The Trubners--George Eliot and G. H. Lewes--Heseltine--Edwards--Etched by
Bracquemond and Legros--Jean Ingelow--Tennyson--Hepworth Dixon--Lord
Lytton the elder--Lord Houghton--Bret Harte--France, Alsace, and
Lorraine--Samuel Laing--Gypsies--The Misses Horace Smith--Brighton and
odd fish--Work and books--Hunting--Dore--Art and
Nature--Taglioni--Chevalier Wykoff--Octave Delepierre--Breitmann--Thomas
Carlyle--George Borrow--A cathedral tour round about England--Salisbury,
Wells, and York.
It is pleasant being anywhere in England in June, and the passing from
picturesque Dover to London through laughing Kent is a good introduction
to the country. The untravelled American, fresh from the "boundless
prairies" and twenty-thousand-acre fields of wheat, sees nothing in it
all but the close cultivation of limited land; but the tourist from the
Continent perceives at once that, with most careful agriculture, there
are indications of an exuberance of wealth, true comfort, and taste
rarely seen in France or Germany. The many trees of a better quality and
slower growth than the weedy sprouting poplar and willow of Normandy; the
hedges, which are very beautiful and ever green; the flowerbeds and walks
about the poorest cottage; the neatly planted, prettily bridged side
roads, all indicate a superiority of wealth or refinement such as
prevails only in New England, or rather which _did_ prevail, until the
native population, going westward, was supplanted by Irish or worse, if
any worse there be at turning neatness into dirty disorder.
That older American population was deeply English, with a thousand rural
English traditions religiously preserved; and the chief of these is clean
_neatness_, which, when fully carried out, always results in simple,
unaffected beauty. This was very strongly shown in the Quaker gardens,
once so common in Philadelphia--and in the people.
We arrived in London, and went directly to the Trubners', No. 29 Upper
Hamilton Terrace, N.W. The first person who welcomed me was Mr.
Delepierre, an idol of mine for years; and the first thing I did was to
borrow half-a-crown of him to pay the cab, having only French money with
me. It was a charming house, with a large garden, so redolent of roses
that it might have served Chriemhilda of old for a romance. For twenty
years that house was destined to be an occasional home and a dwelling
where we were ever welcome, and where every Sunday evening I had always
an appointed place at dinner, and a special arm-chair for the
never-failing Havannah. Mrs. Trubner had, in later years, two boxes of
Havannahs of the best, which had belonged to G. H. Lewes, and which
George Eliot gave her after his death. I have kept two _en souvenir_. I
knew a man once who had formed a large collection of such relics. There
was a cigar which he had received from Louis Napoleon, and one from
Bismarck, and so forth. But, alas! once while away on his travels, the
whole museum was smoked up by a reckless under-graduate younger brother.
_In fumo exit_.
How many people well known to the world--or rather how few who were
not--have I met there--Edwin Arnold, G. H. Lewes, H. Dixon, M. Van der
Weyer, Frith the artist, Mrs. Trubner's uncle Lord Napier of Magdala,
Pigott, Norman Lockyer, Bret Harte, "and full many more," scholars,
poets, editors, and, withal, lady writers of every good shade, grade, and
quality. How many of them all have passed since then full silently into
the Silent Land, where we may follow, but return no more! How many a
pleasant smile and friendly voice and firm alliances and genial
acquaintances, often carried out in other lands, date their beginning in
my memory to the house in Hamilton Terrace! How often have I heard by
land or sea the familiar greeting, "I think I met you once at the
Trubners'!" For it was a salon, a centre or sun with many bright and
cheering rays--a civilising institution!
Mrs. Trubner was the life of this home. Anglo-Belgian by early relation
and education, she combined four types in one. When speaking English,
she struck me as the type of an accomplished and refined British matron;
in French, her whole nature seemed Parisienne; in Flemish, she was
altogether Flamande; and in German, Deutsch. If Cerberus was three
gentlemen in one, Mrs. Trubner was four ladies united. Very well read,
she conversed not only well on any subject, but, what is very unusual in
her sex, with sincere interest, and not merely to entertain. If
interrupted in a conversation she resumed the subject! This is a
remarkable trait!
