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| author | nfenwick <nfenwick@pglaf.org> | 2025-01-22 09:23:30 -0800 |
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| committer | nfenwick <nfenwick@pglaf.org> | 2025-01-22 09:23:30 -0800 |
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diff --git a/old/66987-0.txt b/old/66987-0.txt deleted file mode 100644 index 5034bfc..0000000 --- a/old/66987-0.txt +++ /dev/null @@ -1,24661 +0,0 @@ -The Project Gutenberg eBook of Life of Frances Power Cobbe as told by -herself, by Cobbe Frances Power - -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at -www.gutenberg.org. If you are not located in the United States, you -will have to check the laws of the country where you are located before -using this eBook. - -Title: Life of Frances Power Cobbe as told by herself - with additions by the author, and introduction by Blanche - Atkinson - -Author: Cobbe Frances Power - -Contributor: Atkinson Blanche - -Release Date: December 21, 2021 [eBook #66987] - -Language: English - -Character set encoding: UTF-8 - -Produced by: Richard Tonsing and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team - at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images - generously made available by The Internet Archive) - -*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIFE OF FRANCES POWER COBBE AS -TOLD BY HERSELF *** - - - - - LIFE OF FRANCES POWER COBBE - - -[Illustration: - - _Frances Power Cobbe._ - 1894. [_Frontispiece._ -] - - - - - LIFE OF FRANCES POWER COBBE - AS TOLD BY HERSELF - - - WITH - - ADDITIONS BY THE AUTHOR - - AND - - INTRODUCTION BY BLANCHE ATKINSON - - - LONDON - SWAN SONNENSCHEIN & CO., LIM. - PATERNOSTER SQUARE - 1904 - - - - - INTRODUCTION. - - -The story of the beautiful life which came to an end on the 5th of -April, 1904, is told by Miss Cobbe herself in the following pages up to -the close of 1898. Nothing is left for another pen but to sketch in the -events of the few remaining years. - -But first a word or two as to the origin of the book. One spring day in -1891 or ’92, when Miss Cobbe was walking with me through the Hengwrt -grounds on my way to the station, after some hours spent in listening to -her brilliant stories of men and things, I asked her if she would not -some day write her autobiography. She stood still, laughing, and shook -her head. Nothing in her life, she said, was of sufficient importance to -record, or for other people to read. Naturally I urged that what had -interested me so greatly would interest others, and that her life told -by herself could not fail to make a delightful book. She still laughed -at the idea; and the next time I saw her and repeated my suggestion, -told me that she had not time for such an undertaking, and also that she -did not think her friend, Miss Lloyd, would like it. At last, however, -to my great satisfaction, I heard that the friends had talked the matter -over, and were busily engaged in looking at old letters and records of -past days, and both becoming interested in the retrospection. So the -book grew slowly into an accomplished fact, and Miss Cobbe often -referred to it laughingly as “your” book, to which I replied that then I -had not lived in vain! It is possible that the idea had occurred to her -before; but she always gave me to understand that my persuasion had -induced her to write the book. She came to enjoy writing it. Once when I -said:—“I want you to tell us everything; all your love-stories—and -_everything_!” she took me up to her study and read me the passage she -had written in the 1st Chapter concerning such matters. The great -success of the book was a real pleasure to both Miss Cobbe and her -friend. She told me that it brought her more profit than any of her -books. Most of them had merely a _succès d’estime_. Better still, it -brought her a number of kindly letters from old and new friends, and -from strangers in far off lands; and these proofs of the place she held -in many hearts was a true solace to a woman of tender affections, who -had to bear more than the usual share of the abuse and misrepresentation -which always fall to those who engage in public work and enter into -public controversies. - -The sorrow of Miss Lloyd’s death changed the whole aspect of existence -for Miss Cobbe. The joy of life had gone. It had been such a friendship -as is rarely seen—perfect in love, sympathy, and mutual understanding. -No other friend—though Miss Cobbe was rich in friends—could fill the -vacant place, and henceforward her loneliness was great even when -surrounded by those she loved and valued. To the very last she could -never mention the name of “my dear Mary,” or of her own mother, without -a break in her voice. I remember once being alone with her in her study -when she had been showing me boxes filled with Miss Lloyd’s letters. -Suddenly she turned from me towards her bookshelves as though to look -for something, and throwing up her arms cried, with a little sob, “My -God! how lonely I am!” - -It was always her custom, while health lasted, to rise early, and she -often went to Miss Lloyd’s grave in the fresh morning hours, especially -when she was in any trouble or perplexity. Up to within a few days of -her death she had visited this—to her—most dear and sacred spot. -Doubtless she seemed to find a closer communion possible with one who -had been her counsellor in all difficulties, her helper in all troubles, -at the graveside than elsewhere. She planted her choicest roses there, -and watched over them with tender care. Now she rests beside her friend. - -Yet this anguish of heart was bravely borne. There was nothing morbid in -her grief. She took the same keen interest as before in the daily -affairs of life—in politics and literature and social matters. There -never was a nature more made for the enjoyment of social intercourse. -She loved to have visitors, to take them for drives about her beautiful -home, and to invite her neighbours to pleasant little luncheons and -dinners to meet them. Especially she enjoyed the summer glories of her -sweet old garden, and liked to give an occasional garden party, and -still oftener to take tea with her friends under the shade of the big -cherry tree on the lawn. How charming a hostess she was no one who has -ever enjoyed her hospitality can forget. “A good talk” never lost its -zest for her; until quite the end she would throw off langour and -fatigue under the spell of congenial companionship, and her talk would -sparkle with its old brilliance—her laugh ring with its old gaiety. - -Her courtesy to guests was perfect. When they happened not to be in -accord with her in their views upon Vivisection (which was always in -these years the chief object of her work and thought), she never -obtruded the question, and it was her rule not to allow it to be -discussed at table. It was too painful and serious a subject to be an -accompaniment of what she thought should be one of the minor pleasures -of life. For though intensely religious, there was no touch of the -ascetic in Miss Cobbe’s nature. She enjoyed everything; and guests might -come and go and never dream that the genial, charming hostess, who -deferred to their opinions on art or music or books, who conversed so -brilliantly on every subject which came up, was all the time engaged in -a hand to hand struggle against an evil which she believed to be sapping -the courage and consciences of English men and women. - -It is pleasant to look back upon sunny hours spent among the roses she -loved, or under the fine old trees she never ceased to admire; upon the -gay company gathered round the tea-table in the dark-panelled hall of -Hengwrt; best of all, on quiet twilight talks by the fireside or in the -great window of her drawing-room watching the last gleams of sunset fade -from hill and valley, and the stars come out above the trees. But it is -sadly true that the last few years of Miss Cobbe’s life were not as -peacefully happy as one would have loved to paint them to complete the -pleasant picture she had drawn in 1894. Even her cheery optimism would -hardly have led her to write that she would “gladly have lived over -again” this last decade. - -The pain of separating herself from the old Victoria Street Society was -all the harder to bear because it came upon her when the loss of Miss -Lloyd was still almost fresh. Only those who saw much of her during that -anxious spring of 1898 can understand how bitter was this pain. Miss -Cobbe has sometimes been blamed for—as it is said—causing the division. -But in truth, no other course was possible to one of her character. When -the alternative was to give up a principle which she believed vital to -the cause of Anti-Vivisection, or to withdraw from her old Society, no -one who knew Miss Cobbe could doubt for an instant which course she -would take. It was deeply pathetic to see the brave old veteran of this -crusade brace up her failing strength to meet the trial, resolved that -she would never lower the flag she had upheld for five-and-twenty years. -It was a lesson to those who grow discouraged after a few -disappointments, and faint-hearted at the first failure. This, it seems -to me, was the strongest proof Miss Cobbe’s whole life affords of her -wonderful mental energy. Few men, well past 70, when the work they have -begun and brought to maturity is turned into what they feel to be a -wrong direction, have courage to begin again and lay the foundations of -a new enterprise. Miss Cobbe has herself told the story of how she -founded the “British Union;” and I dwell upon it here only because it -shows the intensity of her conviction that Vivisection was an evil thing -which she must oppose to the death, and with which no compromise was -possible. She did not flinch from the pain and labour and ceaseless -anxiety which she plainly foresaw. She never said—as most of us would -have held her justified in saying—“_I_ have done all I could. I have -spent myself—time, money, and strength—in this fight. Now I shall rest.” -She took no rest until death brought it to her. Probably few realise the -immense sacrifices Miss Cobbe made when she devoted herself to the -unpopular cause which absorbed the last 30 years of her life. It was not -only money and strength which were given. She lost many friends, and -much social influence and esteem. This was no light matter to a woman -who valued the regard of her fellows, and had heartily enjoyed the -position she had won for herself in the world of letters. She often -spoke sadly of this loss, though I am sure that she never for an instant -regretted that she had come forward as the helper of the helpless. - -From 1898 until the last day of her life the interests of the new -Society occupied her brain and pen. It was at this time that I became -more closely intimate with her than before. Her help and encouragement -of those who worked under her were unfailing. No detail was too trifling -to bring to her consideration. Her immense knowledge of the whole -subject, her great experience and ready judgment were always at one’s -service. She soon had the care of all the branches of the Union on her -shoulders; she kept all the threads in her hand, and the particulars of -each small organisation clear in her mind. For myself, I can bear this -testimony. Never once did Miss Cobbe urge upon me any step or course of -action which I seriously disliked. When, on one or two occasions, I -ventured to object to her view of what was best, she instantly withdrew -her suggestion, and left me a free hand. If there were times when one -felt that she expected more than was possible, or when she showed a -slight impatience of one’s mistakes or failures, these were as nothing -compared with her generous praise for the little one achieved, her warm -congratulation for any small success. It was indeed easy to be loyal to -such a chief! - -Much of Miss Cobbe’s leisure time during the years after Miss Lloyd’s -death was spent in reading over the records of their old life. I find -the following passage in a letter of December, 1900:— - - - “I have this last week broken open the lock of an old note-book of my - dear Mary’s, kept about 1882–85. Among many things of deep interest to - me are letters to and from various people and myself on matters of - theology, which I used to show her, and she took the trouble to copy - into this book, along with memoranda of our daily life. It is - unspeakably touching to me, you may well believe, to find our old life - thus revived, and such tokens of her interest in my mental problems. I - think several of the letters would be rather interesting to others, - and perhaps useful.” - - -There remain in my possession an immense number of letters, carefully -arranged in packets and docketed, to and from Miss Lloyd, Lord -Shaftesbury, Theodore Parker, Fanny Kemble, and others. These have all -been read through lately by Miss Cobbe, and endorsed to that effect. Up -to the very end Miss Cobbe’s large correspondence was kept up -punctually. She always found time to answer a letter, even on quite -trivial matters; and among the mass which fell into my hands on her -death were recent letters from America, India, Australia, South Africa, -and all parts of England, asking for advice on many subjects, thanking -for various kindnesses, and expressing warm affection and admiration for -the pioneer worker in so many good causes. With all these interests, her -life was very full. Nothing that took place in the world of politics, -history, or literature, was indifferent to her. She never lost her -pleasure in reading, though her eyes gave her some trouble of late -years. At night, two books—generally Biography, Egyptology, Biblical -Criticism, or Poetry—were placed by her bedside for study in the wakeful -hours of the early morning. In spite of all these resources within -herself, she sorely missed the companionship of kindred spirits. She -was, as I have said, eminently fitted for the enjoyment of social life, -and had missed it after she left London for North Wales. Up to the last, -even when visitors tired her, she was mentally cheered and refreshed by -contact with those who cared for the things she cared for. - -In the winter of 1901–2 she was occupied in bringing out a new edition -of her first book, “The Theory of Intuitive Morals.” She wrote thus of -it to me at the time:— - - - “I have resolved not to leave the _magnum opus_ of my small literary - life out of print, so I am arranging to reprint ‘Intuitive Morals,’ - with my essay on ‘Darwinism in Morals’ at the end of it, and a new - Preface, so that when I go out of the world, this, my _Credo_ for - moral science and religion, will remain after me. Nobody but myself - could correct it or preface it.... As I look back on it now, I feel - glad to be able to re-circulate it, though very few will read anything - so dry! It was written just 50 years ago, and I am able to say with - truth that I have not seen reason to abandon the position I then took, - although the ‘cocksureness’ of 30 can never be maintained to 80!” - - -During the same winter, Miss Cobbe joined the Women’s Liberal -Federation, moved to take this decided step not only by her strong -disapproval of the war in South Africa, but by her belief that the then -existing government was in opposition to all the movements which she -longed to see carried forward. Her accession to their ranks met with a -warm welcome from the President and Committee of the Women’s Liberal -Federation, many of whom were already her personal friends. To the end -she kept in close touch with all that concerned women; and only a few -days before her death, was asked to allow her name to be given to the -Council as an Honorary Vice-President of the National Union of Women -Workers of Great Britain and Ireland. - -In the summer of 1902 an incident occurred—small in itself, but causing -such intense mortification to Miss Cobbe that it cannot be passed over -in any true account of the closing years of her life. In fact, those who -saw most of her at the time, and knew her best, believe that she never -recovered from the effects of it. A charge was brought against her of -cruelly overdriving an old horse—a horse which had been a special pet. -The absurdity of such a charge was the first thing that struck those who -heard of it; but to Miss Cobbe it came as a personal insult of the -cruellest kind. The charge was pressed on with what looked like -malicious vindictiveness, and though it failed, the intention to give -her pain did not fail. She wrote to me at the time that she was “wounded -to the quick.” The insult to her character, the attempt to throw -discredit upon her life’s work for the protection of animals from -suffering, the unchivalrousness of such an attack upon an old and lonely -woman—all this embittered the very springs of her life, and for a time -she felt as if she could not stay any longer in a neighbourhood where -such a thing had been possible. The results were very grievous for all -who loved her, as well as for herself. It had been one of her -pleasantest recreations to drive by the lovely road—which was full of -associations to her—between Hengwrt and Barmouth, to spend two or three -hours enjoying the sea air and sunshine, and the society of the old -friends who were delighted to meet her there. To Barmouth also she had a -few years previously bequeathed her library, and had taken great -interest and pleasure in the room prepared for the reception of her -“dear books.” Yet it was in Barmouth that the blow was struck, and she -never visited the little town again. It was pitiful! She had but a few -more months to live, and this was what a little group of her enemies did -to darken and embitter those few months! - -On September 6th, she wrote to me:— - - - “This week I have had to keep quite to myself. I am, of course, - enduring now the results of the strain of the previous weeks, and they - are bad enough. The recuperative powers of 80 are—_nil_! My old - friends, Percy Bunting and his wife, offered themselves for a few days - last week, and I could not bear to refuse their offer. As it proved, - his fine talk on all things to me most interesting—modern theological - changes, Higher Criticism, etc.—and her splendid philanthropy on the - lines I once humbly followed (she is the leading woman on the - M.A.B.Y.S., which I had practically founded in Bristol forty years - ago), made me go back years of life, and seem as if I were once more - living in the blessed Seventies.... Altogether, their visit, though it - left me quite exhausted, did my brains and my heart good. O! what - friends I once had! How _rich_ I was! How poor I am now!” - - -In October of that year she decided to leave Hengwrt for the winter. It -was a great effort. She had not left her home for eight years, and -dreaded the uprooting. But it was a wise move. One is glad now to -remember how happy Miss Cobbe was during that winter in Clifton. She -lived over again the old days of her work in Bristol with Mary -Carpenter; visited the old scenes, and noted the changes that had taken -place. Some old friends were left, and greatly she enjoyed their -company. At Clifton she had many more opportunities of seeing people -engaged in the pursuits which interested her than in her remote Welsh -home. Her letters at that time were full of renewed cheeriness. I quote -a few sentences: - - - “November 13th. - - “... I hope you have had as beautiful bright weather as we have had - here, and been able to get some walks on the mountain. Now I can no - longer ‘take a walk,’ I know how much such exercise helped me of old, - mentally and morally, quite as much as physically. I see a good many - old friends here, and a few new ones, and my niece comes to tea with - me every afternoon. They are all very kind, and make more of me than I - am worth; but it is a City of the Dead to me, so many are gone who - were my friends long ago; and what is harder to bear is that when I - was here last, eight or ten years ago, I was always thinking of - returning _home_, and writing daily all that happened to dear Mary—and - now, it is all a blank.” - - “November 16th. - - “... It is so nice to think I am missed and wanted! If I do get back - to Hengwrt, we must manage to see more of each other.... I have come - to the conclusion that for such little time as may remain for me, I - will not shut myself up again, and if I am at all able for it, I will - return home very early in the spring. I see a good many nice, kind - people here, old friends and new, and I have nice rooms; but I sadly - miss my own home and, still more, _garden_. And the eternal noise of a - town, the screaming children and detestable hurdy-gurdies, torment my - ears after their long enjoyment of peace—and thrushes.... I am shocked - to find that people here read nothing but novels; but they flock to - any abstruse lectures, _e.g._, those of Estlin Carpenter on Biblical - Criticism. I have just had an amusing experience—a journalist sent up - to gather my views as to changes in Bristol in the last forty years. - Goodness knows what a hash he will make of them!” - - -During this autumn, the thought occurred to me that as Miss Cobbe’s 80th -birthday was at hand, a congratulatory address from the men and women -who appreciated the work she had done for humanity and the lofty, -spiritual influence of her writings, might cheer her, and help to remove -some of the soreness of heart which the recent trouble at Barmouth had -left behind. Through the kind help of Mr. and Mrs. Bunting and Mr. -Verschoyle in England, and of Miss Schuyler and Mrs. Wister in America, -an address was drawn up, and a notable list of signatures quickly and -most cordially affixed to it. The address was as follows:— - - - “To FRANCES POWER COBBE - - “DECEMBER 4th, 1902. - - “On this your eightieth birthday, we, who recognize the strenuous - philanthropic activity and the high moral purpose of your long life, - wish to offer you this congratulatory address as an