"Golden years
Of service and of hope swept over us
Most sweetly. Brighter grew our home, more dear
Our daily life together. And as time went by,
God daily joined our hearts more perfectly."
--B. M.
"Look at a pious person, man or woman, one in whom the spirit sways
the senses; look at them when they are praying or have risen from
their knees, and see with how bright a ray of divine beauty their
faces are illuminated: you will see the beauty of God shine on
their faces: you will see the beauty of an angel. All those who in
adoring humility partake of the Holy Sacraments are so united to
God that the presence of the divine light is manifest upon their
faces."--SAVONAROLA, _Sermons_.
"God's in his heaven--
All's right with the world."
--BROWNING, _Pippa Passes_.
When I returned from the North in the winter of 1862-63, I was shocked
to find how much a failure of power, which I had faintly traced in the
summer, had increased in my dearest mother. But I cannot describe the
unspeakable thankfulness I felt that the work which had taken me so
much away from her during her four years of health was ended just when
she needed me; that it would never be absolutely necessary for me to
leave her again; and I inwardly vowed never again to undertake anything
which should separate me from her. Some work which might be done at home
would doubtless turn up, and meanwhile I had constant employment in the
service and watchings which scarcely ever permitted me to be away from
her side.
Meanwhile all the sympathy which I had to spare from the sick-room at
home was called forth by the suffering of my sister, who had struggled
bravely under the depression of her mother's ceaseless despair and
wilful refusal to be comforted, but upon whom that struggle was
beginning to tell most severely. My mother allowed me to have her at
Holmhurst a great deal this winter, and she was no trouble, but, on the
contrary, a constant source of interest to my mother, who, while
deprecating the fact of her Roman Catholicism, became full of respect
for her simple faith, large-hearted charity, and reality of true
religion--so different from that of most perverts from the national
faith of England. In her changed fortunes, accustomed to every luxury as
she had been, she would only see the silver linings of all her clouds,
truly and simply responding to Thackeray's advice--
"Come wealth or want, come good or ill,
Let young and old accept their part,
And bow before the Awful Will,
And bear it with an honest heart."
At Christmas my mother suffered terribly, and was so liable to a sudden
numbness which closely threatened paralysis, that by day and night
remedies had always to be prepared and at hand. In the last days of
January she was moved to London, and immediately felt benefited; but the
doctors who then saw my mother agreed with our old friend Dr. Hale at
St. Leonards that it was absolutely necessary that she should go abroad.
This gave rise to terrible anxiety. I remember how then, as on many
other occasions when I was longing to stay at home, but felt certain the
path of duty lay abroad, all my difficulties were enormously added to by
different members of the family insisting that my mother ought to stay
at home, and that I knew it, but "dragged her abroad for my own pleasure
and convenience." This tenfold increased my fatigue when I was already
at the last gasp, by compelling me to argue persistently to misinformed
persons in favour of my convictions, _against_ my wishes. On February
16 we left home, and went by slow stages to Hyères, whence we proceeded
to Nice.
_To_ MY SISTER.
"_Pension Rivoir, Nice, March 16, 1863._--We stayed at Hyères ten
days, but did not like the place at all, though it has a tropical
vegetation, and there are pretty corkwoods behind it. The town is a
prolonged village, clouded with dust and reeking with evil
odours.... We took a _vetturino_ from Les Arcs to Cannes, but found
prices there so enormously raised, that we decided on coming on
here. This place also is very full, but we like our tiny apartment,
which has the sea on one side, and a beautiful view across
orange-groves to the snow mountains on the other. The mother
already seems not only better but--quite well! We have found a
great many friends here, including Sir Adam Hay and all his family,
and Lord and Lady Charles Clinton, the latter charming and most
affectionately attentive to the mother."
[Illustration: CARROZZA.[225]]
The spring we spent at Nice is one of those I look back upon with the
greatest pleasure--my mother recovered so rapidly and entirely, and was
so pleased herself with her own recovery. The weather was beautiful, and
as I was already in heart looking forward to drawing as the one
lucrative employment which would not separate me from my mother, I
devoted myself to it most enthusiastically, inwardly determined to
struggle to get a power of colour which should distinguish me from the
herd of sketchers and washers, and I made real progress in knowledge and
delicacy. It was the greatest help to me in this, as it was the greatest
pleasure in everything else, to have our dear old friend Lady Grey with
her niece Miss Des Vœux settled close by us, and I constantly drew
and made excursions with them, dining with them afterwards: my only
difficulty being that my mother was then often left alone longer than I
liked, with only Lea as a companion. During the close of our stay I had
some really adventurous expeditions with Miss Des Vœux, Mrs. Robert
Ellice, and Miss Ellice along the bed of the Var and up Mount Chauve and
to Aspromonte; with Miss Des Vœux and the Stepneys to Carrozza and Le
Broc, proceeding with the carriage as far as it would go, and then on
chairs lashed upon a bullock-cart--the scenery most magnificent; and
with a larger party to the glorious Peglione.