The next day after our arrival Mrs. Trubner took Mrs. Leland, during a
walk, to call on George Eliot, and that evening G. H. Lewes, Hepworth
Dixon, and some others came to a reception at the Trubners'. Both of
these men were, as ever, very brilliant and amusing in conversation. I
met them very often after this, both at their homes and about London. I
also became acquainted with George Eliot or Mrs. Lewes, who left on me
the marked impression, which she did on all, of being a woman of genius,
though I cannot recall anything remarkable which I ever heard from her. I
note this because there were most extraordinary reports of her utterances
among her admirers. A young American lady once seriously asked me if it
were true that at the Sunday afternoon receptions in South Bank one could
always see rows of twenty or thirty of the greatest men in England, such
as Carlyle, Froude, and Herbert Spencer, all sitting with their
note-books silently taking down from her lips the ideas which they
subsequently used in their writings! There seemed, indeed, to be afloat
in America among certain folk an idea that something enormous,
marvellous, and inspired went on at these receptions, and that George
Eliot posed as a Pythia or Sibyl, as the great leading mind of England,
and lectured while we listened. There is no good portrait, I believe, of
her. She had long features and would have been called plain but for her
solemn, earnest eyes, which had an expression quite in keeping with her
voice, which was one not easily forgotten. I never detected in her any
trace of genial humour, though I doubt not that it was latent in her; and
I thought her a person who had drawn her ideas far more from books and an
acquaintance with certain types of humanity whom she had set herself
deliberately to study--albeit with rare perception--than from an easy
intuitive familiarity with all sorts and conditions of men. But she
worked out _thoroughly_ what she knew by the intuition of genius, though
in this she was very far inferior to Scott. Thus she wrote the "Spanish
Gypsy," having only seen such gypsies two or three times. One day she
told me that in order to write "Daniel Deronda," she had read through two
hundred books. I longed to tell her that she had better have learned
Yiddish and talked with two hundred Jews, and been taught, as I was by my
friend Solomon the Sadducee, the art of distinguishing Fraulein Lowenthal
of the Ashkenazim from Senorita Aguado of the Sephardim _by the corners
of their eyes_!
I had read more than once Lewes's "Life of Goethe," his "History of
Philosophy and Physiology," and even "written him" for the Cyclopaedia.
With him I naturally at once became well acquainted. I remember here
that Mr. Ripley had once reproved me for declaring that Lewes had really
a claim to be an original philosopher or thinker; for Boston intellect
always frowned on him after Margaret Fuller condemned him as "frivolous
and atheistic." I remember that Tom Powell had told me how he had dined
somewhere in London, where there was a man present who had really been a
cannibal, owing to dire stress of shipwreck, and how Lewes, who was
there, was so fascinated with the man-eater that he could think of
nothing else. Lewes told me that once, having gone with a party of
archaeologists to visit a ruined church, he found on a twelfth-century
tombstone some illegible letters which he persuaded the others to believe
formed the name Golias, probably having in mind the poems of Walter de
Mapes. When I returned from Russia I delighted him very much by
describing how I had told the fortunes by hand of six gypsy girls. He
declared that telling fortunes to gypsies was the very height of
impudence!
"A hundred jests have passed between us twain,
Which, had I space, I'd gladly tell again."
A call which I have had, since I wrote that last line, from John Postle
Heseltine, Esq., reminds me that he was one of the first acquaintances I
made in London. Mr. E. Edwards, a distinguished etcher and painter, gave
me a dinner at Richmond, at which Mr. Heseltine was present. In Edwards'
studio I met with Bracquemond and Legros, both of whom etched my portrait
on copper. Mr. Heseltine is well known as a very distinguished artist of
the same kind, as well as for many other things. Edwards was very kind
to me in many ways for years. Legros I found very interesting. There
was in Edwards' studio the unique _complete_ collection of the etchings
of Meryon, which we examined. Legros remarked of the incredibly long-
continued industry manifested in some of the pictures, that lunatics
often manifested it to a high degree. Meryon, as is known, was mad. I
had etched a very little myself and was free of the fraternity.
Within a few days Mr. Strahan, the publisher, took me to Mr. (now Lord)
Tennyson's reception, where I met with many well-known people. Among
them were Lady Charlotte Locker and Miss Jean Ingelow. These ladies,
with great kindness, finding that I was married, called on Mrs. Iceland,
and invited us to dine. I became a constant visitor for years at Miss
Ingelow's receptions, where I have met Ruskin, Mr. and Mrs. S. C. Hall
(whom I had seen in 1848), Calverly, Edmund Gosse, Hamilton Aide, Mr. and
Mrs Alfred Hunt. I conversed with Tennyson, but little passed between us
on that occasion. I got to know him far better "later on."
I here anticipate by several years two interviews which I had with
Tennyson in 1875, who had _ad interim_ been deservedly "lauded into
Lordliness," and which, to him at least, were amusing enough to be
recalled. The first was at a dinner at Lady Franklin's, and her niece
Miss Cracroft. And here I may, in passing, say a word as to the
extraordinary kindly nature of Lady Franklin. I think it was almost as
soon as we became acquainted that she, learning that I suffered at times
from gout, sent me a dozen bottles of a kind of bitter water as a cure.