expression of - sincere regard. - - “You were among the first publicly to urge the right of women to - university degrees, and your powerful pen has done much to advance - that movement towards equality of treatment for them, in educational - and other matters, which is one of the distinguishing marks of our - time. - - “In social amelioration, such as Ragged Schools and Workhouse reform, - you did the work of a pioneer. By your lucid and thoughtful works on - religion and ethics, you have contributed in no small degree to that - broader and more humane view, which has so greatly influenced modern - theology in all creeds and all schools of thought. - - “But it is your chief distinction that you were practically the first - to explore the dark continent of our relations to our dumb - fellow-creatures, to let in light on their wrongs, and to base on the - firm foundation of the moral law their rights and our duty towards - them. They cannot thank you, but we can. - - “We hope that this expression of our regard and appreciation may bring - some contribution of warmth and light to the evening of a well spent - life, and may strengthen your sense of a fellowship that looks beyond - the grave.” - - -The Address happily gave Miss Cobbe all the gratification we had hoped. -I quote from her letters the following passages:— - - - “Clifton, December 5th. - - “I learn that it is to you I owe what has certainly been the greatest - honour I have ever received in my long life—the address from English - and American friends on my 80th birthday. I can hardly say how touched - I am by this token of your great friendship, and the cheer which such - an address could not fail to give me. The handsome album containing it - and all the English signatures (the American ones—autographs—are on - their way, but I have the names in type-writing) was brought to me - yesterday by Mrs. Bunting and Mr. Verschoyle. I had three reporters - dodging in and out all day to get news of it, and have posted to you - the _Bristol Mercury_ with the best of their reports. It is really a - very splendid set of signatures, and a most flattering expression of - sympathy and approval from so many eminent men and women. It is - encouraging to think that they would _endorse_ the words about my care - for animals.” - - “December 8th. - - “You may not know that a very fair account of the address appeared in - the _Times_ of Saturday, and also in at least twenty other papers, so - my _fame_! has gone evidently through the land. I also had addresses - from the Women’s Suffrage people, with Lady Frances Balfour at their - head, and from the A.V. (German) Society at Dresden, Ragged School, - etc.... I am greatly enjoying the visits of many literary men and - women, old friends and new—people interested in theology and ethics - and Egypt, and all things which interest me....” - - “December 24th. - - “Only think that I am booked to make an address on Women Suffrage to a - ladies’ club, five doors off, on the 2nd.... The trouble you must have - taken (about the address) really overwhelms me! You certainly - succeeded in doing me a really great honour, and in _cheering_ me. I - confess I was very downhearted when I came here, but I am better now. - I feel like the man who ‘woke one morning and found himself famous.’” - - “January 4th. - - “I like to hear of your fine walk on the mountain. How good such walks - are for soul and body! I miss them dreadfully—for my temper as well as - my health and strength. Walking in the streets is most disagreeable to - me, especially now that I go slower than other people, so that I feel - myself an obstacle, and everybody brushes past me. I sigh for my own - private walks, small as they are, where nobody has a right to come but - myself, and my thoughts can go their ways uninterrupted. But oh, for - the old precipice walk and Moel Ispry solitudes! You will be amused to - hear that I actually gave an hour’s address to about 100 ladies at a - new club, five doors from me in this crescent, on Friday.... I was not - sorry to say a word more on that subject, and, of course, to bring in - how I trusted the votes of women to be against all sorts of cruelty, - including Vivisection. I found I had my voice and words still at - command.... They were nice, ladylike women in the club. One said she - would have seven votes if she were a man. I do believe that it would - be an immense gain for women themselves to have the larger interest - which politics would bring into their cramped lives, and to cease to - be de-considered as children.” - - -Miss Cobbe was too human, too full of sympathy with her -fellow-creatures, to know anything of the self-esteem which makes one -indifferent to the affection and admiration of others. She was simply -and openly pleased by this address, as the words I have quoted show; and -more than a year later, only a few days before her death, she wrote to -an old friend on _her_ 80th birthday:— - - - “My own experience of an 80th birthday was so much brightened by that - address ... that it stands out as a happy, albeit solemn, day in my - memory.” - - -While in Clifton, Miss Cobbe presided at the committee meetings of the -Bristol Branch of the British Union; and she even considered the -possibility of taking up the work once more in London. But a brief -visit, when she occupied rooms in Thurloe Gardens, proved too much for -her strength. The noise at night prevented her from sleeping, and she -was reluctantly—for she enjoyed this opportunity of seeing old -friends—obliged to return to North Wales. One Sunday morning when in -London, she told me that she walked to Hereford Square to see the little -house in which she and Miss Lloyd had spent the happiest years of their -lives. But the changed aspect of the rooms in which they had received -most of the distinguished men and women of that time distressed her, and -she regretted her visit. On February 21st, she wrote to me from -Hengwrt:— - - - “Dearest Blanche, - - “As you see I have got home all right, and this morning meant to write - to announce my arrival.... I have heaps of things to tell you, but - to-day am dazed by fatigue and change of air. It was quite warm in - London, and the cold here is great. But oh, how glad I am to be in the - peace of Hengwrt again—how thankful that I have such a refuge in my - old age! You will be glad, I know, that I can tell you I am in a great - deal better health than when I left.” - - -The first time I went to see her after her return, I found her standing -in front of an immense chart which was spread out on a table, studying -the successions of Egyptian dynasties. The address she had given in -Clifton at the ladies’ club was about to be printed in the _Contemporary -Review_, and she wanted to verify a statement she had made in it about -an Egyptian queen. She told me that this elaborate chronological and -genealogical chart had been made by her, when a girl of 18, on her own -plan. “How happy I was doing it,” she said, “with my mother on her sofa -watching me, and taking such interest in it!” It was very delightful to -find the old woman of 80 consulting the work of the girl of 18. - -Alas! the improvement in her health did not continue long. From that -time till the end, I hardly received a letter from Miss Cobbe without -some reference to the cheerless, gloomy weather. She was very sensitive -to the influences of the weather; and as one of her greatest pleasures -had always been to pass much time out of doors, it became a serious -deprivation to her when rain and cold made it impossible to take her -daily drive, or to walk and sit in her beloved garden. She thought that -some real and permanent change had come over our climate, and the want -of sunshine, during the last winter especially, terribly depressed her -spirits and health. I spent two or three happy days with her in the -spring, and one drive on an exquisite morning at the end of May will -long live in my memory. No one ever loved trees and flowers, mountain -and river, more than she, or took more delight in the pleasure they gave -to others. - -Gradually, as the year went on, serious symptoms showed themselves—and -she knew them to be serious. Attacks of faintness and complete -exhaustion often prevented her from enjoying the society of even her -dearest friends, though in spite of increasing weakness she struggled on -with all the weight of private correspondence and the business of her -new society; and sometimes, when strangers went to see her, they would -find her so bright and animated that they came away thinking our fears -for her unfounded. - -A visit from two American friends in the summer gave her much pleasure; -but all last year her anxieties and disappointments were great, and wore -down her strength. The Bayliss _v._ Coleridge case tried her grievously, -and the adverse verdict was a severe blow. The evident animus of the -public made her almost despair of ever obtaining that justice for -animals which had been the object of her efforts for so many years. Hope -deferred, and the growing opposition of principalities and powers, made -even her brave heart quail at times. One result of the trial, however, -gave her real satisfaction. The _Daily News_ opened its columns to a -correspondence on the subject of Vivisection, and the wide-spread -sympathy expressed with those who oppose it was, Miss Cobbe said, “the -greatest cheer she had known in this sad cause for years.” The two young -Swedish ladies who had been the principal witnesses at the trial, -visited her at Hengwrt in November, and I met them there one afternoon -at, I think, the last of her pleasant receptions. I have never seen her -more interested, more graciously hospitable, than on that day. She -listened to the account of the trial, sometimes with a smile of -approval, sometimes with tears in her eyes; and when we went into the -hall for tea, where the blazing wood fire lighted up the dark panelling, -and gleamed upon pictures, flowers, and curtains, and she moved about -talking to one and another with her sweet smile and kindly, earnest -words, some one present said to me, “How young she looks!” I think it -was the simplicity, the perfect naturalness of her manner and speech -that gave an aspect of almost childlikeness to the dear old face at -times. Every thought found expression in her countenance and voice. The -eyes, laughing or tearful, the gestures of her beautifully shaped hands, -were, to the last, full of animation. - -There was indeed a perennial flow of vitality which seemed to overcome -all physical weakness in Miss Cobbe. But if others were deceived as to -her health, she was not. As the dark, dreary winter went on, she grew -more and more depressed. Four days before the end came, I received the -following sad letter. Illness and other causes had made it impossible -for me to go to Hengwrt for some weeks. The day after her death I was to -have gone. - - - “It is very sad how the weeks go by, and we, living almost within - _sight_ of each other, fail to meet. It is most horribly cold to-day, - and I would not have had you come for anything.... I think our best - plan by far will be to settle that whenever you make your proposed - start abroad, you come to me for three or four days on your way. This - will let us have a little peaceful confab. I really want very much to - do what I have been thinking of so long, but have never done yet, and - give you advice about your future editorship of my poor books. To tell - you my own conviction, even if I should be living when you return, I - do not think I shall be up to this sort of business. I am getting into - a wretched state of inability to give _attention_ to things, and now - the chances are all for a speedy collapse. This winter has been too - great a trial for my old worn brains, and now the cold returning is - killing.” - - -Happily for her, she was spared the pain of any protracted period of -mental or bodily weakness. On Monday, April 4th, she drove out as usual, -wrote her letters (one to me, received after she was dead), and in the -afternoon enjoyed the visit of a neighbour, who took tea with her. It -was a better day with her than many had been of late, and she went to -bed cheerful and well. In the morning, having opened her shutters to let -in the blessed daylight, and to look her last upon the familiar scene of -mountain, valley, river, and wood, with the grey headstone visible in -the churchyard where her friend rested, she passed swiftly away, and was -found dead, with a smile of peace upon her face. A short time before, -she had written to me:— - - - “I am touched by your affectionate words, dear Blanche, but _nobody_ - must be sorry when that time comes, least of all those who love me.” - - -We can obey her request not to sorrow for her; but for all those—and -they are more than she ever realised—who loved her, the loss is beyond -words to tell. - -Miss Cobbe’s personality breathes through all her writings. Yet there -was a charm about her which not even her autobiography is able to -convey. It was the charm of an intensely sympathetic nature, quickly -moved to laughter or to tears, passionately indignant at cruelty and -cowardice, tender to suffering, touched to a generous delight at any -story of heroism. As an instance of this, I may recall that in the -spring of 1899 Miss Cobbe started a memorial to Mrs. Rogers, stewardess -of the _Stella_, by the gift of £25. The closing words of the -inscription she wrote for the beautiful drinking fountain which was -erected to that brave woman’s memory are worth recording here: - - “ACTIONS SUCH AS THESE— - SHOWING - STEADFAST PERFORMANCE OF DUTY IN THE FACE OF DEATH, - READY SELF-SACRIFICE FOR SAKE OF OTHERS, - RELIANCE ON GOD— - CONSTITUTE THE GLORIOUS HERITAGE OF OUR ENGLISH RACE. - THEY DESERVE PERPETUAL COMMEMORATION: - BECAUSE - AMONG THE TRIVIAL PLEASURES AND SORDID STRIFE OF THE WORLD - THEY REVEAL TO US FOR EVER - THE NOBILITY AND LOVE-WORTHINESS OF HUMAN NATURE.” - -In Miss Cobbe’s nature a gift of humour was joined to strong practical -sense. No one who ever lived less deserved the term “Faddist” or -“Sentimentalist.” Miss Cobbe was impatient of fads. She liked “normal” -people best—those who ate and drank, and dressed and lived according to -ordinary conventions. Though, for convenience sake, she had adopted a -style of dress for herself to which she kept, letting “Fashions” come -and go unheeded, she was not indifferent to dress in other women, and -admired colours and materials, or noted eccentricities as quickly as -anyone. She once referred laughingly to her own dress as “obvious.” For -many years dressmaker’s dresses would have been impossible to her; but -she had no sympathy with the effort some women make to look peculiar at -all costs. She could thoroughly enjoy a good story, or even a bit of -amusing gossip. With her own strong religious convictions, she had the -utmost respect for other people’s opinions. Her chosen friends held -widely different creeds, and I do not think that she ever dreamt of -proselytising. - -No literary person, surely, ever had less self-conceit. What she had -written was not flourished in one’s face; other people’s smallest doings -were not ignored. One felt always on leaving her that every one else was -lacking in something indefinable—was dull, uninteresting and -common-place. One felt, too, that the whole conception of womanhood was -raised. _This_ was what a woman might be. Whatever her faults, they were -the faults of a great-hearted, noble nature—faults which all generous -persons would be quick to forget. Nothing small or mean could be -tolerated by her. - -Her character, as I read it, was drawn on large and simple lines, and -was of a type that is out of fashion to-day. She had many points of -resemblance to Samuel Johnson. With a strong and logical brain, she -scorned all sophistries, evasions, compromises, and half measures, and -was impatient of the wire-drawn subtleties in which modern moralists -revel. With intensely warm affections, she was, like the great doctor, -“a good hater.” He would undoubtedly have classified her as “a clubbable -woman”; and his famous saying, “Clear your mind of cant,” would have -come as appropriately from her lips as from his. If a sin was hateful to -her, she could not feel amiably towards the sinner; and for the -spiritual sins of selfishness, hypocrisy, avarice, cruelty, and -callousness, she had no mercy, ranking them as far more fatal to -character than the sins of the flesh. Like Johnson, too, she valued good -birth, good breeding, and good manners, and was instinctively -conservative, though liberal in her religious and political opinions. - -She intensely disliked the license of modern life, both in manners and -morals, and had no toleration for the laxity so often pardoned in -persons of social or intellectual eminence. Her mind and her tastes were -strictly pure, orderly, and regular. It is characteristic of this type -of mind that she most admired the classical in architecture, the grand -style in art, the polished and finished verse of Pope and Tennyson in -poetry. These were the two whose words she most frequently quoted, -though she tells us that Shelley was her favourite poet. - -Her gift of order was exemplified in the smallest details and the -kindred power of organisation was equally well marked. It was the -combination of impulsiveness and enthusiasm with practical judgment and -a due sense of proportion that made her so splendid a leader in any -cause she championed. - -Miss Cobbe was what is often called “generous to a fault.” It was a -lesson in liberality to go with her into the garden when she cut flowers -to send away. She did not look for the defective blooms, or for those -which would not be missed. It was always the best and the finest which -she gave. How often I have held the basket while she cut rose after -rose, or great sprays of rhododendron or azælea with the knife she -wielded so vigorously. “Take as much as you like,” she would say, if she -sent you to help yourself. She gave not only material things, but -affection, interest sympathy, bountifully. - -She hated a lie of any kind; her first instinct was always to stamp it -out when she came across one. Perhaps, in her stronger days, she “drank -delight of battle with her peers,” and did not crave over much for -peace. But she was not quarrelsome, and could differ without wrangling, -and dispute without bitterness. - -A woman without husband or child is fortunate if, in her old age, she -has one or two friends who really love her. Miss Cobbe was devotedly -loved by a large number of men and women. Indeed, I do not think that -anyone could come close to her and not love her. She was so richly -gifted, and gave so freely of herself. - -To many younger women she had become the inspiration of and guide to a -life of high endeavour, and the letters of gratitude and devotion which -were addressed to her from all parts of the world bear witness, as -nothing else can, to the extent of her splendid influence upon the -characters of others. Only a day or two before her death she received -letters from strangers who had lately read her autobiography and felt -impelled to write and thank her for this story of a brave life. It is in -the hope that through it her influence may go on growing, and that her -spirit of self-sacrifice, of service to humanity, and faithfulness to -the Divine law may spread until the causes she fought for so valiantly -are victorious, that this new edition of the “Life of Frances Power -Cobbe” is sent out. - - BLANCHE ATKINSON. - - - - - AUTHOR’S PREFACE. - - -My life has been an interesting one to live and I hope that this record -of it may not prove too dull to read. The days are past when biographers -thought it necessary to apologize for the paucity of the adventures -which they could recall and the obscurity of the achievements which -their heroes might accomplish. We have gone far in the opposite -direction, and are wont to relate _in extenso_ details decidedly -trivial, and to reproduce in imposing type correspondence which was -scarcely worth the postage of the original manuscript. Our sense of the -intrinsic interest of Humanity, as depicted either in biography or -fiction,—that is, of the character of the _personages_ of the drama -going on upon our little stage,—has continually risen, while that of the -_action_ of the piece,—the “incidents” which our fathers chiefly -regarded,—has fallen into the second plane. I fear I have been guilty in -this book of recording many trifling memories and of reproducing some -letters of little importance; but only through small touches could a -happy childhood and youth be possibly depicted: and all the Letters -have, I think, a certain value as relics and tokens of friendship, if -not as expressions (as many of them are) of opinions carrying the weight -of honoured names. - -As regards these Letters (exclusively, of course, those of friends and -correspondents now dead), I earnestly beg the heirs of the writers to -pardon me if I have not asked their permission for the publication of -them. To have ascertained, in the first place, who such representatives -are and where they might be addressed, would, in many cases, have been a -task presenting prohibitive difficulties; and as the contents of the -Letters are wholly honourable to the heads and hearts of their authors, -I may fairly hope that surviving relatives will be pleased that they -should see the light, and will not grudge the testimony they bear to -kindly sentiments entertained towards myself.