Addie Hay was often the companion of our excursions, and deeply attached
himself to the mother, sitting by us for hours while we drew at
Villeneuve or other mountain villages. His sister Ida did the honours at
splendid parties which were given by Mr. Peabody the philanthropist, so
I was invited to them. Mr. George Peabody--"Uncle George," as Americans
used to call him--was one of the dullest men in the world: he had
positively no gift except that of making money, and when he was making
it, he never parted with a penny until he had made hundreds of
thousands, and then he gave vast sums away in charity. When he had thus
become quite celebrated, he went back to America, and visited his native
place of Danbury, which is now called Peabody. Here some of his
relations, who were quite poor people, wishing to do him honour,
borrowed a silver tea service from a neighbour. He partook of their
feast, and, when it was over, he looked round and said, "I am agreeably
surprised to find that you are in such very good circumstances as to
want nothing that I could do for you,"--and he did nothing for them.
There was, however, at least one very interesting story connected with
George Peabody's life. He was going to Berlin for some important
financial meeting, in which he was to take a prominent part. On the way
his carriage broke down, and he was in despair as to how he was to get
on, when a solitary traveller passed in a carriage and offered to take
him up. Soon they began to converse. "I had a remarkably good dinner
to-night," said George Peabody; "guess what it was."--"Well, I guess a
good turkey."--"Better than that," said Peabody, slapping his companion
on the knee. "Well, a piece of Welsh mutton."--"Better than that," with
another slap; "why, I've had a prime haunch of venison from a Scotch
forest." Soon they were approaching Berlin, and every one saluted the
carriage as it passed. "May I ask to whom I am so much indebted for my
drive?" said Peabody. "Well, guess," said his companion, as they were
passing some soldiers who saluted. "Well, I guess you're a captain in
the army."--"Better than that," said the stranger, slapping Peabody on
the knee. "Well, perhaps you're a general."--"Better than that," with
another slap. "Well, sir, I am--the Crown Prince of Prussia."
At Mr. Peabody's parties I always used to see the old King Louis of
Bavaria, then a dirty dissipated old man, though Munich will ever bear
witness to the great intelligence he showed in early life.
At dinner at Lady Grey's I used to meet Dr. Pantaleone, who was then
practising at Nice as a Roman exile. Here are some fragments of his
ever-amusing conversation:--
"What is gout, Dr. Pantaleone?"
"Why, the Clerici Canonici do say it is the divil, and the doctors
do say it is the nerves, and the statesmen do say it is Lord
Palmerston or Lord John Russell, as the case may be!"
"Have you studied the subject much?"
"Ah, yes! oh, it is beautiful to follow the gout. But I have felt
it too, for my grandfather he did eat up all his fortune and leave
us the gout, and that is what I do call cheating his heirs!"
"I have never had gout, but I have had rheumatism."
"Ah, yes; rheumatism is gout's brother."
* * *
"Why is Mr. B. in love with Miss M.?"
"Why, you see it is an ugly picture, but is beautiful _encadré_.
She has £1500 a year--that is the _cadre_, and the husband will
just step into the frame and throw the old picture into the shade?"
* * *
"They seem to be giving up the Bishops in Piedmont."
"Yes, but they must not do it: it is no longer wise. With us all is
habit. We have now even been excommunicated for three years, and as
we find we do as well or rather better than before, we do not mind
a bit."
* * *
"I have often been miserable when I have lost a patient, and then I
have cursed myself for wasting my time and sympathy when I have
seen that the relations did not mind. It is always thus. Thus it
was in that dreadful time when the Borghese lost his wife and three
children. I was so grieved I could not go near the Prince. Some
days afterwards I met him in the garden. 'Oh, M. le Prince,' I
said, 'how I have felt for you!'--'Dr. Pantaleone,' he replied, 'if
I could have them back again now I would not, for it was the will
of God, and now I know that they are happy.' Then I did curse
myself. 'Ah, yes, you are quite right, M. le Prince,' I said, and I
did go away, and I never did offer condolences any more."