There were at the dinner as guests Mr. Tennyson, Sir Samuel and Lady
Baker, Dr. Quain, and myself. There was no lack of varied anecdote,
reminiscences of noted people and of travel; but by far the most
delightful portion of it all was to watch the gradual unfreezing of
Tennyson, and how from a grim winter of taciturnity, under the glowing
influence of the sun of wine, as the Tuscan Redi hath it--
"Dell' Indico Oriente
Domator glorioso il Dio di Vino . . .
Di quel Sol, che in Ciel vedete . . ."--
he passed into a glorious summer of genial feeling. I led unto it
thus:--My friend Professor Palmer and I had projected a volume of songs
in English Romany or Gypsy, which is by far the sweetest and most
euphonious language in Europe. My friend had translated "Home they
brought her warrior dead," by Tennyson, into this tongue, and I had the
MS. of it in my pocket. Tennyson was very much pleased at the
compliment, and asked me to read the poem, which I did. The work was by
permission dedicated to him. At last, when dinner was over, Tennyson,
who had disposed of an entire bottle of port, rose, and approaching me,
took me gaily-gravely by both sides, as if he would lift me up, and
drawing himself up to his full height, said, "I like to see a poet a full-
sized substantial man," or "tall and strong," or words to that effect. I
replied that it was very evident from the general appearance of
Shakespeare's bust that he was a very tall man, but that though the
thunder of height had hit twice--the Poet Laureate being the second
case--that I had been very slightly singed, tall as I was. _Enfin_, some
days after, Tennyson in a letter invited me to call and see him should I
ever be in the Isle of Wight; which took place by mere chance some time
after--in fact, I did not know, when I was first at the hotel in
Freshwater, that Tennyson lived at a mile's distance.
I walked over one afternoon and sent in my card. Mr. Hallam Tennyson,
then a very handsome young man of winsome manner, came out and said that
his father was taking his usual _siesta_, but begged me to remain, kindly
adding, "Because I know, Mr. Leland, he would be very sorry to have
missed you." After a little time, however, Tennyson himself appeared,
and took me up to his den or studio, where I was asked to take a pipe,
which I did with great good-will, and blew a cloud, enjoying it greatly,
because I felt with my host, as with Bulwer, that we had quickly crossed
acquaintanceship into the more familiar realm where one can talk about
whatever you please with the certainty of being understood and getting a
sympathetic answer. There are lifelong friends with whom one never
really gets to this, and there are acquaintances of an hour at _table-
d'hotes_, who "come like shadows, so depart," who talk with a touch to
our hearts. Bulwer and Tennyson were such to me, and _apre miro zi_, as
the gypsies say--on my life-soul!--if I had talked with them, as I did,
without knowing who they were, I should have recalled them with quite as
much interest as I now do, and see them again in dreams. And here I may
add, that the common-place saying that literary men are rarely good
talkers, and generally disappointing, is not at all confirmed by my
experiences.
After burning our tobacco, in Indian fashion, to better acquaintance (I
forgot to say that the poet had two dozen clay pipes ranged in a small
wooden rack), we went forth for a seven miles' walk on the Downs. And at
last, from the summit of one, I pointed down to a small field below, and
said--
But first I must specify that the day before I had gone with a young lady
of fourteen summers named Bee or Beatrice Fredericson, both of us bearing
baskets, to pick blackberries for tea, and coming to a small field which
was completely surrounded by a hedge, we saw therein illimitable
blackberries glittering in the setting sunlight, and longed to enter.
Finding a gap which had been filled by a dead thorn-bush, I removed the
latter, and, going in, we soon picked a quart of the fruit. But on
leaving we were met by the farmer, who made a to-do, charging us with
trespassing. To which I replied, "Well, what is to pay?" He asked for
two shillings, but was pacified with one; and so we departed.
Therefore I said to Tennyson, "I went into that field yesterday to pick
your blackberries, and your farmer caught us and made me pay a shilling
for trespassing."
And he gravely replied, though evidently delighted--"Served you right!
What business had you to come over my hedge into my field to steal my
blackberries?"
"_Mea culpa_," I answered, "_mea maxima culpa_."
"Mr. Leland," pursued Tennyson, as gravely as ever, grasping all the
absurdity of the thing with evident enjoyment, "you have no idea how
tourists trespass here to get at me. They climb over my gate and look in
at my windows. It is a fact--one did so only last week. But I declare
that you are the very first poet and man of letters who ever came here--to
steal blackberries!" Here he paused, and then added forcibly--
"I _do_ believe you are a gypsy, after all."