[1] - -There is in this book of mine a good deal of “_Old Woman’s Gossip_,” (I -hope of a harmless sort), concerning many interesting men and women with -whom it was my high privilege to associate freely twenty, thirty and -forty years ago. But if it correspond at all to my design, it is not -only, or chiefly, a collection of social sketches and friendly -correspondence. I have tried to make it the true and complete history of -a woman’s existence _as seen from within_; a real LIFE, which he who -reads may take as representing fairly the joys, sorrows and interests, -the powers and limitations, of one of my sex and class in the era which -is now drawing to a close. The world when I entered it was a very -different place from the world I must shortly quit, most markedly so as -regards the position in it of women and of persons like myself holding -heterodox opinions, and my experience practically bridges the gulf which -divides the English _ancien régime_ from the new. - -Whether my readers will think at the end of these volumes that such a -life as mine was worth _recording_ I cannot foretell; but that it has -been a “_Life Worth Living_” I distinctly affirm; so well worth it, -that,—though I entirely believe in a higher existence hereafter, both -for myself and for those whose less happy lives on earth entitle them -far more to expect it from eternal love and justice,—I would gladly -accept the permission to run my earthly race once more from beginning to -end, taking sunshine and shade just as they have flickered over the long -vista of my seventy years. Even the retrospect of my life in these -volumes has been a pleasure; a chewing of the cud of memories,—mostly -sweet, none very bitter,—while I lie still a little while in the -sunshine, ere the soon-closing night. - - F. P. C. - - - - - CONTENTS. - - - CHAP. PAGE - INTRODUCTION v - PREFACE xxvii - I. FAMILY AND HOME 1 - II. CHILDHOOD 29 - III. SCHOOL AND AFTER 55 - IV. RELIGION 79 - V. MY FIRST BOOK 107 - VI. IRELAND IN THE FORTIES. THE PEASANTRY 135 - VII. IRELAND IN THE FORTIES. THE GENTRY 163 - VIII. UPROOTED 201 - IX. LONG JOURNEY 217 - X. BRISTOL. REFORMATORIES AND RAGGED SCHOOLS 273 - XI. BRISTOL. THE SICK IN THE WORKHOUSE 301 - XII. BRISTOL. WORKHOUSE GIRLS 325 - XIII. BRISTOL FRIENDS 341 - XIV. ITALY. 1857–1879 363 - XV. MY LITERARY LIFE IN LONDON 397 - XVI. MY JOURNALIST LIFE IN LONDON 427 - XVII. MY SOCIAL LIFE IN LONDON IN THE SIXTIES AND SEVENTIES 441 - XVIII. MY SOCIAL LIFE IN LONDON IN THE SEVENTIES AND EIGHTIES 517 - XIX. THE CLAIMS OF WOMEN 581 - XX. THE CLAIMS OF BRUTES 613 - XXI. MY HOME IN WALES 693 - INDEX 713 - - - - - ERRATA - - - For Berwick read Bewick, p. 179, last line. - For Goldsmiths read Goldschmidts, p. 237, 8 lines from bottom. - For Goodwin read Godwin, p. 257, line 12. - For Macpelah read Machpelah, p. 237, line 12. - - - - - CHAPTER - I. - _FAMILY AND HOME._ - - -I have enjoyed through life the advantage of being, in the true sense of -the words, “well-born.” My parents were good and wise; honourable and -honoured; sound in body and in mind. From them I have inherited a -physical frame which, however defective even to the verge of -grotesqueness from the æsthetic point of view, has been, as regards -health and energy, a source of endless enjoyment to me. From childhood -till now in my old age—except during a few years interval of lameness -from an accident,—mere natural existence has always been to me a -positive pleasure. Exercise and rest, food and warmth, work, play and -sleep, each in its turn has been delightful; and my spirits, though of -course now no longer as gay as in youth, have kept a level of -cheerfulness subject to no alternatives of depression save under the -stress of actual sorrow. How much of the optimism which I am aware has -coloured my philosophy ought to be laid to the account of this bodily -_bien être_, it would be superfluous to enquire too nicely. At least I -may fairly maintain that, as Health is the normal condition of -existence, the views which a particularly healthy person takes of things -are presumably more sound than those adopted by one habitually in the -abnormal condition of an invalid. - -As regards the inheritance of mental faculties, of which so much has -been talked of late years, I cannot trace it in my own experience in any -way. My father was a very able, energetic man; but his abilities all lay -in the direction of administration, while those of my dear mother were -of the order which made the charming hostess and cultivated member of -society with the now forgotten grace of the eighteenth century. Neither -paternal nor maternal gifts or graces have descended to me; and such -faculties as have fallen to my lot have been of a different kind; a kind -which, I fear, my good father and his forbears would have regarded as -incongruous and unseemly for a daughter of their house to exhibit. -Sometimes I have pictured to myself the shock which “The old Master” -would have felt could he have seen me—for example—trudging three times a -week for seven years to an office in the purlieus of the Strand to write -articles for a half-penny newspaper. Not one of my ancestors, so far as -I have heard, ever dabbled in printer’s ink. - -My brothers were all older than I; the eldest eleven, the youngest five -years older; and my mother, when I was born, was in her forty-seventh -year; a circumstance which perhaps makes it remarkable that the physical -energy and high animal spirits of which I have just made mention came to -me in so large a share. My old friend Harriet St. Leger, Fanny Kemble’s -“dear H. S.,” who knew us all well, said to me one day laughing: “You -know _you_ are your Father’s _Son_!” Had I been a man, and had possessed -my brother’s facilities for entering Parliament or any profession,[2] I -have sometimes dreamed I could have made my mark and done some masculine -service to my fellow-creatures. But the woman’s destiny which God -allotted to me has been, I do not question, the best and happiest for -me; nor have I ever seriously wished it had been otherwise, albeit I -have gone through life without that interest which has been styled -“woman’s whole existence.” Perhaps if this book be found to have any -value it will partly consist in the evidence it must afford of how -pleasant and interesting, and withal, I hope, not altogether useless a -life is open to a woman, though no man has ever desired to share it, nor -has she seen the man she would have wished to ask her to do so. The days -which many maidens my contemporaries and acquaintances,— - - “Lost in wooing - In watching and pursuing,”— - -(or in being pursued, which comes to the same thing); were spent by me, -free from all such distractions, in study and in the performance of -happy and healthful filial and housewifely duties. Destiny, too, was -kind to me, likewise, by relieving me from care respecting the other -great object of human anxiety,—to wit, Money. The prophet’s prayer, -“Give me neither poverty nor riches” was granted to me, and I have -probably needed to spend altogether fewer thoughts on £ s. d. than could -happen to anyone who has either to solve the problems “How to keep the -Wolf from the door” and “How to make both ends meet?” or “How, justly -and conscientiously, to expend a large income?” Wealth has only come to -me in my old age, and now it is easy to know how to spend it. Thus it -has happened that in early womanhood and middle life I enjoyed a degree -of real _leisure_ of mind possessed by few; and to it, I think, must be -chiefly attributed anything which in my doings may have worn the -semblance of exceptional ability. I had good, sound working brains to -start with, and much fewer hindrances than the majority of women in -improving and employing them. _Voilà tout._ - -I began by saying that I was well-born in the true sense of the words, -being the child of parents morally good and physically sound. I reckon -it also to have been an advantage,—though immeasurably a minor one,—to -have been well-born, likewise, in the conventional sense. My ancestors, -it is true, were rather like those of Sir Leicester Dedlock, “chiefly -remarkable for never having done anything remarkable for so many -generations.”[3] But they were honourable specimens of county squires; -and never, during the four centuries through which I have traced them, -do they seem to have been guilty of any action of which I need to be -ashamed. - -My mother’s father was Captain Thomas Conway, of Morden Park, -representative of a branch of that family. Her only brother was Adjutant -General Conway, whose name Lord Roberts has kindly informed me is still, -after fifty years, an “honoured word in Madras.” My father’s progenitors -were, from the fifteenth century, for many generations owners of -Swarraton, now Lord Ashburton’s beautiful “Grange” in Hampshire; the -scene of poor Mrs. Carlyle’s mortifications. While at Swarraton the -heads of the family married, in their later generations, the daughters -of Welborne of Allington; of Sir John Owen; of Sir Richard Norton of -Rotherfield (whose wife was the daughter of Bishop Bilson, one of the -translators of the Bible); and of James Chaloner, Governor of the Isle -of Man, one of the Judges of Charles I. The wife of this last remarkable -man was Ursula Fairfax, niece of Lord Fairfax.[4] - -On one occasion only do the Cobbes of Swarraton seem to have transcended -the “Dedlock” programme. Richard Cobbe was Knight of the Shire for Hants -in Cromwell’s short Parliament of 1656, with Richard Cromwell for a -colleague. What he did therein History saith not! The grandson of this -Richard Cobbe, a younger son named Charles, went to Ireland in 1717 as -Chaplain to the Duke of Bolton with whom he was connected through the -Norton’s; and a few years later he was appointed Archbishop of Dublin,—a -post which he held with great honour until his death in 1765. On every -occasion when penal laws against Catholics were proposed in the Irish -House of Lords Archbishop Cobbe contended vigorously against them, -dividing the House again and again on the Bills; and his numerous -letters and papers in the Irish State-Paper office (as Mr. Froude has -assured me after inspection) bear high testimony to his liberality and -integrity in that age of corruption. Two traditions concerning him have -a certain degree of general interest. One, that John Wesley called upon -him at his country house,—my old home, Newbridge;—and that the interview -was perfectly friendly; Wesley approving himself and his work to the -Archbishop’s mind. The other is; that when Handel came to Dublin, -bringing with him the MS. of the _Messiah_, of which he could not -succeed in obtaining the production in London, Archbishop Cobbe, then -Bishop of Kildare, took lively interest in the work, and under his -patronage, as well as that of several Irishmen of rank, the great -Oratorio was produced in Dublin. - -Good Archbishop Cobbe had not neglected the affairs of his own -household. He bought considerable estates in Louth, Carlow, and Co. -Dublin, and on the latter, about twelve miles north of Dublin and two -miles from the pretty rocky coast of Portrane, he built his country -house of Newbridge, which has ever since been the home of our family. As -half my life is connected with this dear old place, I hope the reader -will look at the pictures of it which must be inserted in this book and -think of it as it was in my youth, bright and smiling and yet dignified; -bosomed among its old trees and with the green, wide-spreading park -opened out before the noble granite _perron_ of the hall door. There is -another country house on the adjoining estate, Turvey, the property of -Lord Trimleston, and I have often amused myself by comparing the two. -Turvey is really a _wicked-looking_ house, with half-moon windows which -suggest leering eyes, and partition walls so thick that secret passages -run through them; and bedrooms with tapestry and _ruelles_ and hidden -doors in the wainscot. There were there, also, when I was young, certain -very objectionable pictures, beside several portraits of the “beauties” -of Charles II.’s court, (to the last degree _decolletées_) who had been, -no doubt, friends of the first master of the house, their contemporary. -In the garden was a grotto with a deep cold bath in it, which, in the -climate of Ireland, suggested suicide rather than ablution. Altogether -the place had the same suggestiveness of “deeds of darkness” which I -remember feeling profoundly when I went over Holyrood with Dr. John -Brown; and it was quite natural to attach to Turvey one of the worst of -the traditional Irish curses. This curse was pronounced by the Abbess of -the neighbouring convent (long in ruins) of Grace-Dieu when Lord -Kingsland, then lord of Turvey, had by some nefarious means induced the -English Government of the day to make over the lands of the convent to -himself. On announcing this intelligence in his own hall to the -assembled nuns, the poor ladies took refuge very naturally in -malediction, went down simultaneously on their knees, and repeated after -their Abbess a denunciation of Heaven’s vengeance on the traitor. “There -should never want an idiot or a lawsuit in the family; and the rightful -heir should never see the smoke of the chimney.” Needless to add, -lawsuits and idiots have been plentiful ever since, and, after several -generations of absentees, Turvey stands in a treeless desert, and has -descended in the world from lordly to humble owners. - -How different was Newbridge! Built not by a dissolute courtier of -Charles II., but by the sensible Whig, and eminently Protestant -Archbishop, it has as open and honest a countenance as its neighbour has -the reverse. The solid walls, about three feet and a-half thick in most -parts, keep out the cold, but neither darken the large, lofty rooms, nor -afford space for devious and secret passages. The house stands -broadly-built and strong, not high or frowning; its Portland-stone -colour warm against the green of Irish woods and grass. Within doors -every room is airy and lightsome, and more than one is beautiful. There -is a fine staircase out of the second hall, the walls of which are -covered with old family pictures which the Archbishop had obtained from -his elder brother, Col. Richard Chaloner Cobbe, who had somehow lost -Swarraton, and whose line ended in an heiress, wife of the 11th Earl of -Huntingdon. A long corridor downstairs was, I have heard, formerly hung -from end to end with arms intended for defence in case of attack. When -the Rebellion of 1798 took place the weapons were hidden in a hole into -which I have peered, under the floor of a room off the great -drawing-room, but what became of them afterwards I do not know. My -father possessed only a few pairs of handsome pistols, two or three -blunderbusses, sundry guns of various kinds, and his own regimental -sword which he had used at Assaye. All these hung in his study. The -drawing-room with its noble proportions and its fifty-three pictures by -Vandyke, Ruysdael, Guercino, Vanderveldt and other old masters, was the -glory of the house. In it the happiest hours of my life were passed. - -Of this house and of the various estates bought and leased by the -Archbishop his only surviving son, Thomas Cobbe, my great-grandfather, -came into possession in the year 1765. Irreverently known to his -posterity as “Old Tommy” this gentleman after the fashion of his -contemporaries muddled away in keeping open house a good deal of the -property, and eventually sold one estate and (what was worse) his -father’s fine library. _Per contra_ he made the remarkable collection of -pictures of which I have spoken as adorning the walls of Newbridge. -Pilkington, the author of the _Dictionary of Painters_, was incumbent of -the little Vicarage of Donabate, and naturally somewhat in the relation -of chaplain to the squire of Newbridge, who had the good sense to send -him to Holland and Italy to buy the above-mentioned pictures, many of -which are described in the _Dictionary_. Some time previously, when -Pilkington had come out as an Art-critic, the Archbishop had -remonstrated with him on his unclerical pursuit; but the poor man -disarmed episcopal censure by replying, “Your Grace, I have preached for -a dozen years to an old woman who _can’t_ hear, and to a young woman who -_won’t_ hear; and now I think I may attend to other things!” - -Thomas Cobbe’s wife’s name has been often before the public in -connection with the story, told by Crabbe, Walter Scott and many others, -of the lady who wore a black ribbon on her wrist to conceal the marks of -a ghost’s fingers. The real ghost-seer in question, Lady Beresford, was -confounded by many with her granddaughter Lady Eliza Beresford, or, as -she was commonly called after her marriage, Lady Betty Cobbe. How the -confusion came about I do not know, but Lady Betty, who was a spirited -woman much renowned in the palmy days of Bath, was very indignant when -asked any questions on the subject. Once she received a letter from one -of Queen Charlotte’s Ladies-in-Waiting begging her to tell the Queen the -true story. Lady Betty in reply “presented her compliments but was sure -the Queen of England would not pry into the private affairs of her -subjects, and had _no intention of gratifying the impertinent curiosity -of a Lady-in-Waiting_!” Considerable labour was expended some years ago -by the late Primate (Marcus Beresford) of Ireland, another descendant of -the ghost-seer in identifying the real personages and dates of this -curious tradition. The story which came to me directly through my -great-aunt, Hon. Mrs. Henry Pelham, Lady Betty’s favourite daughter, -was, that the ghost was John Le Poer, Second Earl of Tyrone; and the -ghost-seer was his cousin, Nichola Hamilton, daughter of Lord Glerawly, -wife of Sir Tristram Beresford. The cousins had promised each other to -appear,—whichever of them first departed this life,—to the survivor. -Lady Beresford, who did not know that Lord Tyrone was dead, awoke one -night and found him sitting by her bedside. He gave her (so goes the -story) a short, but, under the circumstances, no doubt impressive -lesson, in the elements of orthodox theology; and then to satisfy her of -the reality of his presence, which she persisted in doubting, he twisted -the curtains of her bed through a ring in the ceiling, placed his hand -on a wardrobe and left on it the ominous mark of five burning fingers -(the late Hon. and Rev. Edward Taylor of Ardgillan Castle told me he had -seen this wardrobe!) and finally touched her wrist, which shrunk -incontinently and never recovered its natural hue. Before he vanished -the Ghost told Lady Beresford that her son should marry his brother’s -daughter and heiress; and that she herself should die at the birth of a -child after a second marriage, in her forty-second year. All these -prophecies, of course, came to pass. From the marriage of Sir Marcus -Beresford with the ghost’s niece, Catharine, Baroness Le Poer of -Curraghmore, has descended the whole clan of Irish Beresfords. He was -created Earl of Tyrone; his eldest son was the first Marquis of -Waterford; another son was Archbishop of Tuam, created Lord Decies; and -his fifth daughter was the Lady Betty Cobbe, my great-grandmother, -concerning whom I have told this old story. In these days of -Psychological Research I could not take on myself to omit it, though my -own private impression is, that Lady Beresford accidentally gave her -wrist a severe blow against her bedstead while she was asleep; and that, -by a law of dreaming which I have endeavoured to trace in my essay on -the subject, her mind instantly created the _myth_ of Lord Tyrone’s -apparition. Allowing for a fair amount of subsequent agglomeration of -incidents and wonders in the tradition, this hypothesis, I think quite -meets the exigencies of the case; and in obedience to the law of -Parsimony, we need not run to a preternatural explanation of the Black -Ribbon on the Wrist, no doubt the actual nucleus of the tale. - -I do not _dis_believe in ghosts; but unfortunately I have never been -able comfortably to believe in any particular ghost-story. The -overwhelming argument against the veracity of the majority of such -narrations is, that they contradict the great truth beautifully set -forth by Southey— - - “They sin who tell us Love can die!— - With life all other passions fly - All others are but vanity— - In Heaven, Ambition cannot dwell, - Nor Avarice in the vaults of hell. - Earthly these passions as of earth, - They perish where they had their birth— - But Love is indestructible....” - -The ghost of popular belief almost invariably exhibits the survival of -Avarice, Revenge, or some other thoroughly earthly passion, while for -the sake of the purest, noblest, tenderest Love scarcely ever has a -single Spirit of the departed been even supposed to return to comfort -the heart which death has left desolate. The famous story of Miss Lee is -one exception to this rule, and so is another tale which I found -recorded in an MS. Memorandum in the writing of my uncle the Rev. Henry -Cobbe, Rector of Templeton (_died_ 1823). - -“Lady Moira[5] was at one time extremely uneasy about her sister, Lady -Selina Hastings, from whom she had not heard for a considerable time. -One night she dreamed that her sister came to her, sat down by her -bedside, and said to her, ‘My dear sister, I am dying of fever. They -will not tell you of it because of your situation’ (she was then with -child), ‘but I shall die, and the account will be brought to your -husband by letter directed like a foreign one in a foreign hand.’ She -told her dream to her attendant, Mrs. Moth, as soon as she awoke, was -extremely unhappy for letters, till at length, the day after, there -arrived one, directed as she had been told, which contained an account -of her sister’s death. It had been written by her brother, Lord -Huntingdon, and in a feigned hand, lest she should ask to know the -contents. - -“She had many other extraordinary dreams, and it is very remarkable that -after the death of her attendant, Moth, who had educated her and her -children, and was the niece of the famous Bishop Hough, that she (Moth) -generally took a part in them, particularly if they related to any loss -in her family. Indeed, I believe she never dreamed of her except when -she was to undergo a loss. Lady Granard told me an instance of this: Her -second son Colonel Rawdon died very suddenly. He had not been on good -terms with Lady Moira for some time. One night she dreamed that Moth -came into the room, and upon her asking her what she wanted she said, -‘My lady, I am come to bring the Colonel to you.’ Then he entered, came -near her, and coming within the curtains, sat on the bed and said, ‘My -dearest mother, I am going a very long journey, and I cannot bear to go -without the assurance of your forgiveness.’ Then she threw her arms -about his neck and said, ‘Dear Son, can you doubt my forgiving you? But -where are you going?’ He replied, ‘A long journey, but I am happy now -that I have seen you.’ The next day she received an account of his -death. - -“About a fortnight before her death, when Lady Granard and Lady -Charlotte Rawdon, her daughters, were sitting up in her room, she awoke -suddenly, very ill and very much agitated, saying that she had dreamed -that Mrs. Moth came into her room. When she saw her she was so full of -the idea that evils always attended her appearance that she said, ‘Ah, -Moth, I fear you are come for my Selina’ (Lady G.). Moth replied, ‘No, -my Lady, but I am come for Mr. John.’ They gave her composing drops and -soothed her; she soon fell asleep, and from that time never mentioned -her son’s name nor made any inquiry about him; but he died on the very -day of her dream, though she never knew it.” - -Old Thomas Cobbe and after him his only son, Charles Cobbe, represented -the (exceedingly-rotten) Borough of Swords for a great many years in the -Irish Parliament, which was then in its glory, resonant with the -eloquence of Flood (who had married Lady Betty’s sister, Lady Jane) and -of Henry Grattan. On searching the archives of Dublin, however, in the -hope of discovering that our great-grandfather had done some public good -in his time, my brother and I had the mortification to find that on the -only occasion when reference was made to his name, it was in connection -with charges of bribery and corruption! On the other hand, it is -recorded to his honour that he was almost the only one among the Members -of the Irish Parliament who voted for the Union, and yet refused either -a peerage or money compensation for his seat. Instead of these he -obtained for Swords some educational endowments by which I believe the -little town still profits. In the record of corruption sent by Lord -Randolph Churchill to the _Times_ (May 29th, 1893), in which appears a -charge of interested motives against nearly every Member of the Irish -Parliament of 1784, “Mr. Cobbe” stands honourably alone as without any -“object” whatever. - -Thomas Cobbe’s two daughters, my great-aunts and immediate predecessors -as the Misses Cobbe, of Newbridge, (my grandfather having only sons) -differed considerably in all respects from their unworthy niece. They -occupied, so said tradition, the large cheerful room which afterwards -became my nursery. A beam across the ceiling still bore, in my time, a -large iron staple firmly fixed in the centre from whence had dangled a -hand-swing. On this swing my great-aunts were wont to hang by their -arms, to enable their maids to lace their stays to greater advantage. -One of them, afterwards the Hon. Mrs. Henry Pelham, Lady-in-Waiting to -Queen Caroline, likewise wore the high-heeled shoes of the period; and -when she was an aged woman she showed her horribly deformed feet to one -of my brothers, and remarked to him: “See, Tom, what comes of -high-heeled shoes!” I am afraid many of the girls now wearing similarly -monstrous foot-gear will learn the same lesson too late. Mrs. Pelham, I -have heard, was the person who practically brought the house about the -ears of the unfortunate Queen Caroline; being the first to throw up her -appointment at Court when she became aware of the Queen’s private -on-goings. Her own character stood high; and the fact that she would no -longer serve the Queen naturally called attention to all the -circumstances. Bad as Queen Caroline was, George the Fourth was -assuredly worse than she. In his old age he was personally very -disgusting. My mother told me that when she received his kiss on -presentation at his Drawing-Room, the contact with his face was -sickening, like that with a corpse. I still possess the dress she wore -on that occasion. - -Mrs. Pelham’s sister married Sir Henry Tuite, of Sonnagh, and for many -years of her widowhood lived in the Circus, Bath, and perhaps may still -be remembered there by a few as driving about her own team of four -horses in her curricle, in days when such doings by ladies were more -rare than they are now. - -The only brother of these two Miss Cobbes of the past, Charles Cobbe, of -Newbridge, M.P., married Anne Power Trench, of Garbally, sister of the -first Earl of Clancarty. The multitudinous clans of Trenches and Moncks, -in addition to Lady Betty’s Beresford relations, of course thenceforth -adopted the habit of paying visitations at Newbridge. Arriving by -coachloads, with trains of servants, they remained for months at a time. -A pack of hounds was kept, and the whole _train de vie_ was liberal in -the extreme. Naturally, after a certain number of years of this kind of -thing, embarrassments beset the family finances; but fortunately at the -crisis Lady Betty came under the influence of her husband’s cousin, the -Methodist Countess of Huntingdon, and ere long renounced the vanities -and pleasures of the world, and persuaded her husband to retire with her -and live quietly at Bath, where they died and were buried in Weston -churchyard. Fifty years afterwards I found in the library at Newbridge -the little batch of books which had belonged to my great-grandmother in -this phase of her life, and were marked by her pencil: _Jacob Boehmen_ -and the _Life of Madame Guyon_ being those which I now recall. The -peculiar, ecstatic pietism which these books breathe, differing _toto -cœlo_ from the “other worldliness” of the divines of about 1810, with -whose works the “Good-book Rows” of our library were replenished, -impressed me very vividly.[6] - -I have often tried to construct in my mind some sort of picture of the -society which existed in Ireland a hundred years ago, and moved in those -old rooms wherein the first half of my life was spent, but I have found -it a very baffling undertaking. Apparently it combined a considerable -amount of æsthetic taste with traits of genuine barbarism; and high -religious pretension with a disregard of everyday duties and a -_penchant_ for gambling and drinking which would now place the most -avowedly worldly persons under a cloud of opprobrium. Card-playing was -carried on incessantly. Tradition says that the tables were laid for it -on rainy days at 10 o’clock in the morning in Newbridge drawing-room; -and on every day in the interminable evenings which followed the then -fashionable four o’clock dinner. My grandmother was so excellent a -whist-player that to extreme old age in Bath she habitually made a -small, but appreciable, addition to her income out of her “card purse”; -an ornamental appendage of the toilet then, and even in my time, in -universal use. I was given one as a birthday present in my tenth year. -She was greatly respected by all, and beloved by her five sons; every -one of whom, however, she had sent out to be nursed at a cottage in the -park till they were three years old. Her motherly duties were supposed -to be amply fulfilled by occasionally stopping her carriage to see how -the children were getting on. - -As to the drinking among the men, (the women seem not to have shared the -vice) it must have prevailed to a disgusting extent upstairs and -downstairs. A fuddled condition after dinner was accepted as the normal -one of a gentleman, and entailed no sort of disgrace. On the contrary, -my father has told me that in his youth his own extreme sobriety gave -constant offence to his grandfather, and to his comrades in the army; -and only by showing the latter that he would sooner fight than be -bullied to drink to excess could he obtain peace. Unhappily, poor man! -while his grandfather, who seldom went to bed quite sober for forty -years, lived to the fine old age of 82, enjoying good health to the -last, his temperate grandson inherited the gout and in his latter years -was a martyr thereto. Among the exceedingly beautiful old Indian and old -Worcester china which belonged to Thomas Cobbe and showed his good taste -and also the splendid scale of his entertainments (one dessert-service -for 36 persons was magnificent) there stands a large goblet calculated -to hold _three bottles_ of wine. This glass (tradition avers) used to be -filled with claret, seven guineas were placed at the bottom, and he who -drank it pocketed the coin. - -The behaviour of these Anglo-Irish gentry of the last century to their -tenants and dependants seems to have proceeded on the truly Irish -principle of being generous before you are just. The poor people lived -in miserable hovels which nobody dreamed of repairing; but then they -were welcome to come and eat and drink at the great house on every -excuse or without any excuse at all. This state of things was so -perfectly in harmony with Celtic ideas that the days when it prevailed -are still sighed after as the “good old times.” Of course there was a -great deal of Lady Bountiful business, and also of medical charity-work -going forward. Archbishop Cobbe was fully impressed with the merits of -the Tar-water so marvellously set forth by his suffragan, Bishop -Berkeley, and I have seen in his handwriting in a book of his wife’s -cookery receipts, a receipt for making it, beginning with the formidable -item: “Take six gallons of the best French brandy.” Lady Betty was a -famous compounder of simples, and of things that were not simple, and a -“Chilblain Plaister” which bore her name, was not many years ago still -to be procured in the chemists’ shops in Bath. I fear her prescriptions -were not always of so unambitious a kind as this. One day she stopped a -man on the road and asked his name—“Ah, then, my lady,” was the reply, -“don’t you remember me? Why, I am the husband of the woman your ladyship -gave the medicine to _and she died the next day. Long life to your -Ladyship!_” - -As I have said, the open-housekeeping at Newbridge at last came to an -end, and the family migrated to No. 9 and No. 22, Marlborough Buildings, -Bath, where two generations spent their latter years, died, and were -buried in Weston churchyard, where I have lately restored their -tombstones. - -My grandfather died long before his father, and my father, another -Charles Cobbe, found himself at eighteen pretty well his own master, the -eldest of five brothers. He had been educated at Winchester, where his -ancestors for eleven generations went to school in the old days of -Swarraton; and to the end of his life he was wont to recite lines of -Anacreon learned therein. But his tastes were active rather than -studious, and disliking the idea of hanging about his mother’s house -till his grandfather’s death should put him in possession of Newbridge, -he listened with an enchanted ear to a glowing account which somebody -gave him of India, where the Mahratta wars were just beginning. - -Without much reflection or delay, he obtained a cornet’s commission in -the 19th Light Dragoons and sailed for Madras. Very shortly he was -engaged in active service under Wellesley, who always treated him with -special kindness as another Anglo-Irish gentleman. He fought at many -minor battles and sieges, and also at Assaye and Argaum; receiving his -medal for these two, just fifty years afterwards. I shall write of this -again a little further on in this book. - -At last he fell ill of the fever of the country, which in those days was -called “ague,” and was left in a remote place absolutely helpless. He -was lying in bed one day in his tent when a Hindoo came in and addressed -him very courteously, asking after his health. My father incautiously -replied that he was quite prostrated by the fever. “What! Not able to -move at all, not to walk a step?” said his visitor. “No! I cannot stir,” -said my father. “Oh, in that case, then,” said the man,—and without more -ado he seized my father’s desk, in which were all his money and -valuables, and straightway made off with it before my father could -summon his servants. His condition, thus left alone in an enemy’s -country without money, was bad enough, but he managed to send a trusty -messenger to Sir Arthur Wellesley, who promptly lent him all he -required. - -Finding that there was no chance of his health being sufficiently -restored in India to permit of further active service, and the Mahratta -wars being practically concluded, my father sold his commission of -Lieutenant and returned to England, quietly letting himself into his -mother’s house in Bath on his return by the latch-key, which he had -carried with him through all his journeys. All his life long the impress -made both on his outward bearing and character by those five years of -war were very visible. He was a fine soldier-like figure, six feet high, -and had ridden eighteen stone in his full equipment. His face was, I -suppose, ugly, but it was very intelligent, very strong willed, and very -unmistakeably that of a gentleman. He was under-jawed, very pale, with a -large nose, and small, grey, very lively eyes; but he had a beautiful -white forehead from which his hair, even in old age, grew handsomely, -and his head was very well set on his broad shoulders. The photograph in -the next volume represents him at 76. He rode admirably, and a better -figure on horseback could not be seen. At all times there was an aspect -of strength and command about him, which his vigorous will and (truth -compels me to add) his not seldom fiery temper, fully sustained. On the -many occasions when we had dinner parties at Newbridge, he was a -charming, gay and courteous host; and I remember being struck, when he -once wore a court dress and took me with him to pay his respects to a -Tory Lord Lieutenant, by the contrast which his figure and bearing -presented to that of nearly all the other men in similar attire. _They_ -looked as if they were masquerading, and he as if the lace-ruffles and -plum coat and sword were his habitual dress. He had beautiful hands, of -extraordinary strength. - -One day he was walking with one of his lady cousins on his arm in the -street. A certain famous prize-fighting bully, the Sayers or Heenan of -the period, came up hustling and elbowing every passenger off the -pavement. When my father saw him approach he made his cousin take his -left arm, and as the prize-fighter prepared to shoulder him, he -delivered with his right fist, without raising it, a blow which sent the -ruffian fainting into the arms of his companions. Having deposited his -cousin in a shop, my father went back for the sequel of the adventure, -and was told that the “Chicken” (or whatever he was called) had had his -ribs broken. - -After his return from India, my father soon sought a wife. He flirted -sadly, I fear, with his beautiful cousin, Louisa Beresford, the daughter -of his great-uncle, the Archbishop of Tuam; and one of the ways in which -he endeavoured to ingratiate himself was to carry about at all times a -provision of bon-bons and barley-sugar with which to ply the venerable -and sweet-toothed prelate; who was generally known as “The Beauty of -Holiness.” How the wooing would have prospered cannot be told, but -before it had reached a crisis a far richer lover appeared on the -scene—Mr. Hope. “Anastasius Hope,” as he was called from the work of -which he was the author, was immensely wealthy, and a man of great taste -in art, but he had the misfortune to be so excessively ugly that a -painter whom he offended by not buying his picture, depicted him and -Miss Beresford as “Beauty and the Beast,” and exhibited his painting at -the Bath Pump-room, where her brother, John Beresford (afterwards the -second Lord Decies) cut it deliberately to pieces. An engagement between -Mr. Hope and Miss Beresford was announced not long after the arrival of -Mr. Hope in Bath; and my mother, then Miss Conway, going to pay a visit -of congratulation to Miss Beresford, found her reclining on a blue silk -sofa appropriately perusing _The Pleasures of Hope_. After the death of -Mr. Hope (by whom she was the mother of Mr. Beresford-Hope, Mr. Adrian -and Mr. Henry Hope), Mrs. Hope married the illegitimate son of her -uncle, the Marquis of Waterford—Field Marshal Lord Beresford—a fine old -veteran, with whom she long lived happily in the corner house in -Cavendish Square, where my father and brothers always found a warm -welcome. - -At length, after some delays, my father had the great good fortune to -induce my dear mother to become his wife, and they were married at Bath, -March 13th, 1809. Frances Conway was, as I have said, daughter of Capt. -Thomas Conway, of Morden Park. Her father and mother both died whilst -she was young and she was sent to the famous school of Mrs. Devis, in -Queen Square, Bloomsbury, of which I shall have something presently to -say, and afterwards lived with her grandmother, who at her death -bequeathed to her a handsome legacy, at Southampton. When her -grandmother died, she being then sixteen years of age, received an -invitation from Colonel and Mrs. Champion to live with them and become -their adopted daughter. The history of this invitation is rather -touching. Mrs. Champion’s parents had, many years before, suffered great -reverses, and my mother’s grandfather had done much to help them, and, -in particular, had furnished means for Mrs. Champion to go out to India. -She returned after twenty years as the childless wife of the rich and -kindly old Colonel, the friend of Warren Hastings, who having been -commander-in-chief of the Forces of the East India Company had had a -good “shake of the Pagoda tree.” She repaid to the grandchild the -kindness done by the grandfather; and was henceforth really a mother to -my mother, who dearly loved both her and Col. Champion. In their -beautiful house, No. 29, Royal Crescent, she saw all the society of Bath -in its palmiest days, Mrs. Champion’s Wednesday evening parties being -among the most important in the place. My mother’s part as daughter of -the house was an agreeable one, and her social talents and -accomplishments fitted her perfectly for the part. The gentle gaiety, -the sweet dignity and ease of her manners and conversation remain to me -as the memory of something exquisite, far different even from the best -manner and talk of my own or the present generation; and I know that the -same impression was always made on her visitors in her old age. I can -compare it to nothing but the delicate odour of the dried rose leaves -with which her china vases were filled and her wardrobes perfumed. - -I hardly know whether my mother were really beautiful, though many of -the friends who remembered her in early womanhood spoke of her as being -so. To me her face was always the loveliest in the world; indeed it was -the one through which my first dawning perception of beauty was -awakened. I can remember looking at her as I lay beside her on the sofa, -where many of her suffering hours were spent, and suddenly saying, -“Mamma you are so pretty!” She laughed and kissed me, saying, “I am glad -you think so my child;” but that moment really brought the revelation to -me of that wonderful thing in God’s creation, the _Beautiful_! She had -fine features, a particularly delicate, rather thin-lipped mouth; -magnificent chestnut hair, which remained scarcely changed in colour or -quantity till her death at seventy years of age; and the clear, pale -complexion and hazel eyes which belong to such hair. She always dressed -very well and carefully. I never remember seeing her downstairs except -in some rich dark silk, and with a good deal of fine lace about her cap -and old-fashioned _fichu_. Her voice and low laughter were singularly -sweet, and she possessed both in speaking and writing a full and varied -diction which in later years she carefully endeavoured to make me share, -instead of satisfying myself, in school-girl fashion, with making one -word serve a dozen purposes. She was an almost omnivorous reader; and, -according to the standard of female education in her generation, highly -cultivated in every way; a good musician with a very sweet touch of the -piano, and speaking French perfectly well. - -Immediately after their marriage my parents took possession of -Newbridge, and my father began earnestly the fulfilment of all the -duties of a country gentleman, landlord and magistrate. My mother, -indeed, used laughingly to aver that he “went to jail on their wedding -day,” for he stopped at Bristol on the road and visited a new prison -with a view to introducing improvements into Irish jails. It was due -principally to his exertions that the county jail, the now celebrated -Kilmainham, was afterwards erected. - -Newbridge having been deserted for nearly thirty years, the woods had -been sorely injured and the house and out-buildings dilapidated, but -with my father’s energy and my mother’s money things were put straight; -and from that time till his death in 1857 my father lived and worked -among his people. - -Though often hard pressed to carry out with a very moderate income all -his projects of improvements, he was never in debt. One by one he -rebuilt or re-roofed almost every cottage on his estate, making what had -been little better than pig-styes, fit for human habitation; and when he -found that his annual rents could never suffice to do all that was -required in this way for his tenants in his mountain property, he -induced my eldest brother, then just of age, to join with him in selling -two of the pictures which were the heirlooms of the family and the pride -of the house, a Gaspar Poussin and a Hobbema, which last now adorns the -walls of Dorchester House. I remember as a child seeing the tears in his -eyes as this beautiful