professor W. H. Flower. One old acquaintance I did resuscitate. For the
second time I took the hand of Charles O'Byrne, the celebrated Irish
giant of the last century. I met him, as in my first visit, at the Royal
College of Surgeons, where I accompanied Mr. Jonathan Hutchinson. He was
in the condition so longed for by Sydney Smith on a very hot day;
namely, with his flesh taken off, and sitting, or rather standing, in
his bones. The skeleton measures eight feet, and the living man's height
is stated as having been eight feet two, or four inches, by different
authorities. His hand was the only one I took, either in England or
Scotland, which had not a warm grasp and a hearty welcome in it.
A---- went with Boston friends to see "Faust" a second time, Mr. Irving
having offered her the Royal box, and the polite Mr. Bram Stoker serving
the party with tea in the little drawing-room behind the box; so that
she had a good time while I was enjoying myself at a dinner at Sir Henry
Thompson's, where I met Mr. Gladstone, Mr. Browning, and other
distinguished gentlemen. These dinners of Sir Henry's are well known for
the good company one meets at them, and I felt myself honored to be a
guest on this occasion.
Among the pleasures I had promised myself was that of a visit to
Tennyson, at the Isle of Wight. I feared, however, that this would be
rendered impracticable by reason of the very recent death of his younger
son, Lionel. But I learned from Mr. Locker-Lampson, whose daughter Mr.
Lionel Tennyson had married, that the poet would be pleased to see me at
his place, Farringford; and by the kind intervention of Mr.
Locker-Lampson, better known to the literary world as Frederick Locker,
arrangements were made for my daughter and myself to visit him. I
considered it a very great favor, for Lord Tennyson has a poet's
fondness for the tranquillity of seclusion, which many curious explorers
of society fail to remember. Lady Tennyson is an invalid, and though
nothing could be more gracious than her reception of us both, I fear it
may have cost her an effort which she would not allow to betray itself.
Mr. Hallam Tennyson and his wife, both of most pleasing presence and
manners, did everything to make our stay agreeable. I saw the poet to
the best advantage, under his own trees and walking over his own domain.
He took delight in pointing out to me the finest and the rarest of his
trees,--and there were many beauties among them. I recalled my morning's
visit to Whittier at Oak Knoll, in Danvers, a little more than a year
ago, when he led me to one of his favorites, an aspiring evergreen which
shot up like a flame. I thought of the graceful American elms in front
of Longfellow's house and the sturdy English elms that stand in front of
Lowell's. In this garden of England, the Isle of Wight, where everything
grows with such a lavish extravagance of greenness that it seems as if
it must bankrupt the soil before autumn, I felt as if weary eyes and
overtasked brains might reach their happiest haven of rest. We all
remember Shenstone's epigram on the pane of a tavern window. If we find
our "warmest welcome at an inn," we find our most soothing companionship
in the trees among which we have lived, some of which we may ourselves
have planted. We lean against them, and they never betray our trust;
they shield us from the sun and from the rain; their spring welcome is a
new birth, which never loses its freshness; they lay their beautiful
robes at our feet in autumn; in winter they "stand and wait," emblems of
patience and of truth, for they hide nothing, not even the little
leaf-buds which hint to us of hope, the last element in their triple
symbolism.
This digression, suggested by the remembrance of the poet under his
trees, breaks my narrative, but gives me the opportunity of paying a
debt of gratitude. For I have owned many beautiful trees, and loved many
more outside of my own leafy harem. Those who write verses have no
special claim to be lovers of trees, but so far as one is of the
poetical temperament he is likely to be a tree-lover. Poets have, as a
rule, more than the average nervous sensibility and irritability. Trees
have no nerves. They live and die without suffering, without
self-questioning or self-reproach. They have the divine gift of silence.
They cannot obtrude upon the solitary moments when one is to himself the
most agreeable of companions. The whole vegetable world, even "the
meanest flower that blows," is lovely to contemplate. What if creation
had paused there, and you or I had been called upon to decide whether
self-conscious life should be added in the form of the existing animal
creation, and the hitherto peaceful universe should come under the rule
of Nature as we now know her,
"red in tooth and claw"?
Are we not glad that the responsibility of the decision did not rest on
us?