Then we talked of the old manor-houses in the neighbourhood, and of the
famous Mortstone, a supposed Saxon rude monolith near by. I thought it
prehistoric, because I had dug out from the pile of earth supporting and
coeval with it (and indeed only with a lead-pencil) a flint flake chipped
by hand and a bit of cannel coal, which indicate dedication. My host
listened with great interest, and then told me a sad tale: how certain
workmen employed by him to dig on his land had found a great number of
old Roman bronze coins, but, instead of taking them to him, had kept
them, though they cared so little for them that they gave a handful to a
boy whom they met. "I told them," said Tennyson, "that they had been
guilty of malappropriation, and though I was not quite sure whether the
coins belonged to me or to the Crown, that they certainly had no right to
them. Whereupon their leader said that if I was not satisfied they would
not work any longer for me, and so they went away." I had on this
occasion a long and interesting discussion with Mr. Tennyson relative to
Walt Whitman, and involving the principles or nature of poetry. According
to the poet-laureate, poetry, as he understood it, consisted of elevated
or refined, or at least superior thought, expressed in melodious form,
and in this latter it seemed to him (for it was very modestly expressed)
that Whitman was wanting. Wherein he came nearer to the truth than does
Symonds, who overrates, as it seems to me, the value, as regards art and
poetry, of simply _equalising_ all human intelligences. Though I never
met Symonds, there was mutual knowledge between us, and when I published
my "Etrusco-Roman Remains in Popular Traditions," which contains the
results of six years' intimacy with witches and fortune-tellers, he wrote
a letter expressing enthusiastic admiration of it to Mr. T. Fisher Unwin.
Now all three of these great men are dead. I shall speak of Whitman
anon, for in later years for a long time I met him almost daily.
I can remember that during the conversation Tennyson expressed himself,
rather to my amazement, with some slight indignation at a paltry review
abusing his latest work; to which I replied--
"If there is anything on earth for which I have envied you, even more
than for your great renown as a poet, it has been because I supposed you
were completely above all such attacks and were utterly indifferent to
them." Which he took amiably, and proceeded to discuss ripe fruit and
wasps--or their equivalent. Yet I doubt whether I was quite in the
right, since those who live for fame honourably acquired must ever be
susceptible to stings, small or great. An editor who receives abusive
letters so frequently that he ends by pitching them without reading into
the waste-basket, and often treats ribald attacks in print in the same
manner--as I have often done--has so many other affairs on his mind that
he becomes case-hardened. But I have observed from long experience that
there is a Nemesis who watches those who arrogate the right to lay on the
rod, and gives it to them with interest in the end.
It was very soon after my arrival in London that I was invited to lunch
at Hepworth Dixon's to meet Lord Lytton, or Bulwer, the great writer. His
works had been so intensely and sympathetically loved by me so long, that
it seemed as if I had been asked to meet some great man of the past. I
found him, as I expected, quite congenial and wondrous kind. I remember
a droll incident. Standing at the head of the stairs, he courteously
made way and asked me to go before. I replied, "When Louis XIV. asked
Crillon to do the same, Crillon complied, saying, 'Wherever your Majesty
goes, be it before or behind, is always the first place or post of
honour,' and I say the same with him," and so went in advance at once. I
saw by his expression that he was pleased with the quotation.
We were looking at a portrait of Shakespeare which Dixon had found in
Russia. Lord Lytton asked me if I thought it an original or true
likeness. I observed that the face was full of many fine seamy lines,
which infallibly indicate great nervous genius of the highest
order--noting at the same time that Lord Lytton's countenance was very
much marked in a like manner. The observation was new to him, and he
seemed to be interested in it, as he always was in anything like
chiromancy or metoscopy. A few days later I was invited to come and pass
nearly a week with Hepworth Dixon at Knebworth, Lord Lytton's country
seat. It is a very picturesque _chateau_, profusely adorned with
fifteenth-century Gothic grotesques, with a fine antique hall, stained
glass windows, and gallery. There is in it a chamber containing a
marvellous and massive carved oak bedstead, the posts of which are human
figures the size of life, and in it and in the same room Queen Elizabeth
is said to have slept when she heard of the destruction of the Spanish
Armada. It was the room of honour, and it had been kindly assigned to
me. It all seemed like a dream.