painting was taken out of the room in which it -had been like a perpetual ray of sunshine. But the sacrifice was -completed, and 80 good stone and slate “Hobbema Cottages,” as we called -them, soon rose all over Glenasmoil. Be it noted by those who deny every -merit in an Anglo-Irish landlord, that not a farthing was added to the -rent of the tenants who profited by this real act of self-denial. - -All this however refers to later years. I have now reached to the period -when I may introduce myself on the scene. Before doing so, however, I am -tempted to print here a letter which my much valued friend, Miss Felicia -Skene, of Oxford, has written to me on learning that I am preparing this -autobiography. She is one of the very few now living who can remember my -mother, and I gratefully quote what she has written of her as -corroborating my own memories, else, perhaps, discounted by the reader -as coloured by a daughter’s partiality. - - - April 4th, 1894. - - My dearest Frances,— - - I know well that in recalling the days of your bright youth in your - grand old home, the most prominent figure amongst those who surrounded - you then, must be that of your justly idolised mother, and I cannot - help wishing to add my testimony, as of one unbiassed by family ties, - to all that you possessed in her while she remained with you; and all - that you so sadly lost when she was taken from you. To remember the - _châtelaine_ of Newbridge is to recall one of the fairest and sweetest - memories of my early life. When I first saw that lovely, gracious lady - with her almost angelic countenance and her perfect dignity of manner, - I had just come from a gay Eastern capital,—my home from childhood, - where no such vision of a typical English gentlewoman had ever - appeared before me; and the impression she made upon me was therefore - almost a revelation of what a refined, high-bred lady could be in all - that was pure and lovely and of good report, and yet I think I only - shared in the fascination which she exercised on all who came within - the sphere of her influence. To me, almost a stranger, whom she - welcomed as your friend under her roof, her exquisite courtesy would - alone have been most charming, but for your sake she showed me all the - tenderness of her sweet sympathetic nature, and it was no marvel to me - that she was the idol of her children and the object of deepest - respect and admiration to all who knew her. - - Beautiful Newbridge with its splendid hospitality is like a dream to - me now, of what a gentleman’s estate and country home could be in - those days when ancient race and noble family traditions were still of - some account. - - Ever affectionately yours, - F. M. F. SKENE. - - 13, New Inn Hall Street, Oxford. - - - - - CHAPTER - II. - _CHILDHOOD._ - - -[Illustration: - - _Newbridge, Co. Dublin._ -] - -I was born on the morning of the 4th December, 1822; at sunrise. There -had been a memorable storm during the night, and Dublin, where my father -had taken a house that my mother might be near her doctor, was strewn -with the wrecks of trees and chimney pots. My parents had already four -sons, and after the interval of five years since the birth of the -youngest, a girl was by no means welcome. I have never had reason, -however, to complain of being less cared for or less well treated in -every way than my brothers. If I have become in mature years a “Woman’s -Rights’ Woman” it has not been because in my own person I have been made -to feel a Woman’s Wrongs. On the contrary, my brothers’ kindness and -tenderness to me have been unfailing from my infancy. I was their -“little Fà’,” their pet and plaything when they came home for their -holidays; and rough words not to speak of knocks,—never reached me from -any of them or from my many masculine cousins, some of whom, as my -father’s wards, I hardly distinguished in childhood from brothers. - -A few months after my birth my parents moved to a house named Bower Hill -Lodge in Melksham, which my father hired, I believe, to be near his boys -at school, and I have some dim recollections of the verandah of the -house, and also of certain raisins which I appropriated, and of -suffering direful punishment at my father’s hands for the crime! Before -I was four years old we returned to Newbridge, and I was duly installed -with my good old Irish nurse, Mary Malone, in the large nursery at the -end of the north corridor—the most charming room for a child’s abode I -have ever seen. It was so distant from the regions inhabited by my -parents that I was at full liberty to make any amount of noise I -pleased; and from the three windows I possessed a commanding view of the -stable yard, wherein there was always visible an enchanting spectacle of -dogs, cats, horses, grooms, gardeners, and milkmaids. A grand old -courtyard it is; a quadrangle about a rood in size surrounded by -stables, coach-houses, kennels, a laundry, a beautiful dairy, a -labourer’s room, a paint shop, a carpenter’s shop, a range of granaries -and fruitlofts with a great clock in the pediment in the centre; and a -well in the midst of all. Behind the stables and the kennels appear the -tops of walnut and chestnut trees and over the coach-houses on the other -side can be seen the beautiful old kitchen garden of six acres with its -lichen-covered red brick walls, backed again by trees; and its formal -straight terraces and broad grass walks. - -In this healthful, delightful nursery, and in walks with my nurse about -the lawns and shrubberies, the first years of my happy childhood went -by; fed in body with the freshest milk and eggs and fruit, everything -best for a child; and in mind supplied only with the simple, sweet -lessons of my gentle mother. No unwholesome food, physical or moral, was -ever allowed to come in my way till body and soul had almost grown to -their full stature. When I compare such a lot as this (the common lot, -of course, of English girls of the richer classes, blessed with good -fathers and mothers) with the case of the hapless young creatures who -are fed from infancy with insufficient and unwholesome food, perhaps -dosed with gin and opium from the cradle, and who, even as they acquire -language, learn foul words, curses and blasphemies,—when I compare, I -say, my happy lot with the miserable one of tens of thousands of my -brother men and sister women, I feel appalled to reflect, by how -different a standard must they and I be judged by eternal Justice! - -In such an infancy the events were few, but I can remember with -amusement the great exercise of my little mind concerning a certain -mythical being known as “Peter.” The story affords a droll example of -the way in which fetishes are created among child-minded savages. One -day, (as my mother long afterwards explained to me), I had been hungrily -eating a piece of bread and butter out of doors, when one of the -greyhounds, of which my father kept several couples, bounded past me and -snatched the bread and butter from my little hands. The outcry which I -was preparing to raise on my loss was suddenly stopped by the bystanders -judiciously awakening my sympathy in Peter’s enjoyment, and I was led up -to stroke the big dog and make friends with him. Seeing how successful -was this diversion, my nurse thenceforward adopted the practice of -seizing everything in the way of food, knives, &c., which it was -undesirable I should handle, and also of shutting objectionably open -doors and windows, exclaiming “O! Peter! Peter has got it! Peter has -shut it!”—as the case might be. Accustomed to succumb to this unseen -Fate under the name of Peter, and soon forgetting the dog, I came to -think there was an all-powerful, invisible Being constantly behind the -scenes, and had so far pictured him as distinct from the real original -Peter that on one occasion when I was taken to visit at some house where -there was an odd looking end of a beam jutting out under the ceiling, I -asked in awe-struck tones: “Mama! is that Peter’s head?” - -My childhood, though a singularly happy, was an unusually lonely one. My -dear mother very soon after I was born became lame from a trifling -accident to her ankle (ill-treated, unhappily, by the doctors) and she -was never once able in all her life to take a walk with me. Of course I -was brought to her continually; first to be nursed,—for she fulfilled -that sacred duty of motherhood to all her children, believing that she -could never be so sure of the healthfulness of any other woman’s -constitution as of her own. Later, I seem to my own memory to have been -often cuddled up close to her on her sofa, or learning my little -lessons, mounted on my high chair beside her, or repeating the Lord’s -Prayer at her knee. All these memories are infinitely sweet to me. Her -low, gentle voice, her smile, her soft breast and arms, the atmosphere -of dignity which always surrounded her,—the very odour of her clothes -and lace, redolent of dried roses, come back to me after three-score -years with nothing to mar their sweetness. She never once spoke angrily -or harshly to me in all her life, much less struck or punished me; and -I—it is a comfort to think it—never, so far as I can recall, disobeyed -or seriously vexed her. She had regretted my birth, thinking that she -could not live to see me grow to womanhood, and shrinking from a renewal -of the cares of motherhood with the additional anxiety of a daughter’s -education. But I believe she soon reconciled herself to my existence, -and made me, first her pet, and then her companion and even her -counsellor. She told me, laughingly, how, when I was four years old, my -father happening to be away from home she made me dine with her, and as -I sat in great state beside her on my little chair I solemnly remarked: -“Mama, is it not a very _comflin_ thing to have a little girl?” an -observation which she justly thought went to prove that she had betrayed -sufficiently to my infantine perspicacity that she enjoyed my company at -least as much as hers was enjoyed by me. - -My nurse who had attended all my brothers, was already an elderly woman -when recalled to Newbridge to take charge of me; and though a dear, kind -old soul and an excellent nurse, she was naturally not much of a -playfellow for a little child, and it was very rarely indeed that I had -any young visitor in my nursery or was taken to see any of my small -neighbours. Thus I was from infancy much thrown on my own resources for -play and amusement; and from that time to this I have been rather a -solitary mortal, enjoying above all things lonely walks and studies; and -always finding my spirits rise in hours and days of isolation. I think I -may say I have _never_ felt depressed when living alone. As a child I -have been told I was a very merry little chick, with a round, fair face -and abundance of golden hair; a typical sort of Saxon child. I was -subject then and for many years after, to furious fits of anger, and on -such occasions I misbehaved myself exceedingly. “Nanno” was then wont -peremptorily to push me out into the long corridor and bolt the nursery -door in my face, saying in her vernacular, “Ah, then! you _bould -Puckhawn_ (audacious child of Puck)! I’ll get _shut_ of you!” I think I -feel now the hardness of that door against my little toes, as I kicked -at it in frenzy. Sometimes, when things were very bad indeed, Nanno -conducted me to the end of the corridor at the top of a very long -winding stone stair, near the bottom of which my father occasionally -passed on his way to the stables. “Yes, Sir! Yes, Sir! She’ll be good -immadiently, Sir, you needn’t come upstairs, Sir!” Then, _sotto voce_, -to me, “Don’t ye hear the Masther? Be quiet now, my darlint, or he’ll -come up the stairs!” Of course, “the Masther” seldom or never was really -within earshot on these occasions. Had he been so Nanno would have been -the last person seriously to invoke his dreaded interference in my -discipline. But the alarm usually sufficed to reduce me to submission. I -had plenty of toddling about out of doors and sitting in the sweet grass -making daisy and dandelion chains, and at home playing with the remnants -of my brother’s Noah’s Ark, and a magnificent old baby-house which stood -in one of the bedrooms, and was so large that I can dimly remember -climbing up and getting into the doll’s drawing-room. - -My fifth birthday was the first milestone on Life’s road which I can -recall. I recollect being brought in the morning into my mother’s -darkened bedroom (she was already then a confirmed invalid), and how she -kissed and blessed me, and gave me childish presents, and also a -beautiful emerald ring which I still possess, and pearl bracelets which -she fastened on my little arms. No doubt she wished to make sure that -whenever she might die these trinkets should be known to be mine. She -and my father also gave me a Bible and Prayer Book, which I could read -quite well, and proudly took next Sunday to church for my first -attendance, when the solemn occasion was much disturbed by a little girl -in a pew below howling for envy of my white beaver bonnet, displayed in -the fore-front of the gallery which formed our family seat. “Why did -little Miss Robinson cry?” I was deeply inquisitive on the subject, -having then and always during my childhood regarded “best clothes” with -abhorrence. - -Two years later my grandmother, having bestowed on me, at Bath, a -sky-blue silk pelisse, I managed nefariously to tumble down on purpose -into a gutter full of melted snow the first day it was put on, so as to -be permitted to resume my little cloth coat. - -Now, aged five, I was emancipated from the nursery and allowed to dine -thenceforward at my parents’ late dinner, while my good nurse was -settled for the rest of her days in a pretty ivy-covered cottage with -large garden, at the end of the shrubbery. She lived there for several -years with an old woman for servant, who I can well remember, but who -must have been of great age, for she had been under-dairymaid to my -great great-grandfather, the Archbishop, and used to tell us stories of -“old times.” This “old Ally’s” great grandchildren were still living, -recently, in the family service in the same cottage which poor “Nanno” -occupied. Ally was the last wearer of the real old Irish scarlet cloak -in our part of the country; and I can remember admiring it greatly when -I used to run by her side and help her to carry her bundle of sticks. -Since those days, even the long blue frieze cloak which succeeded -universally to the scarlet—a most comfortable, decent, and withal -graceful peasant garment, very like the blue cotton one of the Arab -fellah-women—has itself nearly or totally disappeared in Fingal. - -On the retirement of my nurse, the charge of my little person was -committed to my mother’s maid and housekeeper, Martha Jones. She came to -my mother a blooming girl of eighteen, and she died of old age and -sorrow when I left Newbridge at my father’s death half-a-century -afterwards. She was a fine, fair, broad-shouldered woman, with a certain -refinement above her class. Her father had been an officer in the army, -and she was educated (not very extensively) at some little school in -Dublin where her particular friend was Moore’s (the poet’s) sister. She -used to tell us how Moore as a lad was always contriving to get into the -school and romping with the girls. The legend has sufficient -verisimilitude to need no confirmation! - -“Joney” was indulgence itself, and under her mild sway, and with my -mother for instructress in my little lessons of spelling and geography, -Mrs. Barbauld, Dr. Watts and Jane Taylor, I was as happy a little animal -as well might be. One day being allowed as usual to play on the grass -before the drawing-room windows I took it into my head that I should -dearly like to go and pay a visit to my nurse at her cottage at the end -of the shrubbery. “Joney” had taken me there more than once, but still -the mile-long shrubbery, some of it very dark with fir trees and great -laurels, complicated with crossing walks, and containing two or three -alarming shelter-huts and _tonnelles_ (which I long after regarded with -awe), was a tremendous pilgrimage to encounter alone. After some -hesitation I set off; ran as long as I could, and then with panting -chest and beating heart, went on, daring not to look to right or left, -till (after ages as it seemed to me) I reached the little window of my -nurse’s house in the ivy wall; and set up—loud enough no doubt—a call -for “Nanno!” The good soul could not believe her eyes when she found me -alone but, hugging me in her arms, brought me back as fast as she could -to my distracted mother who had, of course, discovered my evasion. Two -years later, when I was seven years old, I was naughty enough to run -away again, this time in the streets of Bath, in company with a hoop, -and the Town Crier was engaged to “cry” me, but I found my way home at -last alone. How curiously vividly silly little incidents like these -stand out in the misty memory of childhood, like objects suddenly -perceived close to us in a fog! I seem now, after sixty years, to see my -nurse’s little brown figure and white kerchief, as she rushed out and -caught her stray “darlint” in her arms; and also I see a dignified, -gouty gentleman leaning on his stick, parading the broad pavement of -Bath Crescent, up whose whole person my misguided and muddy hoop went -bounding in my second escapade. I ought to apologise perhaps to the -reader for narrating such trivial incidents, but they have left a charm -in my memory. - -At seven I was provided with a nursery governess, and my dear mother’s -lessons came to an end. So gentle and sweet had they been that I have -loved ever since everything she taught me, and have a vivid recollection -of the old map book from whence she had herself learned Geography, and -of Mrs. Trimmer’s Histories, “_Sacred_” and “_Profane_”; not forgetting -the almost incredibly bad accompanying volumes of woodcuts with poor Eli -a complete smudge and Sesostris driving the nine kings (with their -crowns, of course) harnessed to his chariot. Who would have dreamed we -should now possess photos of the mummy of the real Sesostris (Rameses -II.), who seemed then quite as mythical a personage as Polyphemus? To -remember the hideous aberrations of Art which then illustrated books for -children, and compare them to the exquisite pictures in “_Little -Folks_,” is to realise one of the many changes the world has seen since -my childhood. Mrs. Trimmer’s books cost, I remember being told, _ten -shillings_ apiece! My governess Miss Kinnear’s lessons, though not very -severe (our old doctor, bless him for it! solemnly advised that I should -never be called on to study after twelve o’clock), were far from being -as attractive as those of my mother, and as soon as I learned to write, -I drew on the gravel walk this, as I conceived, deeply touching and -impressive sentence: “_Lessons! Thou tyrant of the mind!