* * *
"Do you know Courmayeur?"
"Yes, that is where our King (Victor Emmanuel) goes when he wants
to hunt. And when Azeglio wants the King back, he writes to his
ministers, 'The tyrant wants to amuse himself,'--because his
enemies do call him the tyrant."
* * *
"It is a dreadful thing not to remember. I had a friend once who
married an Italian lady. One day they were at a party, and he went
out in the course of the evening. Nothing was thought of it at the
time; Italians often do go out. At last his wife became
excited--agitated. They tried to calm her, but she thought he had
poséd her there and gone away and left her for ever. She flew home,
and there he was comfortably seated by his fireside. 'Oh, Tommaso,
Tommaso!' she exclaimed. 'Che, che!' he said. 'Oh, why did you
leave me?' she cried. 'Oh,' said he, striking his forehead, 'I did
forget that I was married!'"[226]
* * *
"There was a poor woman whose son was dreadfully ill, and she
wanted to get him a doctor; but somehow, instead of going for the
doctor, she fell asleep, and _dreamt_ that her son was ill, and
that she was going for the doctor. She went first (in her dream) to
the house of the first physician in the town, but, when she
arrived, the door was crowded with a number of pale beings, who
were congregating round it, and calling out to those within. So the
woman asked them what they were, and they said, 'We are the
spirits of those who have been killed by the treatment of this
doctor, and we are come to make him our reproaches.' So the woman
was horrified, and hurried away to the house of another doctor, but
there she found even more souls than before; and at each house she
went to, there were more and more souls who complained of the
doctors who had killed them. At last she came to the house of a
very poor little doctor who lived in a cottage in a very narrow
dirty street, and there there were only two souls lamenting. 'Ah!'
she said, 'this is the doctor for me; for while the others have
killed so many, this good man in all the course of his experience
has only sent two souls out of the world.' So she went in and said,
'Sir, I have come to you because of your experience, because of
your great and just reputation, to ask you to heal my son.' As she
talked of his great reputation the doctor looked rather surprised,
and at last he said, 'Well, madam, it is very flattering, but it is
odd that you should have heard so much of me, for I have only been
a doctor _a week_.' Ah! then you may imagine what the horror of the
woman was--he had only been a doctor a week, and yet he had killed
two persons!... So she awoke, and she did not go for a doctor at
all, and her son got perfectly well."
[Illustration: ROMAN THEATRE, ARLES.[227]]
In May we went to spend a week at Mentone, seeing old haunts and old
friends; thence also I went for three days with Lady Grey to S. Remo,
where we drew a great deal, but I did not then greatly admire S. Remo.
We stayed a few days at Arles, where M. and Madame Pinus, the landlord
of the Hôtel du Nord and his wife, had become quite intimate friends by
dint of repeated visits. Each time we stayed at Arles we made some
delightful excursion: this time we went to S. Gilles. Then by a
lingering journey, after our fashion of the mother's well-days,
loitering to see Valence and Rochemaure, we reached Geneva, where we
had much kindly hospitality from the family of the Swiss pasteur
Vaucher, with whose charming daughter we had become great friends at
Mentone two years before. We were afterwards very happy for a fortnight
in the pleasant Pension Baumgarten at Thun, and went in _einspanners_
in glorious weather to Lauterbrunnen and Grindelwald. On our way north,
we lingered at Troyes, and I also made a most interesting excursion from
Abbeville to St. Riquier and the battlefield of Crecy, where the old
tower from which Edward III. watched the battle still stood,[229] and
the cross where the blind King of Bohemia fell amid the corn-lands.
[Illustration: HÔTEL DU MAUROY, TROYES.[228]]
[Illustration: THE KING OF BOHEMIA'S CROSS, CRECY.[230]]
It was the 9th of June when we reached Holmhurst, and on the 15th I went
to Arthur Stanley's house at Oxford for the Commemoration, at which the
lately married Prince and Princess of Wales were present, she charming
all who met her as much by her simplicity as by her grace and
loveliness. "No more fascinating and lovely creature," said Arthur,
"ever appeared in a fairy-story." Mrs. Gladstone was at the Canonry and
made herself very pleasant to everybody. "Your Princess is so lovely, it
is quite a pleasure to be in the room with her," I heard her say to the
Prince of Wales. "Yes, she really is _very_ pretty," he replied.