There was in the family of the late Lord Lytton his son, who made a most
favourable impression on me. I think the first _coup_ was my finding
that he knew the works of Andreini, and that it had occurred to him as
well as to me that Euphues Lily's book had been modelled on them. There
was also his wife, a magnificent and graceful beauty; Lord Lytton's
nephew, Mr. Bulwer; and several ladies. The first morning we all fished
in the pond, and, to my great amazement, Lord Lytton pulled out _a great
one-eyed perch_! I almost expected to see him pull out Paul Clifford or
Zanoni next! In the afternoon we were driven out to Cowper Castle to see
a fine gallery of pictures, our host acting as cicerone, and as he soon
found that I was fairly well educated in art, and had been a special
pupil of Thiersch in Munich, and something more than an amateur, we had
many interesting conversations. I think I may venture to say that he did
_not_ expect to find a whilom student of aesthetics, art-history, and
Philosophy in the author of "Hans Breitmann." What was delightful was
his exquisite tact in never saying as much; but I could detect it in the
sudden interest and involuntary compliment implied in his tone of
conversation. In a very short time he began to speak to me on all
literary or artistic subjects without preliminary question, taking it for
granted that I understood them and chimed in with him. I was with every
interview more and more impressed with his _culture_--I mean with what
had resulted from his reading--his marvellous tact of kindness in small
things to all, and his quick and vigorous comparing and contrasting of
images and drawing conclusions. But there was evidently enough a firm
bed-rock or hard pan under all this gold. I was amazed one day when a
footman, who had committed some _bevue_ or blunder, or apprehended
something, actually turned pale and stammered with terror when Lord
Lytton gravely addressed a question to him. I never in my life saw a man
so much frightened, even before a revolver.
But Lord Lytton was beyond all question really interested when he found
me so much at home in Rosicrucian and occult lore, and that I had been
with Justinus Kerner in Weinsberg, and was familiar with the forgotten
dusky paths of mysticism. He had in his house the famous Earl Stanhope
crystal, and wished me to sleep with it under my pillow, but I was so
afraid lest the precious relic should be injured, that I resolutely
declined the honour, for which I am now sorry, for I sometimes have
dreams of a most extraordinary character. This Stanhope crystal is not,
however, the great mirror of Dr. Dee, though it has been said to be so.
The latter belonged to a gentleman in London, who also offered to lend it
to me. It is made of cannel coal. That Lord Lytton made a very
remarkable impression on me is proved by the fact that I continued to
dream of him at long intervals after his death; and I am quite sure that
such feeling is, by its very nature, always to a certain slight degree
reciprocal. He had a natural and unaffected _voice_, yet one with a
marked character; something like Tennyson's, which was even more
striking. Both were far removed from the now fashionable intonation,
which is the admiration and despair of American swells. It is only the
_fin de siecle_ form of the _demnition_ dialect of the Forties and the
_La-ard_ and _Lunnon_ of an earlier age.
Lord Lytton was generally invisible in the morning, sometimes after
lunch. In the evening he came out splendidly groomed, fresh as a rose,
and at dinner and after was as interesting as any of his books. He had
known "everybody" to a surprising extent, and had anecdotes fresh and
vivid of every one whom he had met. He loved music, and there was a lady
who sang old Spanish ballads with rare taste. I enjoyed myself
incredibly.
I may be excused for mentioning here that I sent a copy of the second
edition of my "Meister Karl's Sketch-Book" to Lord Lytton. No one but
Irving and Trubner had ever praised it. When Lord Lytton published
afterwards "Kenelm Chillingly," I found in it _three_ passages in which I
recognised beyond dispute others suggested by my own work. I do not in
the least mean that there was _any_ borrowing or taking beyond the mere
suggestion of thought. Why I think that Lord Lytton had these hints in
his mind is that he gave the name of Leland to one of the minor
characters in the book.
When I published a full edition of "Breitmann's Poems," he wrote me a
long letter criticising and praising the work, and a much longer and
closely written one, of seven pages, relating to my "Confucius and Other
Poems." I was subsequently invited to receptions at his house in London,
where I first met Browning, and had a long conversation with him. I saw
him afterwards at Mrs. Proctor's. This was the wife of Barry Cornwall,
whom I also saw. He was very old and infirm. I can remember when the
"Cornlaw Rhymes" rang wherever English was read.
As I consider it almost a duty to record what I can remember of Bulwer, I
may mention that one evening, at his house in London, he showed me and
others some beautiful old brass salvers in _repousse_ work, and how I
astonished him by describing the process, and declaring that I could
produce a _facsimile_ of any one of them in a day or two; to which
assertion hundreds to whom I have taught the art, as well as my "Manual
of Repousse," and another on "Metal Work," will, I trust, bear witness.
And this I mention, not vainly, but because Lord Lytton seemed to be
interested and pleased, and because, in after years, I had much to do
with reviving the practice of this beautiful art. It was practising
this, and a three years' study of oak-wood carving, which led me to write
on the Minor Arts. _Mihi aes et triplex robur_.