_” I could not -at all understand my mother’s hilarity over this inscription, which -proved so convincingly my need, at all events of those particular -lessons of which Lindley Murray was the author. I envied the peacock who -could sit all day in the sun, and who ate bowls-full of the -griddle-bread of which I was so fond; and never was expected to learn -anything? Poor bird, he came to a sad end. A dog terrified him one day -and he took a great flight and was observed to go into one of the tall -limes near the house but was never seen alive again. When the leaves -fell in the autumn the rain-washed feathers and skeleton of poor Pe-ho -were found wedged in a fork of the tree. He had met the fate of “Lost -Sir Massingberd.” - -Some years later, my antipathy to lessons having not at all diminished, -I read a book which had just appeared, and of which all the elders of -the house were talking, Keith’s _Signs of the Times_. In this work, as I -remember, it was set forth that a “Vial” was shortly to be emptied into -or near the Euphrates, after which the end of the world was to follow -immediately. The writer accordingly warned his readers that they would -soon hear startling news from the Euphrates. From that time I -persistently inquired of anybody whom I saw reading the newspaper (a -small sheet which in the Thirties only came three times a week) or who -seemed well-informed about public affairs, “What news was there from the -Euphrates?” The singular question at last called forth the inquiry, “Why -I wanted to know?” and I was obliged to confess that I was hoping for -the emptying of the “Vial” which would put an end to my sums and -spelling lessons. - -My seventh year was spent with my parents at Bath, where we had a house -for the winter in James’ Square, where brothers and cousins came for the -holidays, and in London, where I well remember going with my mother to -see the Diorama in the Colosseum in Regent’s Park, of St. Peter’s, and a -Swiss Cottage, and the statues of Tam o’ Shanter and his wife (which I -had implored her to be allowed to see, having imagined them to be living -ogres) and vainly entreating to be taken to see the Siamese Twins. This -last longing, however, was gratified just thirty years afterwards. We -travelled back to Ireland, posting all the way to Holyhead by the then -new high road through Wales and over the Menai Bridge. My chief -recollection of the long journey is humiliating. A box of Shrewsbury -cakes, exactly like those now sold in the town, was bought for me _in -situ_, and I was told to bring it over to Ireland to give to my little -cousin Charley. I was pleased to give the cakes to Charley, but then -Charley was at the moment far away, and the cakes were always at hand in -the carriage; and the road was tedious and the cakes delicious; and so -it came to pass somehow that I broke off first a little bit, and then -another day a larger bit, till cake after cake vanished, and with sorrow -and shame I was obliged to present the empty box to Charley on my -arrival. Greediness alas! has been a besetting sin of mine all my life. - -This Charley was a dear little boy, and about this date was occasionally -my companion. His father, my uncle, was Captain William Cobbe, R.N., who -had fought under Nelson, and at the end of the war, married and took a -house near Newbridge, where he acted as my father’s agent. He was a -fine, brave fellow, and much beloved by every one. One day, long after -his sudden, untimely death, we heard from a coastguardsman who had been -a sailor in his ship, that he had probably caught the disease of which -he died in the performance of a gallant action, of which he had never -told any one, even his wife. A man had fallen overboard from his ship -one bitterly cold night in the northern seas near Copenhagen. My uncle, -on hearing what had happened, jumped from his warm berth and plunged -into the sea, where he succeeded in rescuing the sailor, but in doing so -caught a chill which eventually shortened his days. He had five -children, the eldest being Charley, some months younger than I. When my -uncle came over to see his brother and do business, Charley, as he grew -old enough to take the walk, was often allowed to come with him; and -great was my enjoyment of the unwonted pleasure of a young companion. -Considerably greater, I believe, than that of my mother and governess, -who justly dreaded the escapades which our fertile little brains rarely -failed to devise. We climbed over everything climbable by aid of the -arrangement that Charley always mounted on my strong shoulders and then -helped me up. One day my father said to us: “Children, there is a savage -bull come, you must take care not to go near him.” Charley and I looked -at each other and mutually understood. The next moment we were alone we -whispered, “We must get some hairs of his tail!” and away we scampered -till we found the new bull in a shed in the cow-yard. Valiantly we -seized the tail, and as the bull fortunately paid no attention to his -Lilliputian foes, we escaped in triumph with the hairs. Another time, a -lovely April evening, I remember we were told it was damp, and that we -must not go out of the house. We had discovered, however, a door leading -out upon the roof,—and we agreed that “_on_” the house could not -properly be considered “_out_” of the house; and very soon we were -clambering up the slates, and walking along the parapet at a height of -fifty or sixty feet from the ground. My mother, passing through one of -the halls, observed a group of servants looking up in evident alarm and -making signs to us to come down. As quickly as her feebleness permitted -she climbed to our door of exit, and called to us over the roofs. -Charley and I felt like Adam and Eve on the fatal evening after they had -eaten the apple! After dreadful moments of hesitation we came down and -received the solemn rebuke and condemnation we deserved. It was not a -very severe chastisement allotted to us, though we considered it such. -We were told that the game of Pope Joan, promised for the evening, -should not be played. That was the severest, if not the only punishment, -my mother ever inflicted on me. - -On rainy days when Charley and I were driven to amuse ourselves in the -great empty rooms and corridors upstairs, we were wont to discuss -profound problems of theology. I remember one conclusion relating -thereto at which we unanimously arrived. Both of us bore the name of -“Power” as a second name, in honour of our grandmother Anne Trench’s -mother, Fanny Power of Coreen. On this circumstance we founded the -certainty that we should both go to Heaven, because we heard it said in -church, “The Heavens and _all the Powers_ therein.” - -Alas poor “Little Charley” as everybody called him, after growing to be -a fine six-foot fellow, and a very popular officer, died sadly while -still young, at the Cape. - -In those early days, let us say about my tenth year, and for long -afterwards, it was my father’s habit to fill his house with all the -offshoots of the family at Christmas, and with a good many of them for -the Midsummer holidays, when my two eldest brothers and the youngest -came home from Charterhouse and Oxford, and the third from Sandhurst. -These brothers of mine were kind, dear lads, always gentle and petting -to their little sister, who was a mere baby when they were schoolboys, -and of course never really a companion to them. I recollect they once -tried to teach me Cricket, and straightway knocked me over with a ball; -and then carried me, all four in tears and despair, to our mother -thinking they had broken my ribs. I was very fond of them, and thought a -great deal about their holidays, but naturally in early years saw very -little of them. - -Beside my brothers, and generally coming to Newbridge at the same -holiday seasons, there was a regiment of young cousins, male and female. -My mother’s only brother, Adjutant General Conway, had five children, -all of whom were practically my father’s wards during the years of their -education at Haileybury and in a ladies’ boarding-school in London. -Then, beside my father’s youngest brother William’s family of five, of -whom I have already spoken, his next eldest brother, George, of the -Horse Artillery (Lieut. General Cobbe in his later years), had five -more, and finally the third brother, Thomas, went out to India in his -youth as aide-de-camp to his cousin, the Marquis of Hastings, held -several good appointments (at Moorshedabad and elsewhere), married and -had ten children, (all of whom passed into my father’s charge) and -finally died, poor fellow! on his voyage home from India, after thirty -years’ absence. Thus there were, in fact, including his own children, -thirty young people more or less my father’s wards, and all of them -looking to Newbridge as the place where holidays were naturally spent, -and to my father’s not very long purse as the resource for everybody in -emergencies. One of them, indeed, carried this view of the case rather -unfortunately far. A gentleman visiting us, happening to mention that he -had lately been to Malta, we naturally asked him if he had met a young -officer of our name quartered there? “Oh dear, yes! a delightful fellow! -All the ladies adore him. He gives charming picnics, and gets nosegays -for them all from Naples.” “I am afraid he can scarcely afford that sort -of thing,” someone timidly observed. “Oh, he says,” replied the visitor, -“that he has an old uncle somewhere who——Good Lord! I am afraid I have -put my foot in it,” abruptly concluded our friend, noticing the looks -exchanged round the circle. - -My father’s brother Henry, my god-father, died early and unmarried. He -was Rector of Templeton, and was very intimate with his neighbours -there, the Edgeworths and Granards. The greater part of the library at -Newbridge, as it was in my time, had been collected by him, and included -an alarming proportion of divinity. The story of his life might serve -for such a novel as his friend, Miss Edgeworth, would have written and -entitled “_Procrastination_.” He was much attached for a long time to a -charming Miss Lindsay, who was quite willing to accept his hand, had he -offered it. My poor uncle, however, continued to flirt and dangle and to -postpone any definite declaration, till at last the girl’s mother—who, I -rather believe, was a Lady Charlotte Lindsay, well known in her -generation—told her that a conclusion must be put to this sort of thing. -She would invite Mr. Cobbe to their house for a fortnight, and during -that time every opportunity should be afforded him of making a proposal -in form, if he should be so minded. If, however, at the end of this -probation, he had said nothing, Miss Lindsay was to give him up, and he -was to be allowed no more chances of addressing her. The visit was paid, -and nothing could be more agreeable or devoted than my uncle; but he did -not propose to Miss Lindsay! The days passed, and as the end of the -allotted time drew near, the lady innocently arranged a few walks _en -tête-à-tête_, and talked in a manner which afforded him every -opportunity of saying the words which seemed always on the tip of his -tongue. At last the final day arrived. “My dear,” said Lady Charlotte -(if such was the mother’s name) to her daughter, “I shall go out with -the rest of the party for the whole day and leave you and Mr. Cobbe -together. When I return, it must be decided one way or the other.” - -The hours flew in pleasant and confidential talk—still no proposal! Miss -Lindsay, who knew that the final minutes of grace were passing for her -unconscious lover, once more despairingly tried, being really attached -to him, to make him say something which she could report to her mother. -As he afterwards averred he was on the very brink of asking her to marry -him when he caught the sound of her mother’s carriage returning to the -door, and said to himself, “I’ll wait for another opportunity.” - -The opportunity was never granted to him. Lady Charlotte gave him his -_congé_ very peremptorily next morning. My uncle was furious, and in -despair; but it was too late! Like other disappointed men he went off -rashly, and almost immediately engaged himself (with no delay this time) -to Miss Flora Long of Rood Ashton, Wiltshire, a lady of considerable -fortune and attractions and of excellent connections, but of such -exceedingly rigid piety of the Calvinistic type of the period, that I -believe my uncle was soon fairly afraid of his promised bride. At all -events his procrastinations began afresh. He remained at Templeton on -one excuse after another, till Miss Long wrote to ask; “Whether he -wished to keep their engagement?” My poor uncle was nearly driven now to -the wall, but his health was bad and might prove his apology for fresh -delays. Before replying to his Flora, he went to Dublin and consulted -Sir Philip Crampton. After detailing his ailments, he asked what he -ought to do, hoping (I am afraid) that the great surgeon would say, “O -you must keep quiet!” Instead of this verdict Crampton said, “Go and get -married by all means!” No further excuse was possible, and my poor uncle -wrote to say he was on his way to claim his bride. Ere he reached her, -however, while stopping at his mother’s house in Bath, he was found dead -in his bed on the morning on which he should have gone to Rood Ashton. -He must have expired suddenly while reading a good little book. All this -happened somewhere about 1823. - -To return to our old life at Newbridge, about 1833 and for many years -afterwards, the assembling of my father’s brothers, and brothers’ wives -and children at Christmas was the great event of the year in my almost -solitary childhood. Often a party of twenty or more sat down every day -for three or four weeks together in the dining-room, and we younger ones -naturally spent the short days and long evenings in boyish and girlish -sports and play. Certain very noisy and romping games—Blindman’s buff, -Prisoner’s Bass, Giant, and Puss in the Corner and Hunt the Hare—as we -played them through the halls below stairs, and the long corridors and -rooms above, still appear to me as among the most delightful things in a -world which was then all delight. As we grew a little older and my dear, -clever brother Tom came home from Oxford and Germany, charades and plays -and masquerading and dancing came into fashion. In short ours was, for -the time, like other large country houses, full of happy young people, -with the high spirits common in those old days. The rest of the year, -except during the summer vacation, when brothers and cousins mustered -again, the place was singularly quiet, and my life strangely solitary -for a child. Very early I made a _concordat_ with each of my four -successive governesses, that when lessons were ended, precisely at -twelve, I was free to wander where I pleased about the park and woods, -to row the boat on the pond or ride my pony on the sands of the -sea-shore two miles from the house. I was not to be expected to have any -concern with my instructress outside the doors. The arrangement suited -them, of course, perfectly; and my childhood was thus mainly a lonely -one. I was so uniformly happy that I was (what I suppose few children -are) quite conscious of my own happiness. I remember often thinking -whether other children were all as happy as I, and sometimes, especially -on a spring morning of the 18th March,—my mother’s birthday, when I had -a holiday, and used to make coronets of primroses and violets for her,—I -can recall walking along the grass walks of that beautiful old garden -and feeling as if everything in the world was perfect, and my life -complete bliss for which I could never thank God enough. - -When the weather was too bad to spend my leisure hours out of doors I -plunged into the library at haphazard, often making “discovery” of books -of which I had never been told, but which, thus found for myself, were -doubly precious. Never shall I forget thus falling by chance on _Kubla -Khan_ in its first pamphlet-shape. I also gloated over Southey’s _Curse -of Kehama_, and _The Cid_ and Scott’s earlier works. My mother did very -wisely, I think, to allow me thus to rove over the shelves at my own -will. By degrees a genuine appetite for reading awoke in me, and I -became a studious girl, as I shall presently describe. Beside the -library, however, I had a play-house of my own for wet days. There were, -at that time, two garrets only in the house (the bedrooms having all -lofty coved ceilings), and these two garrets, over the lobbies, were -altogether disused. I took possession of them, and kept the keys lest -anybody should pry into them, and truly they must have been a remarkable -sight! On the sloping roofs I pinned the eyes of my peacock’s feathers -in the relative positions of the stars of the chief constellations; one -of my hobbies being Astronomy. On another wall I fastened a rack full of -carpenter’s tools, which I could use pretty deftly on the bench beneath. -The principal wall was an armoury of old court-swords, and home-made -pikes, decorated with green and white flags (I was an Irish patriot at -that epoch), sundry javelins, bows and arrows, and a magnificently -painted shield with the family arms. On the floor of one room was a -collection of shells from the neighbouring shore, and lastly there was a -table with pens, ink and paper; implements wherewith I perpetrated, -_inter alia_, several poems of which I can just recall one. The _motif_ -of the story was obviously borrowed from a stanza in Moore’s Irish -Melodies. Even now I do not think the verses very bad for 12 or 13 years -old. - - THE FISHERMAN OF LOUGH NEAGH. - - The autumn wind was roaring high - And the tempest raved in the midnight sky, - When the fisherman’s father sank to rest - And left O’Nial the last and best - Of a race of kings who once held sway - From far Fingal to dark Lough Neagh.[7] - - The morning shone and the fisherman’s bark - Was wafted o’er those waters dark. - And he thought as he sailed of his father’s name - Of the kings of Erin’s ancient fame, - Of days when ‘neath those waters green - The banners of Nial were ever seen, - And where the Knights of the Blood-Red-Tree - Had held of old their revelry; - And where O’Nial’s race alone - Had sat upon the regal throne. - - While the fisherman thought of the days of old - The sun had left the western sky - And the moon had risen a lamp of gold, - Ere O’Nial deemed that the eve was nigh, - He turned his boat to the mountain side - And it darted away o’er the rippling tide; - Like arrow from an Indian bow - Shot o’er the waves the glancing prow. - - The fisherman saw not the point beneath - Which beckoned him on to instant death. - It struck—yet he shrieked not, although his blood - Ran chill at the thought of that fatal flood; - And the voice of O’Nial was silent that day - As he sank ‘neath the waters of dark Lough Neagh; - - Like when Adam rose from the dust of earth - And felt the joy of his glorious birth, - And where’er he gazed, and where’er he trod, - He felt the presence and smile of God,— - Like the breath of morning to him who long - Has ceased to hear the warblers’ song, - And who, in the chamber of death hath lain - With a sickening heart and a burning brain; - So rushed the joy through O’Nial’s mind - When the waters dark above him joined, - And he felt that Heaven had made him be - A spirit of light and eternity. - - He gazed around, but his dazzled sight - Saw not the spot from whence he fell, - For beside him rose a spire so bright - No mortal tongue could its splendours tell - Nor human eye endure its light. - And he looked and saw that pillars of gold - The crystal column did proudly hold; - And he turned and walked in the light blue sea - Upon a silver balcony, - Which rolled around the spire of light - And laid on the golden pillars bright. - - Descending from the pillars high, - He passed through portals of ivory - E’en to the hall of living gold - The palace of the kings of old. - The harp of Erin sounded high - And the crotal joined the melody, - And the voice of happy spirits round - Prolonged and harmonized the sound. - - “All hail, O’Nial!”— - -and so on, and so on! I wrote a great deal of this sort of thing then -and for a few years afterwards; and of course, like everyone else who -has ever been given to waste paper and ink, I tried my hand on a -tragedy. I had no real power or originality, only a little Fancy -perhaps, and a dangerous facility for flowing versification. After a -time my early ambition to become a Poet died out under the terrible hard -mental strain and very serious study through which I passed in seeking -religious faith. But I have always passionately loved poetry of a -certain kind, specially that of Shelley; and perhaps some of my prose -writings have been the better for my early efforts to cultivate harmony -and for my delight in good similes. This last propensity is even now -very strong in me, and whenever I write _con amore_, comparisons and -metaphors come tumbling out of my head, till my difficulty is to exclude -mixed ones! - -My education at this time was of a simple kind. After Miss Kinnear left -us to marry, I had another nursery governess, a good creature properly -entitled “Miss Daly,” but called by my profane brothers, “the Daily -Nuisance.” After her came a real governess, the daughter of a bankrupt -Liverpool merchant who made my life a burden with her strict discipline -and her “I-have-seen-better-days” airs; and who, at last, I detected in -a trick which to me appeared one of unparalleled turpitude! She had -asked me to let her read something which I had written in a copy-book -and I had peremptorily declined to obey her request, and had locked up -my papers in my beloved little writing-desk which my dear brother Tom -had bought for me out of his school-boy’s pocket-money. The keys of this -desk I kept with other things in one of the old-fashioned pockets which -everybody then wore, and which formed a separate article of under -clothing. This pocket my maid naturally placed at night on the chair -beside my little bed, and the curtains of the bed being drawn, Miss W. -no doubt after a time concluded I was asleep and cautiously approached -the chair on tiptoe. As it happened I was wide awake, having at that -time the habit of repeating certain hymns and other religious things to -myself before I went to sleep; and when I perceived through the white -curtain the shadow of my governess close outside, and then heard the -slight jingle made by my keys as she abstracted them from my pocket, I -felt as if I were witness of a crime! Anything so base I had never -dreamed as existing outside story books of wicked children. Drawing the -curtain I could see that Miss W. had gone with her candle into the inner -room (one of the old “powdering closets” attached to all the rooms in -Newbridge) and was busy with the desk which lay on the table therein. -Very shortly I heard the desk close again with an angry click,—and no -wonder! Poor Miss W., who no doubt fancied she was going to detect her -strange pupil in some particular naughtiness, found the MS. in the desk, -to consist of solemn religious “Reflections,” in the style of Mrs. -Trimmer; and of a poetical description (in round hand) of the _Last -Judgment_! My governess replaced the bunch of keys in my pocket and -noiselessly withdrew, but it was long before I could sleep for sheer -horror; and next day I, of course, confided to my mother the terrible -incident. Nothing, I think, was said to Miss W. about it, but she was -very shortly afterwards allowed to return to her beloved Liverpool, -where, for all I know, she may be living still. - -My fourth and last governess was a remarkable woman, a Mdlle. Montriou, -a person of considerable force of character, and in many respects an -admirable teacher. With her I read a good deal of solid history, -beginning with Rollin and going on to Plutarch and Gibbon; also some -modern historians. She further taught me systematically a scheme of -chronology and royal successions, till I had an amount of knowledge of -such things which I afterwards found was not shared by any of my -schoolfellows. She had the excellent sense also to allow me to use a -considerable part of my lesson hours with a map book before me, asking -her endless questions on all things connected with the various -countries; and as she was extremely well and widely informed, this was -almost the best part of my instruction. I became really interested in -these studies, and also in the great poets, French and English, to whom -she introduced me. Of course my governess taught me music, including -what was then called _Thorough Bass_, and now _Harmony_; but very little -of the practical part of performance could I learn then or at any time. -Independently of her, I read every book on Astronomy which I could lay -hold of, and I well remember the excitement wherewith I waited for years -for the appearance of the Comet of 1835, which one of these books had -foretold. At last a report reached me that the village tailor had seen -the comet the previous night. Of course I scanned the sky with renewed -ardour, and thought I had discovered the desired object in a -misty-looking star of which my planisphere gave no notice. My father -however pooh-poohed this bold hypothesis, and I was fain to wait till -the next night. Then, as soon as it was dark, I ran up to a window -whence I could command the constellation wherein the comet was bound to -show itself. A small hazy star—and a _long train of light from -it_—greeted my enchanted eyes! My limbs could hardly bear me as I tore -downstairs into the drawing-room, nor my voice publish the triumphant -intelligence, “It _is_ the comet!” “It _has_ a tail!” Everybody (in far -too leisurely a way as I considered) went up and saw it, and confessed -that the comet it certainly must be, with that appendage of the tail! -Few events in my long life have caused me such delightful excitement. -This was in 1835. - -[Illustration: - - _Newbridge, Co. Dublin._ -] - - - - - CHAPTER - III. - _SCHOOL AND AFTER._ - - -When my father, in 1836, had decided, by my governess’s advice, to send -me to school, my dear mother, though already old and feeble, made the -journey, long as it was in those days, from Ireland to Brighton to see -for herself where I was to be placed, and to invoke the kindness of my -schoolmistresses for me. We sailed to Bristol—a 30 hours’ passage -usually, but sometimes longer,—and then travelled by postchaises to -Brighton, taking, I think, three days on the road and visiting -Stonehenge by the way, to my mother’s great delight. My eldest brother, -then at Oxford, attended her and acted courier. When we came in sight of -Brighton the lamps were lighted along the long perspective of the shore. -Gas was still sufficiently a novelty to cause this sight to be immensely -impressive to us all. - -Next day my mother took me to my future tyrants, and fondly bargained -(as she was paying enormously) that I should have sundry indulgences, -and principally a bedroom to myself. A room was shown to her with only -one small bed in it, and this she was told would be mine. When I went to -it next night, heart broken after her departure, I found that another -bed had been put up, and a schoolfellow was already asleep in it. I -flung myself down on my knees by my own and cried my heart out, and was -accordingly reprimanded next morning before the whole school for having -been seen to cry at my prayers.