Afterwards I went to stay with Miss Boyle, who had lately been
"revived," and it was a most curious visit. Beautiful still, but very
odd, she often made one think of old Lady Stuart de Rothesay's
description of her--"Fille de Vénus et de Polichinelle."
_To_ MY MOTHER.
"_Portishead, June 27, 1863._--Miss Boyle is quite brimming with
religion, and, as I expected, entirely engrossed by her works. She
preaches now almost every night. She began a sort of convertive
talking instantly. She asked at once, 'Are you saved?' &c. She
seems to have in everything 'une grande liberté avec Dieu,' as
Madame de Glapion said to Madame de Maintenon. She thinks Arthur an
infidel, and said that there had been a meeting of six thousand
people at Bristol to pray that his influence at Court may be
counteracted. Speaking of this, on the spur of the moment she had
up the servants and prayed for 'our poor Queen, who is in
ignorance of all these things.' Then, at great length, for me, 'Thy
child and servant who is just come into this house.' She said she
had put off her meeting for the next day on my account, but I
begged that she would hold it, even though the bills were not sent
out.
"On Friday she did not appear till one. We dined at three, and then
an 'Evangelist' came in, who also asked at once 'if I was saved?'
and then knelt down and made a long prayer, 'O God, I thank Thee
that I am a saved sinner,' with a sort of litany of 'Yes, bless the
Lord,' from Miss Boyle. Then I was prayed for again: it felt very
odd.
"Then we went off in a fly, with one of the maids and another
Evangelist called Mr. Grub, a long drive through a series of
country lanes to solitary farmhouses amongst the hills. It was like
the description in 'The Minister's Wooing.' At one of the houses a
young woman came out and said to me that she 'hoped we were one in
Christ.'
"From a turn of the road I walked down to Pill, the rude town on
the Avon where Miss Boyle preaches almost every evening to the
wharfingers and sailors, nearly two hundred at a time. I saw her
pulpit in the open air close to the river, with the broad reaches
of the Channel and ships sailing in behind it. When she preaches
there it must be a very striking scene. Numbers of people crowded
round to ask--'Isna Lady Boyle a cooming down?'--and all the little
children, 'Is Lady Boyle a cooming? Tell us, Mister, where's Lady
Boyle?'
"When we returned to the other village, St. George's, Miss Boyle
and her maid were sitting on a well in an old farmhouse garden,
singing beautiful revival hymns to a troop of mothers and little
children, who listened with delight. As the crowd gathered, she
came down, and standing with her back against the fly, beneath some
old trees in the little market-place, addressed the people. Then
Miss Boyle prayed; then the Evangelist preached. Then came some
revival hymns from Dick Weaver's hymn-book. The people joined
eagerly, and the singing was lovely--wild, picturesque choruses,
constantly swelled by new groups dropping in. People came up the
little lanes and alleys, listening and singing. Great waggons and
luggage-vans passing on the highroad kept stopping, and the carters
and drivers joined in the song. At last Miss Boyle herself
preached--most strikingly, and her voice, like a clarion, must have
been audible all over the village. She preached on the ten lepers,
and words never seemed to fail her, but she poured out an unceasing
stream of eloquence, entreating, warning, exhorting, comforting,
and illustrating by anecdotes she had heard and from the
experiences of her own life. The people listened in rapt attention,
but towards the end of her discourse a quantity of guns and
crackers were let off close by by agents of a hostile clergyman
(Vicar of Portbury), and a fiddle interrupted the soft cadences of
the singing. On this she prayed aloud for 'the poor unconverted
clergyman, that God would forgive him,' but when she had done, the
people sang one of Weaver's hymns, 'He is hurrying--he is
hurrying--he is hurrying down to hell.' Some of the clergy uphold
her, others oppose. She has had a regular fight with this one. The
meeting was not over till past nine; sometimes it lasts till
eleven. The people did not seem a bit tired: I was, and very cold."
I seldom after this saw my old friend, Miss Boyle. I could not press her
coming to Holmhurst, because she forewarned me that, if she came, she
_must_ hold meetings in the village. A sister of John Bright declared,
"I always agree with my old gardener, who says 'I canna abide a crowing
hen';" and latterly I have been of much the same opinion.
We left home again for Italy on the 26th of October. In those days there
was no railway across the Mont Cenis, but my mother enjoyed the
_vetturino_ journey along the roads fringed with barberries. Beyond
this, travelling became difficult, owing to the floods. At Piacenza we
were all ejected from the train, and forced to walk along the line for a
great distance, and then to cross a ford, which made me most thankful
that my mother was tolerably well at the time.