Lord Lytton had the very curious habit of making almost invisible
hieroglyphics or crosses in his letters--at least I found them in those
to me, as it were for luck. It was a very common practice from the most
ancient Egyptian times to within two centuries. Lord Lytton's were
evidently intended to escape observation. But there was indeed a great
deal in his character which would escape most persons, and which has not
been revealed by any writer on him. This I speedily divined, though, of
course, I never discovered what it all was.
Lord Houghton, "Richard Monckton Milnes," to whom I had a letter of
introduction from Lorimer Graham, was very kind to me. I dined and
lunched at his house, where I met Odo Russell or Lord Ampthill, the Duke
of Bedford, the Hon. Mrs. Norton, W. W. Story, and I know not how many
more distinguished in society, or letters. At Lord Lytton's I made the
acquaintance of the Duke of Wellington. I believe, however, that this
meeting with Lord Houghton and the Duke was in my second year in London.
The first English garden-party which I ever attended was during this
first season, at the villa of Mr. Bohn, the publisher, at Twickenham.
There I made the acquaintance of George Cruikshank, whom I afterwards met
often, and knew very well till his death. He was a gay old fellow, and
on this occasion danced a jig with old Mr. Bohn on the lawn, and joked
with me. There, too, we met Lady Martin, who had been the famed Helen
Faucit. Cruikshank was always inexhaustible in jokes, anecdotes, and
reminiscences. At his house I made the acquaintance of Miss Ada
Cavendish.
To revert to Mr. Trubner's, I may say that one evening after dinner,
when, genial though quiet, Bret Harte was one of the guests, he was asked
to repeat the "Heathen Chinee," which he could not do, as he had never
learned it--which is not such an unusual thing, by the way, as many
suppose. But I, who knew it, remarked, "Ladies and gentlemen, it is
nothing to merely _write_ a poem. True genius consists in getting it by
or from heart [_from_ Bret Harte, for instance], and repeating it. This
genius nature has denied to the illustrious poet before you--but not to
me, as I will now illustrate by declaiming the 'Heathen Chinee.'" Which
performance was received with applause, in which Harte heartily joined.
But my claim to possess genius would hardly have borne examination, for
it was years before I ever learned "Hans Breitmann's Barty," nor would I
like to risk even a pound to one hundred that I can do it now without
mixing the verses or committing some error.
Once during the season I went with my wife and Mr. W. W. Story to Eton,
where we supped with Oscar Browning. We were taken out boating on the
river, and I enjoyed it very much. There is a romance about the Thames
associated with a thousand passages in literature which goes to the very
heart. I was much impressed by the marked character of Mr. Browning and
his frank, genial nature; and I found some delightful old Latin books in
his library. May I meet with many such men!
This year, what with the German war and the Trubner-Hotten controversy,
my "Breitmann Ballads" had become, I may say, well known. The character
of Hans was actually brought into plays on three stages at once.
Boucicault, whom I knew well of yore in America, introduced it into
something. I had found Ewan Colquhoun--the same old sixpence--and one
night he took me to the Strand Theatre to see a play in which my hero was
a prominent part. I was told afterwards that the company having been
informed of my presence, all came to look at me through the curtain-hole.
There were some imitations of my ballads published in _Punch_ and the
_Standard_, and the latter were so admirably executed--pardon the vain
word!--that I feared, because they satirised the German cause, that they
might be credited to me; therefore I wrote to the journal, begging that
the author would give some indication that I had not written them, which
was kindly done. Finally, a newspaper was started called _Hans
Breitmann_, and the Messrs. Cope, of Liverpool, issued a brand of Hans
Breitmann cigars. Owing to the resemblance between the words Bret and
Breit there was a confusion of names, and my photograph was to be seen
about town, with the name of Bret Harte attached to it. This great
injustice to Mr. Harte was not agreeable, and I, or my friends,
remonstrated with the shop-folk with the to-be-expected result, "Yes-sir,
yes-sir--very sorry, sir--we'll correct the mistake, sir!" But I don't
think it was ever corrected till the sale ceased.
I was sometimes annoyed with many imitations of my poems by persons who
knew no German, which were all attributed to me. A very pious
Presbyterian publication, in alluding to something of the kind, said that
"Mr. Leland, _because he is the author of Bret Harte_, thinks himself
justified in publishing any trash of this description." I thought this a
_very_ improper allusion for a clergyman, not to say libellous. In fact,
many people really believed that Bret Harte was a _nom de plume_ or the
title of a poem. And I may here say by the way that I never "wrote
under" the pseudonym of Hans Breitmann in my life, nor called myself any
such name at any time. It is simply the name of one of many _books_
which I have written. An American once insisting to me that I _should_
be called so from my work, I asked him if he would familiarly accost Mr.