[8] - -The education of women was probably at its lowest ebb about -half-a-century ago. It was at that period more pretentious than it had -ever been before, and infinitely more costly than it is now; and it was -likewise more shallow and senseless than can easily be believed. To -inspire young women with due gratitude for their present privileges, won -for them by my contemporaries, I can think of nothing better than to -acquaint them with some of the features of school life in England in the -days of their mothers. I say advisedly the days of their mothers, for in -those of their grandmothers, things were by no means equally bad. There -was much less pretence and more genuine instruction, so far as it -extended. - -For a moment let us, however, go back to these earlier grandmothers’ -schools, say those of the year 1790 or thereabouts. From the reports of -my own mother, and of a friend whose mother was educated in the same -place, I can accurately describe a school which flourished at that date -in the fashionable region of Queen Square, Bloomsbury. The mistress was -a certain Mrs. Devis, who must have been a woman of ability for she -published a very good little English Grammar for the express use of her -pupils; also a Geography, and a capital book of maps, which possessed -the inestimable advantage of recording only those towns, cities, rivers, -and mountains which were mentioned in the Geography, and not confusing -the mind (as maps are too apt to do) with extraneous and superfluous -towns and hills. I speak with personal gratitude of those venerable -books, for out of them chiefly I obtained such inklings of Geography as -have sufficed generally for my wants through life; the only disadvantage -they entailed being a firm impression, still rooted in my mind, that -there is a “Kingdom of Poland” somewhere about the middle of Europe. - -Beside Grammar and Geography and a very fair share of history (“Ancient” -derived from Rollin, and “Sacred” from Mrs. Trimmer), the young ladies -at Mrs. Devis’ school learned to speak and read French with a very good -accent, and to play the harpsichord with taste, if not with a very -learned appreciation of “severe” music. The “Battle of Prague” and -Hook’s Sonatas were, I believe, their culminating achievements. But it -was not considered in those times that packing the brains of girls with -facts, or even teaching their fingers to run over the keys of -instruments, or to handle pen and pencil, was the Alpha and Omega of -education. William of Wykeham’s motto, “Manners makyth Manne,” was -understood to hold good emphatically concerning the making of Woman. The -abrupt speaking, courtesy-neglecting, slouching, slangy young damsel who -may now perhaps carry off the glories of a University degree, would have -seemed to Mrs. Devis still needing to be taught the very rudiments of -feminine knowledge. “Decorum” (delightful word! the very sound of which -brings back the smell of Maréchale powder) was the imperative law of a -lady’s inner life as well as of her outward habits; and in Queen Square -nothing that was not decorous was for a moment admitted. Every movement -of the body in entering and quitting a room, in taking a seat and rising -from it, was duly criticised. There was kept, in the back premises, a -carriage taken off the wheels, and propped up _en permanence_, for the -purpose of enabling the young ladies to practise ascending and -descending with calmness and grace, and without any unnecessary display -of their ankles. Every girl was dressed in the full fashion of the day. -My mother, like all her companions, wore hair-powder and rouge on her -cheeks when she entered the school a blooming girl of fifteen; that -excellent rouge at five guineas a pot, which (as she explained to me in -later years) did not spoil the complexion like ordinary compounds, and -which I can witness really left a beautiful, clear skin when disused -thirty years afterwards. - -Beyond these matters of fashion, however,—so droll now to -remember,—there must have been at Mrs. Devis’ seminary a great deal of -careful training in what may be called the great Art of Society; the art -of properly paying and receiving visits, of saluting acquaintances in -the street and drawing-room; and of writing letters of compliment. When -I recall the type of perfect womanly gentleness and high breeding which -then and there was formed, it seems to me as if, in comparison, modern -manners are all rough and brusque. We have graceful women in abundance -still, but the peculiar old-fashioned suavity, the tact which made -everybody in a company happy and at ease,—most of all the humblest -individual present,—and which at the same time effectually prevented the -most audacious from transgressing _les bienséances_ by a hair; of that -suavity and tact we seem to have lost the tradition. - -The great Bloomsbury school, however, passed away at length, good Mrs. -Devis having departed to the land where I trust the Rivers of Paradise -formed part of her new study of Geography. Nearly half-a-century later, -when it came to my turn to receive education, it was not in London but -in Brighton that the ladies’ schools most in estimation were to be -found. There were even then (about 1836) not less than a hundred such -establishments in the town, but that at No. 32, Brunswick Terrace, of -which Miss Runciman and Miss Roberts were mistresses, and which had been -founded some time before by a celebrated Miss Poggi, was supposed to be -_nec pluribus impar_. It was, at all events, the most outrageously -expensive, the nominal tariff of £120 or £130 per annum representing -scarcely a fourth of the charges for “extras” which actually appeared in -the bills of many of the pupils. My own, I know, amounted to £1,000 for -two years’ schooling. - -I shall write of this school quite frankly, since the two poor ladies, -well-meaning but very unwise, to whom it belonged have been dead for -nearly thirty years, and it can hurt nobody to record my conviction that -a better system than theirs could scarcely have been devised had it been -designed to attain the maximum of cost and labour and the minimum of -solid results. It was the typical Higher Education of the period, -carried out to the extreme of expenditure and high pressure. - -Profane persons were apt to describe our school as a Convent, and to -refer to the back door of our garden, whence we issued on our dismal -diurnal walks, as the “postern.” If we in any degree resembled nuns, -however, it was assuredly not those of either a Contemplative or Silent -Order. The din of our large double schoolrooms was something frightful. -Sitting in either of them, four pianos might be heard going at once in -rooms above and around us, while at numerous tables scattered about the -rooms there were girls reading aloud to the governesses and reciting -lessons in English, French, German, and Italian. This hideous clatter -continued the entire day till we went to bed at night, there being no -time whatever allowed for recreation, unless the dreary hour of walking -with our teachers (when we recited our verbs), could so be described by -a fantastic imagination. In the midst of the uproar we were obliged to -write our exercises, to compose our themes, and to commit to memory -whole pages of prose. On Saturday afternoons, instead of play, there was -a terrible ordeal generally known as the “Judgment Day.” The two -schoolmistresses sat side by side, solemn and stern, at the head of the -long table. Behind them sat all the governesses as Assessors. On the -table were the books wherein our evil deeds of the week were recorded; -and round the room against the wall, seated on stools of penitential -discomfort, we sat, five-and-twenty “damosels,” anything but “Blessed,” -expecting our sentences according to our ill-deserts. It must be -explained that the fiendish ingenuity of some teacher had invented for -our torment a system of imaginary “cards,” which we were supposed to -“lose” (though we never gained any) whenever we had not finished all our -various lessons and practisings every night before bed-time, or whenever -we had been given the mark for “stooping,” or had been impertinent, or -had been “turned” in our lessons, or had been marked “P” by the music -master, or had been convicted of “disorder” (_e.g._, having our long -shoe-strings untied), or, lastly, had told lies! Any one crime in this -heterogeneous list entailed the same penalty, namely, the sentence, “You -have lost your card, Miss So and so, for such and such a thing;” and -when Saturday came round, if three cards had been lost in the week, the -law wreaked its justice on the unhappy sinner’s head! Her confession -having been wrung from her at the awful judgment-seat above described, -and the books having been consulted, she was solemnly scolded and told -to sit in the corner for the rest of the evening! Anything more -ridiculous than the scene which followed can hardly be conceived. I have -seen (after a week in which a sort of feminine barring-out had taken -place) no less than nine young ladies obliged to sit for hours in the -angles of the three rooms, like naughty babies, with their faces to the -wall; half of them being quite of marriageable age, and all dressed, as -was _de rigueur_ with us every day, in full evening attire of silk or -muslin, with gloves and kid slippers. Naturally, Saturday evenings, -instead of affording some relief to the incessant overstrain of the -week, were looked upon with terror as the worst time of all. Those who -escaped the fell destiny of the corner were allowed, if they chose to -write to their parents, but our letters were perforce committed at night -to the schoolmistress to seal, and were not as may be imagined, exactly -the natural outpouring of our sentiments as regarded those ladies and -their school. - -Our household was a large one. It consisted of the two schoolmistresses -and joint proprietors, of the sister of one of them and another English -governess; of a French, an Italian, and a German lady teacher; of a -considerable staff of respectable servants; and finally of twenty-five -or twenty-six pupils, varying in age from nine to nineteen. All the -pupils were daughters of men of some standing, mostly country gentlemen, -members of Parliament, and offshoots of the peerage. There were several -heiresses amongst us, and one girl whom we all liked and recognised as -the beauty of the school, the daughter of Horace Smith, author of -_Rejected Addresses_. On the whole, looking back after the long -interval, it seems to me that the young creatures there assembled were -full of capabilities for widely extended usefulness and influence. Many -were decidedly clever and nearly all were well disposed. There was very -little malice or any other vicious ideas or feelings, and no worldliness -at all amongst us. I make this last remark because the novel of _Rose, -Blanche and Violet_, by the late Mr. G. H. Lewes, is evidently intended -in sundry details to describe this particular school, and yet most -falsely represents the girls as thinking a great deal of each other’s -wealth or comparative poverty. Nothing was further from the fact. One of -our heiresses, I well remember, and another damsel of high degree, the -granddaughter of a duke, were our constant butts for their ignorance and -stupidity, rather than the objects of any preferential flattery. Of -vulgarity of feeling of the kind imagined by Mr. Lewes, I cannot recall -a trace. - -But all this fine human material was deplorably wasted. Nobody dreamed -that any one of us could in later life be more or less than an “Ornament -of Society.” That a pupil in that school should ever become an artist, -or authoress, would have been looked upon by both Miss Runciman and Miss -Roberts as a deplorable dereliction. Not that which was good in itself -or useful to the community, or even that which would be delightful to -ourselves, but that which would make us admired in society, was the -_raison d’être_ of each acquirement. Everything was taught us in the -inverse ratio of its true importance. At the bottom of the scale were -Morals and Religion, and at the top were Music and Dancing; miserably -poor music, too, of the Italian school then in vogue, and generally -performed in a showy and tasteless manner on harp or piano. I can recall -an amusing instance in which the order of precedence above described was -naïvely betrayed by one of our schoolmistresses when she was admonishing -one of the girls who had been detected in a lie. “Don’t you know, you -naughty girl,” said Miss R. impressively, before the whole school: -“don’t you know we had _almost_ rather find you have a P——” (the mark of -Pretty Well) “in your music, than tell such falsehoods?” - -It mattered nothing whether we had any “music in our souls” or any -voices in our throats, equally we were driven through the dreary course -of practising daily for a couple of hours under a German teacher, and -then receiving lessons twice or three times a week from a music master -(Griesbach by name) and a singing master. Many of us, myself in -particular, in addition to these had a harp master, a Frenchman named -Labarre, who gave us lessons at a guinea apiece, while we could only -play with one hand at a time. Lastly there were a few young ladies who -took instructions in the new instruments, the concertina and the -accordion! - -The waste of money involved in all this, the piles of useless music, and -songs never to be sung, for which our parents had to pay, and the loss -of priceless time for ourselves, were truly deplorable; and the result -of course in many cases (as in my own) complete failure. One day I said -to the good little German teacher, who nourished a hopeless attachment -for Schiller’s Marquis Posa, and was altogether a sympathetic person, -“My dear Fraulein, I mean to practise this piece of Beethoven’s till I -conquer it.” “My dear,” responded the honest Fraulein, “you do practice -that piece for seex hours a day, and you do live till you are seexty, at -the end you will _not_ play it!” Yet so hopeless a pupil was compelled -to learn for years, not only the piano, but the harp and singing! - -Next to music in importance in our curriculum came dancing. The famous -old Madame Michaud and her husband both attended us constantly, and we -danced to their direction in our large play-room (_lucus a non -lucendo_), till we had learned not only all the dances in use in England -in that ante-polka epoch, but almost every national dance in Europe, the -Minuet, the Gavotte, the Cachucha, the Bolero, the Mazurka, and the -Tarantella. To see the stout old lady in her heavy green velvet dress, -with furbelow a foot deep of sable, going through the latter cheerful -performance for our ensample, was a sight not to be forgotten. Beside -the dancing we had “calisthenic” lessons every week from a “Capitaine” -Somebody, who put us through manifold exercises with poles and -dumbbells. How much better a few good country scrambles would have been -than all these calisthenics it is needless to say, but our dismal walks -were confined to parading the esplanade and neighbouring terraces. Our -parties never exceeded six, a governess being one of the number, and we -looked down from an immeasurable height of superiority on the -processions of twenty and thirty girls belonging to other schools. The -governess who accompanied us had enough to do with her small party, for -it was her duty to utilise these brief hours of bodily exercise by -hearing us repeat our French, Italian or German verbs, according to her -own nationality. - -Next to Music and Dancing and Deportment, came Drawing, but that was not -a sufficiently _voyant_ accomplishment, and no great attention was paid -to it; the instruction also being of a second-rate kind, except that it -included lessons in perspective which have been useful to me ever since. -Then followed Modern Languages. No Greek or Latin were heard of at the -school, but French, Italian and German were chattered all day long, our -tongues being only set at liberty at six o’clock to speak English. -_Such_ French, such Italian, and such German as we actually spoke may be -more easily imagined than described. We had bad “Marks” for speaking -wrong languages, _e.g._, French when we bound to speak Italian or -German, and a dreadful mark for bad French, which was transferred from -one to another all day long, and was a fertile source of tears and -quarrels, involving as it did a heavy lesson out of Noel et Chapsal’s -Grammar on the last holder at night. We also read in each language every -day to the French, Italian and German ladies, recited lessons to them, -and wrote exercises for the respective masters who attended every week. -One of these foreign masters, by the way, was the patriot Berchet; a -sad, grim-looking man of whom I am afraid we rather made fun; and on one -occasion, when he had gone back to Italy, a compatriot, whom we were -told was a very great personage indeed, took his classes to prevent them -from being transferred to any other of the Brighton teachers of Italian. -If my memory have not played me a trick, this illustrious substitute for -Berchet was Manzoni, the author of the _Promessi Sposi_; a -distinguished-looking middle-aged man, who won all our hearts by -pronouncing everything we did admirable, even, I think, on the occasion -when one young lady freely translated Tasso,— - - “Fama e terre acquistasse,” - -into French as follows:— - - “Il acquit la femme et la terre!” - -Naturally after (a very long way after) foreign languages came the study -of English. We had a writing and arithmetic master (whom we unanimously -abhorred and despised, though one and all of us grievously needed his -instructions) and an “English master,” who taught us to write “themes,” -and to whom I, for one, feel that I owe, perhaps, more than to any other -teacher in that school, few as were the hours which we were permitted to -waste on so insignificant an art as composition in our native tongue! - -Beyond all this, our English studies embraced one long, awful lesson -each week to be repeated to the schoolmistress herself by a class, in -history one week, in geography the week following. Our first class, I -remember, had once to commit to memory—Heaven alone knows how—no less -than thirteen pages of Woodhouselee’s _Universal History_! - -Lastly, as I have said, in point of importance, came our religious -instruction. Our well-meaning schoolmistresses thought it was obligatory -on them to teach us something of the kind, but, being very obviously -altogether worldly women themselves, they were puzzled how to carry out -their intentions. They marched us to church every Sunday when it did not -rain, and they made us on Sunday mornings repeat the Collect and -Catechism; but beyond these exercises of body and mind, it was hard for -them to see what to do for our spiritual welfare. One Ash Wednesday, I -remember, they provided us with a dish of salt-fish, and when this was -removed to make room for the roast mutton, they addressed us in a short -discourse, setting forth the merits of fasting, and ending by the remark -that they left us free to take meat or not as we pleased, but that they -hoped we should fast; “it would be good for our souls AND OUR FIGURES!” - -Each morning we were bound publicly to repeat a text out of certain -little books, called _Daily Bread_, left in our bedrooms, and always -scanned in frantic haste while “doing-up” our hair at the