I am sorry that I did not ask Tennyson to read or repeat to me some
lines of his own. Hardly any one perfectly understands a poem but the
poet himself. One naturally loves his own poem as no one else can. It
fits the mental mould in which it was cast, and it will not exactly fit
any other. For this reason I had rather listen to a poet reading his own
verses than hear the best elocutionist that ever spouted recite them. He
may not have a good voice or enunciation, but he puts his heart and his
inter-penetrative intelligence into every line, word, and syllable. I
should have liked to hear Tennyson read such lines as
"Laborious orient ivory, sphere in sphere;"
and in spite of my good friend Matthew Arnold's _in terrorem_, I
should have liked to hear Macaulay read,
"And Aulus the Dictator
Stroked Auster's raven mane,"
and other good mouthable lines, from the "Lays of Ancient Rome." Not
less should I like to hear Mr. Arnold himself read the passage
beginning,--
"In his cool hall with haggard eyes
The Roman noble lay."
The next day Mrs. Hallam Tennyson took A---- in her pony cart to see
Alum Bay, The Needles, and other objects of interest, while I wandered
over the grounds with Tennyson. After lunch his carriage called for us,
and we were driven across the island, through beautiful scenery, to
Ventnor, where we took the train to Ryde, and there the steamer to
Portsmouth, from which two hours and a half of travel carried us to
London.
* * * * *
My first visit to Cambridge was at the invitation of Mr. Gosse, who
asked me to spend Sunday, the 13th of June, with him. The rooms in
Neville Court, Trinity College, occupied by Sir William Vernon Harcourt
when lecturing at Cambridge, were placed at my disposal. The room I
slept in was imposing with the ensigns armorial of the Harcourts and
others which ornamented its walls. I had great delight in walking
through the quadrangles, along the banks of the Cam, and beneath the
beautiful trees which border it. Mr. Gosse says that I stopped in the
second court of Clare, and looked around and smiled as if I were
bestowing my benediction. He was mistaken: I smiled as if I were
receiving a benediction from my dear old grandmother; for Cambridge in
New England is my mother town, and Harvard University in Cambridge is my
Alma Mater. She is the daughter of Cambridge in Old England, and my
relationship is thus made clear.
Mr. Gosse introduced me to many of the younger and some of the older men
of the university. Among my visits was one never to be renewed and never
to be forgotten. It was to the Master of Trinity, the Reverend William
Hepworth Thompson. I hardly expected to have the privilege of meeting
this very distinguished and greatly beloved personage, famous not alone
for scholarship, or as the successor of Dr. Whewell in his high office,
but also as having said some of the wittiest things which we have heard
since Voltaire's _pour encourager les autres_. I saw him in his
chamber, a feeble old man, but noble to look upon in all "the monumental
pomp of age." He came very near belonging to the little group I have
mentioned as my coevals, but was a year after us. Gentle, dignified,
kindly in his address as if I had been his schoolmate, he left a very
charming impression. He gave me several mementoes of my visit, among
them a beautiful engraving of Sir Isaac Newton, representing him as one
of the handsomest of men. Dr. Thompson looked as if he could not be very
long for this world, but his death, a few weeks after my visit, was a
painful surprise to me. I had been just in time to see "the last of the
great men" at Cambridge, as my correspondent calls him, and I was very
grateful that I could store this memory among the hoarded treasures I
have been laying by for such possible extra stretch of time as may be
allowed me.
My second visit to Cambridge will be spoken of in due season.
While I was visiting Mr. Gosse at Cambridge, A---- was not idle. On
Saturday she went to Lambeth, where she had the pleasure and honor of
shaking hands with the Archbishop of Canterbury in his study, and of
looking about the palace with Mrs. Benson. On Sunday she went to the
Abbey, and heard "a broad and liberal sermon" from Archdeacon Farrar.
Our young lady-secretary stayed and dined with her, and after dinner
sang to her. "A peaceful, happy Sunday," A---- says in her diary,--not
less peaceful, I suspect, for my being away, as my callers must have got
many a "not at 'ome" from young Robert of the multitudinous buttons.
On Monday, the 14th of June, after getting ready for our projected
excursions, we had an appointment which promised us a great deal of
pleasure. Mr. Augustus Harris, the enterprising and celebrated manager
of Drury Lane Theatre, had sent us an invitation to occupy a box, having
eight seats, at the representation of "Carmen." We invited the
Priestleys and our Boston friends, the Shimminses, to take seats with
us. The chief singer in the opera was Marie Roze, who looked well and
sang well, and the evening went off very happily. After the performance
we were invited by Mr. Harris to a supper of some thirty persons, where
we were the special guests. The manager toasted me, and I said
something,--I trust appropriate; but just what I said is as
irrecoverable as the orations of Demosthenes on the seashore, or the
sermons of St. Francis to the beasts and birds.