Lowell as "Josh Biglow." If there is anything in the world which denotes
a subordinate position in the social scale or defect in education, it is
the passion to call men "out of their names," and never feel really
acquainted with any one until he is termed Tom or Jack. It is doubtless
all very genial and jocose and sociable, but the man who shows a tendency
to it should _not_ complain when his betters put him in a lower class or
among the "lower orders."
Once at a reception at George Boughton's, the artist, there was, as I
heard, an elderly gentleman rushing about asking to see or be introduced
to _Hart Bretmann_, whose works he declared he knew by heart, and with
whom he was most anxious to become acquainted. Whether he ever
discovered this remarkable conglomerate I do not know.
I once made the acquaintance of an American at the Langham Hotel who
declared that I had made life a burden to him. His name was H.
Brightman, and being in business in New York, he never went to the Custom-
House or Post-Office but what the clerks cried "Hans Brightman! of
course. Yes, we have read about you, sir--in history."
But even in this London season I found more serious work to attend to
than comic ballads or society. Mr. Trubner was very anxious to have me
write a pamphlet vindicating the claim of Germany to Alsace and Lorraine,
and I offered to do it gladly, if he would provide all the historical
data or material. The result of this was the _brochure_ entitled
"France, Alsace, and Lorraine," which had a great success. It at once
reappeared in America, and even in Spanish in South America. The German
Minister in London ordered six copies, and the _Times_ made the work,
with all its facts and figures, into an editorial article, omitting, I
regret to say, to mention the source whence it was derived; but this I
forgive with all my heart, considering the good words which it has given
me on other occasions. For the object of the work was not at all to
glorify the author, but to send home great truths at a very critical
time; and the article in the _Times_, which was little else but my
pamphlet condensed, caused a great sensation. But the principal result
from it was this: I had in the work discussed the idea, then urged by the
French and their friends, that, to avoid driving France to "desperation,"
very moderate terms should be accepted in order to conciliate. For the
French, as I observed in effect, will do their _very worst in any case_,
and every possible extreme should be anticipated and assumed. This same
argument had previously been urged in my "Centralisation _versus_ States
Rights."
When Prince Bismarck conversed with the French Commissioners to arrange
terms of peace, he met this argument of not driving the French to
extremes with a phrase so closely like the one which I had used in my
pamphlet, that neither Mr. Trubner nor several others hesitated to
declare to me that it was beyond all question taken from it. Bismarck
had _certainly_ received the pamphlet, which had been recognised by the
_Times_, and in many other quarters, as a more than ordinary paper, and
Prince Bismarck, like all great diplomatists, _prend son bien ou il le
trouve_. In any case this remains true, that that which formed the
settling argument of Germany, found at the time expression in my pamphlet
and in the Chancellor's speech.
We made soon after a visit to the Rev. Dean and Mrs. Carrington, in
Bocking, Essex. They had a fair daughter, Eva, then quite a girl, who
has since become well known as a writer, and is now the Countess
Cesaresco Martinengro--an Italian name, and not Romany-Gypsy, as its
terminations would seem to indicate. There is in the village of Bocking,
at a corner, a curious and very large grotesque figure of oak, which was
evidently in the time of Elizabeth a pilaster in some house-front. My
friend Edwards, who was wont to roam all over England in a mule-waggon
etching and sketching, when in Bocking was informed by a rustic that this
figure was the image of Harkiles (Hercules), a heathen god formerly
worshipped in the old Catholic convent upon the hill, in the old times!
From London we went in August, 1870, to Brighton, staying at first at the
Albion Hotel. There, under the influence of fresh sea-air, long walks
and drives in all the country round, I began to feel better, yet it was
not for many weeks that I fairly recovered. A chemist named Phillips,
who supplied me with bromide of potass, suggested to me, to his own loss,
that I took a great deal too much. I left it off altogether,
substituting pale ale. Finding this far better, I asked Mr. Phillips if
he could not prepare for me _lupulin_, or the anodyne of hops. He
laughed, and said, "Do you find the result required in ale?" I answered,
"Yes." "And do you like ale?" "Yes." "Then," he answered, "why don't
you _drink_ ale?" And I did, but before I took it up my very vitality
seemed to be well-nigh exhausted with the bromide.
Samuel Laing, M.P., the chairman of the Brighton Railway, had at that
time a house in Brighton, with several sons and daughters, the latter of
whom have all been very remarkable for beauty and accomplishments. In
this home there was a hospitality so profuse, so kind, so brilliant and
refined, that I cannot really remember to have ever seen it equalled, and
as we fully participated in it at all times in every form, I should feel
that I had omitted the deepest claim to my gratitude if I did not here
acknowledge it. Mr. Laing was or is of a stock which deeply appealed to
my sympathies, for he is the son of the famous translator of the
_Heimskringla_, a great collection of Norse sagas, which I had read, and
in which he himself somewhat aided. Of late years, since he has retired
from more active financial business, Mr. Laing has not merely turned his
attention to literature; he has deservedly distinguished himself by
translating, as I may say, into the clearest and most condensed or
succinct and lucid English ever written, so as to be understood by the
humblest mind, the doctrines of Darwin, Huxley, and the other leading
scientific minds of the day. Heine in his time received a great deal of
credit for having thus acted as the flux and furnace by which the ore of
German philosophy was smelted into pure gold for general circulation; but
I, who have translated all that Heine wrote on this subject, declare that
he was at such work as far inferior to Samuel Laing as a mere verbal
description of a beautiful face is inferior to a first-class portrait.
This family enters so largely into my reminiscences and experiences, that
a chapter would hardly suffice to express all that I can recall of their
hospitality for years, of the dinners, hunts, balls, excursions, and the
many distinguished people whom I have met under their roof. It is worth
noting of Mr. Laing's daughters, that Mary, now Mrs. Kennard, is at the
head of the sporting-novel writers; that the beautiful Cecilia, now Mrs.
MacRae, was pronounced by G. H. Lewes, who was no mean judge, to be the
first amateur pianiste in England; while the charming "Floy," or Mrs.
Kennedy, is a very able painter. With their two very pretty sisters,
they formed in 1870 as brilliant, beautiful, and accomplished a quintette
as England could have produced.
One day Mr. Laing organised an excursion with a special train to Arundel
Castle. By myself at other times I found my way to Lewes and other
places rich in legendary lore. Of this latter I recall something worth
telling. Harold, the conquered Saxon king, had a son, and the conqueror
William had a daughter, Gundrada. The former became a Viking pirate, and
in his old age a monk, and was buried in a church, now a Presbyterian
chapel. There his epitaph may be read in fine bold lettering, still
distinct. That man is dear to me.
Gundrada married, died, and was buried in a church with a fine Norman
tombstone over her remains. The church was levelled with the ground, but
the slab was preserved here and there about Lewes as a relic. When the
railway was built, about 1849, there was discovered, where the church had
been, the bones of Gundrada and her husband in leaden coffins distinctly
inscribed with their names. A very beautiful Norman chapel was then
built to receive the coffins, and over them is placed the original
memorial in black marble. There is also in Lewes an archaeological
museum appropriately bestowed in an old Gothic tower. All of which
things did greatly solace me. As did also the Norman or Gothic churches
of Shoreham, Newport, the old manor of Rottingdean, and the marvellous
Devil's Dyke, which was probably a Roman fort, and from which it is said
that fifty towns or villages may be seen "far in the blue."
One day I went with my wife and two ladies to visit the latter. The
living curiosity of the place was a famous old gypsy woman named Gentilla
Cooper, a pure blood or real _Kalorat_ Romany. I had already in America
studied Pott's "Thesaurus of Gypsy Dialects," and picked up many phrases
of the tongue from the works of Borrow, Simson, and others. The old dame
tackled us at once. As soon as I could, I whispered in her ear an
improvised rhyme:--
"The bashno and kani,
The rye and the rani,
Hav'd akai 'pre o boro lon pani."
Which means that the cock and the hen, the gentleman and the lady, came
hither across the great salt water. The effect on the gypsy was
startling; she fairly turned pale. Hustling the ladies away to one side
to see a beautiful view, she got me alone and hurriedly exclaimed,
"_Rya_--master! _be_ you one of our people?" with much more. We became
very good friends, and this little incident had in time for me great
results, and many strange experiences of gypsy life.
There live in Brighton two ladies, Miss Horace Smith and her sister Rosa,
who were and are well known in the cultured world. They are daughters of
Horace Smith, who, with his brother James, wrote the "Rejected
Addresses." Their reminiscences of distinguished men are extremely
varied and interesting. The elder sister possesses an album to which
Thackeray contributed many verses and pen-sketches. Their weekly
receptions were very pleasant; at them might be seen most of the literary
or social celebrities who came to Brighton. A visit there was like
living a chapter in a book of memoirs and reminiscences. I have had, if
it be only a quiet, and not very eventful or remarkable, at least a
somewhat varied life, and the Laings and Smiths, with their surroundings,
form two of its most interesting varieties. I believe they never missed
an opportunity to do us or any one a kindly act, to aid us to make
congenial friends, or the like. How many good people there really are in
the world!