glass, or -gabbled aloud by one damsel so occupied while her room-fellow (there -were never more than two in each bed-chamber) was splashing about behind -the screen in her bath. Down, when the prayer-bell rang, both were -obliged to hurry and breathlessly to await the chance of being called on -first to repeat the text of the day, the penalty for oblivion being the -loss of a “card.” Then came a chapter of the Bible, read verse by verse -amongst us, and then our books were shut and a solemn question was -asked. On one occasion I remember it was: “What have you just been -reading, Miss S——?” Miss S—— (now a lady of high rank and fashion, whose -small wits had been woolgathering) peeped surreptitiously into her Bible -again, and then responded with just confidence, “The First Epistle, -Ma’am, of _General Peter_.” - -It is almost needless to add, in concluding these reminiscences, that -the heterogeneous studies pursued in this helter-skelter fashion were of -the smallest possible utility in later life; each acquirement being of -the shallowest and most imperfect kind, and all real education worthy of -the name having to be begun on our return home, after we had been -pronounced “finished.” Meanwhile the strain on our mental powers of -getting through daily, for six months at a time, this mass of -ill-arranged and miscellaneous lessons, was extremely great and trying. - -One droll reminiscence must not be forgotten. The pupils at Miss -Runciman’s and Miss Roberts’ were all supposed to have obtained the -fullest instruction in Science by attending a course of Nine Lectures -delivered by a gentleman named Walker in a public room in Brighton. The -course comprised one Lecture on Electricity, another on Galvanism, -another on Optics, others I think, on Hydrostatics, Mechanics, and -Pneumatics, and finally three, which gave me infinite satisfaction, on -Astronomy. - -If true education be the instilling into the mind, not so much -Knowledge, as the desire for Knowledge, mine at school certainly proved -a notable failure. I was brought home (no girl could travel in those -days alone) from Brighton by a coach called the _Red Rover_, which -performed, as a species of miracle, in one day the journey to Bristol, -from whence I embarked for Ireland. My convoy-brother naturally mounted -the box, and left me to enjoy the interior all day by myself; and the -reflections of those solitary hours of first emancipation remain with me -as lively as if they had taken place yesterday. “What a delightful thing -it is,” so ran my thoughts “to have done with study! Now I may really -enjoy myself! I know as much as any girl in our school, and since it is -the best school in England, I _must_ know all that it can ever be -necessary for a lady to know. I will not trouble my head ever again with -learning anything; but read novels and amuse myself for the rest of my -life.” - -This noble resolve lasted I fancy a few months, and then, depth below -depth of my ignorance revealed itself very unpleasantly! I tried to -supply first one deficiency and then another, till after a year or -two, I began to educate myself in earnest. The reader need not be -troubled with a long story. I spent four years in the study of -History—constructing while I did so some Tables of Royal Successions -on a plan of my own which enabled me to see at a glance the descent, -succession and date of each reigning sovereign of every country, -ancient and modern, possessing any History of which I could find a -trace. These Tables I still have by me, and they certainly testify to -considerable industry. Then the parson of our parish, who had been a -tutor in Dublin College, came up three times a week for several years, -and taught me a little Greek (enough to read the Gospels and to -stumble through Plato’s _Krito_), and rather more geometry, to which -science I took an immense fancy, and in which he carried me over -Euclid and Conic Sections, and through two most delightful books of -Archimedes’ spherics. I tried Algebra, but had as much disinclination -for that form of mental labour as I had enjoyment in the reasoning -required by Geometry. My tutor told me he was able to teach me in one -lesson as many propositions as he habitually taught the undergraduates -of Dublin College in two. I have ever since strongly recommended this -study to women as specially fitted to counteract our habits of hasty -judgment and slovenly statement, and to impress upon us the nature of -real demonstration. - -I also read at this time, by myself, as many of the great books of the -world as I could reach; making it a rule always (whether bored or not) -to go on to the end of each, and also following generally Gibbon’s -advice, viz., to rehearse in one’s mind in a walk before beginning a -great book all that one knows of the subject, and then, having finished -it, to take another walk, and register how much has been added to our -store of ideas. In these ways I read all the _Faery Queen_, all Milton’s -poetry, and the _Divina Commedia_ and _Gerusalemme Liberata_ in the -originals. Also (in translations) I read through the Iliad, Odyssey, -Æneid, Pharsalia, and all or nearly all, Æschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, -Ovid, Tacitus, Xenophon, Herodotus, Thucydides, &c. There was a fairly -good library at Newbridge, and I could also go when I pleased, and read -in Archbishop Marsh’s old library in Dublin, where there were splendid -old books, though none I think more recent than a hundred and fifty -years before my time. My mother possessed a small collection of -classics—Dryden, Pope, Milton, Horace, &c., which she gave me, and I -bought for myself such other books as I needed out of my liberal -pin-money. Happily, I had at that time a really good memory for -literature, being able to carry away almost the words of passages which -much interested me in prose or verse, and to bring them into use when -required, though I had, oddly enough, at the same period so imperfect a -recollection of persons and daily events that, being very anxious to do -justice to our servants, I was obliged to keep a book of memoranda of -the characters and circumstances of all who left us, that I might give -accurate and truthful recommendations. - -By degrees these discursive studies—I took up various hobbies from time -to time—Astronomy, Architecture, Heraldry, and many others—centred more -and more on the answers which have been made through the ages by -philosophers and prophets to the great questions of the human soul. I -read such translations as were accessible in those pre-Müller days, of -Eastern Sacred books; Anquetil du Perron’s _Zend Avesta_ (twice); and -Sir William Jones’s _Institutes of Menu_; and all I could learn about -the Greek and Alexandrian philosophers from Diogenes Laertius and the -old translators (Taylor, of Norwich, and others) and a large -Biographical Dictionary which we had in our library. Having always a -passion for Synopses, I constructed, somewhere about 1840, a Table, big -enough to cover a sheet of double-elephant paper, wherein the principal -Greek philosophers were ranged,—their lives, ethics, cosmogonies and -special doctrines,—in separate columns. After this I made a similar -Table of the early Gnostics and other heresiarchs, with the aid of -Mosheim, Sozomen, and Eusebius. - -Does the reader smile to find these studies recorded as the principal -concern of the life of a young lady from 16 to 20, and in fact to 35 -years of age? It was even so! They _were_ (beside Religion, of which I -shall speak elsewhere) my supreme interest. As I have said in the -beginning, I had neither cares of love, or cares of money to occupy my -mind or my heart. My parents wished me to go a little into society when -I was about 18, and I was, for the moment, pleased and interested in the -few balls and drawing-rooms (in Dublin) to which my father and -afterwards my uncle, General George Cobbe, conducted me. But I was -rather bored than amused by my dancing partners, and my dear mother, -already in declining years and completely an invalid, could never -accompany me, and I pined for her motherly presence and guidance, the -loss of which was only half compensated for by her comments on the long -reports of all I had seen and said and done, as I sat on her bed, on my -return home. By degrees also, my thoughts came to be so gravely employed -by efforts to find my way to religious truth, that the whole glamour of -social pleasures disappeared and became a weariness; and by the time I -was 19 I begged to be allowed to stay at home and only to receive our -own guests, and attend the occasional dinners in our neighbourhood. With -some regret my parents yielded the point, and except for a visit every -two or three years to London for a few weeks of sightseeing, and one or -two trips in Ireland to houses of our relations, my life, for a long -time, was perfectly secluded. I have found some verses in which I -described it. - - “I live! I live! and never to man - More joy in life was given, - Or power to make, as I can make, - Of this bright world a heaven. - - “My mind is free; my limbs are clad - With strength which few may know, - And every eye smiles lovingly; - On earth I have no foe. - - “With pure and peaceful pleasures blessed - Speed my calm and studious days, - While the noblest works of mightiest minds - Lie open to my gaze.” - -In one of our summer excursions I remember my father and one of my -brothers and I lionized Winchester, and came upon an exquisite chapel, -which was at that time, and perhaps still is, a sort of sanctuary of -books, in the midst of a lovely, silent cloister. To describe the -longing I felt then, and long after, to spend all my life studying there -in peace and undisturbed, “hiving learning with each studious -year,”—would be impossible! - -I think there is a great, and it must be said lamentable, difference -between the genuine passion for study such as many men and women in my -time and before it experienced, and the hurried anxious _gobbling up_ of -knowledge which has been introduced by competitive examinations, and the -eternal necessity for _getting something else beside knowledge_; -something to be represented by M.A. or B.Sch., or, perhaps, by £ s. d.! -When I was young there were no honours, no rewards of any kind for a -woman’s learning; and as there were no examinations, there was no hurry -or anxiety. There was only healthy thirst for knowledge of one kind or -another, and of one kind after another. When I came across a reference -to a matter which I did not understand, it was not then necessary, as it -seems to be to young students now, to hasten over it, leaving the -unknown name, or event, or doctrine, like an enemy’s fortress on the -road of an advancing army. I stopped and sat down before it, perhaps for -days and weeks, but I conquered it at last, and then went on my way -strengthened by the victory. Recently, I have actually heard of students -at a college for ladies being advised by their “coach” to _skip a number -of propositions in Euclid_, as it was certain they would not be examined -in them! One might as well help a climber by taking rungs out of his -ladder! I can make no sort of pretensions to have acquired, even in my -best days, anything like the instruction which the young students of -Girton and Newnham and Lady Margaret Hall are so fortunate as to -possess; and much I envy their opportunities for obtaining accurate -scholarship. But I know not whether the method they follow can, on the -whole, convey as much of the pure delight in learning as did my solitary -early studies. When the summer morning sun rose over the trees and shone -as it often did into my bedroom finding me still over my books from the -evening before, and when I then sauntered out to take a sleep on one of -the garden seats in the shrubbery, the sense of having learned -something, or cleared up some hitherto doubted point, or added a store -of fresh ideas to my mental riches, was one of purest satisfaction. - -As to writing as well as reading, I had very early a great love of the -art and frequently wrote small essays and stories, working my way -towards something of good style. Our English master at school on seeing -my first exercise (on Roman History, I think it was), had asked Miss -Runciman whether she were sure I had written it unaided, and observed -that the turn of the sentences was not girl-like, and that he “thought I -should grow up to be a fine writer.” My schoolmistress laughed, of -course, at the suggestion, and I fancy she thought less of poor Mr. -Turnbull for his absurd judgment. But as men and women who are to be -good musicians love their pianos and violins as children, so I early -began to love that noble instrument, the English Language, and in my -small way to study how to play upon it. At one time when quite young I -wrote several imitations of the style of Gibbon and other authors, just -as an exercise. Eventually without of course copying anybody in -particular, I fell into what I must suppose to be a style of my own, -since those familiar with it easily detect passages of my writing -wherever they come across them. I was at a later time much interested in -seeing many of my articles translated into French (chiefly in the French -Protestant periodicals) and to note how little it is possible to render -the real feeling of such words as those with which _our_ tongue supplies -us by those of that language. At a still later date, when I edited the -_Zoophile_, I was perpetually disappointed by the failures of the best -translators I could engage, to render my meaning. Among the things for -which to be thankful in life, I think we, English, ought to assign no -small place to our inheritance of that grand legacy of our forefathers, -the English Language. - -While these studies were going on, from the time I left school in 1838 -till I left Newbridge in 1857, it may be noted that I had the not -inconsiderable charge of keeping house for my father. My mother at once -put the whole responsibility of the matter in my hands, refusing even to -be told beforehand what I had ordered for the rather formal dinner -parties of those days, and I accepted the task with pleasure, both -because I could thus relieve her, and also because then and ever since I -have really liked housekeeping. I love a well-ordered house and table, -rooms pleasantly arranged and lighted, and decorated with flowers, -hospitable attentions to guests, and all the other pleasant cares of the -mistress of a family. In the midst of my studies I always went every -morning regularly to my housekeeper’s room and wrote out a careful -_menu_ for the upstairs and downstairs meals. I visited the larders and -the fine old kitchen frequently, and paid the servants’ wages on every -quarter day; and once a year went over my lists of everything in the -charge of either the men or women servants. In particular I took very -special care of the china, which happened to be magnificent; and hereby -hangs the memory of a droll incident with which I may close this -chapter. - -A certain dignified old lady, the Hon. Mrs. X., had paid a visit to -Newbridge with her daughters, and in return she invited one of my -brothers and myself to spend some days at her “show” place in ——. While -stopping there I talked with the enthusiasm of my age to her very -charming young daughters of the pleasures of study, urging them -strenuously to learn Greek and Mathematics. Mrs. X., overhearing me, -intervened in the conversation, and said somewhat tartly, “I do not at -all agree with you, Miss Cobbe! I think the duty of a lady is to attend -to her house, and to her husband and children. I beg you will not incite -my girls to take up your studies.” - -Of course I bowed to the decree, and soon after began admiring some of -the china about the room. “There is,” said Mrs. X., “some very fine old -china belonging to this house. There is one dessert-service which is -said to have cost £800 forty or fifty years ago. Would you like to see -it?” - -Having gratefully accepted the invitation, I followed my hostess to the -basement of the house, and there, for the first time in my life, I -recognised that condition of disorder and slatternliness which I had -heard described as characteristic of Irish houses. At last we reached an -underground china closet, and after some delay and reluctance on the -part of the servant, a key was found and the door opened. There, on the -shelves and the floor, lay piled, higgledy-piggledy, dishes and plates -of exquisite china mixed up with the commonest earthenware jugs, basins, -cups, and willow-pattern kitchen dishes; and the great dessert-service -among the rest—_with the dessert of the previous summer rotting on the -plates_! Yes! there was no mistake. Some of the superb plates handed to -me by the servant for examination by the light of the window, had on -them peach and plum-stones and grape-stalks, obviously left as they had -been taken from the table in the dining-room many months before! Poor -Mrs. X. muttered some expressions of dismay and reproach to her -servants, which of course I did not seem to hear, but I had not the -strength of mind to resist saying: “Indeed this is a splendid service; -_Style de l’Empire_ I should call it. We have nothing like it, but when -next you do us the pleasure to come to Newbridge I shall like to show -you our Indian and Worcester services. Do you know I always take up all -the plates and dishes myself when they have been washed the day after a -party, and put them on their proper shelves with my own hands,—_though I -do know a little Greek and geometry_, Mrs. X.!” - - - - - CHAPTER - IV. - _RELIGION._ - - -I do not think that any one not being a fanatic, can regret having been -brought up as an Evangelical Christian. I do not include Calvinistic -Christianity in this remark; for it must surely cloud all the years of -mortal life to have received the first impressions of Time and Eternity -through that dreadful, discoloured glass whereby the “Sun is turned into -darkness and the moon into blood.” I speak of the mild, devout, -philanthropic Arminianism of the Clapham School, which prevailed amongst -pious people in England and Ireland from the beginning of the century -till the rise of the Oxford movement, and of which William Wilberforce -and Lord Shaftesbury were successively representatives. To this school -my parents belonged. The conversion of my father’s grandmother by Lady -Huntingdon, of which I have spoken, had, no doubt, directed his -attention in early life to religion, but he was himself no Methodist, or -Quietist, but a typical Churchman as Churchmen were in the first half of -the century. All our relatives far and near, so far as I have ever -heard, were the same. We had five archbishops and a bishop among our -near kindred,—Cobbe, Beresfords, and Trenchs, great-grandfather, uncle, -and cousins,—and (as I have narrated) my father’s ablest brother, my -god-father, was a clergyman. I was the first heretic ever known amongst -us. - -My earliest recollections include the lessons of both my father and -mother in religion. I can almost feel myself now kneeling at my dear -mother’s knees repeating the Lord’s Prayer after her clear sweet voice. -Then came learning the magnificent Collects, to be repeated to my father -on Sunday mornings in his study; and later the church catechism and a -great many hymns. Sunday was kept exceedingly strictly at Newbridge in -those days; and no books were allowed except religious ones, nor any -amusement, save a walk after church. Thus there was abundant time for -reading the Bible and looking over the pictures in various large -editions, and in Calmet’s great folio _Dictionary_, beside listening to -the sermon in church, and to another sermon which my father read in the -evening to the assembled household. Of course, every day of the week -there were Morning Prayers in the library,—and a “Short Discourse” from -good, prosy old Jay, of Bath’s “Exercises.” In this way, altogether I -received a good deal of direct religious instruction, beside very -frequent reference to God and Duty and Heaven, in the ordinary talk of -my parents with their children. - -What was the result of this training? I can only suppose that my nature -was a favourable soil for such seed, for it took root early and grew -apace. I cannot recall any time when I could not have been described by -any one who knew my little heart (I was very shy about it, and few, if -any, did know it)—as a very religious child. Religious ideas were from -the first intensely interesting and exciting to me. In great measure I -fancy it was the element of the sublime in them which moved me first, -just as I was moved by the thunder, and the storm and was wont to go out -alone into the woods or into the long, solitary corridors to enjoy them -more fully. I recollect being stirred to rapture by a little poem which -I can repeat to this day, beginning: - - Where is Thy dwelling place? - Is it in the realms of space, - By angels and just spirits only trod? - Or is it in the bright - And ever-burning light - Of the sun’s flaming disk that Thou art throned, O God? - -One of the stanzas suggested that the Divine seat might be in some -region of the starry universe: - - “Far in the unmeasured, unimagined Heaven, - So distant that its light - Could never reach our sight - Though with the speed of thought for endless ages driven.” - -Ideas like these used to make my cheek turn pale and lift me as if on -wings; and naturally Religion was the great storehouse of them. But I -think, even in childhood, there was in me a good deal beside of the -_moral_, if not yet the _spiritual_ element of real Religion. Of course -the great beauty and glory of Evangelical Christianity, its thorough -amalgamation of the ideas of Duty and Devotion (elsewhere often so -lamentably distinct), was very prominent in my parents’ lessons. God was -always to me the All-seeing Judge. His eye looking into my heart and -beholding all its naughtiness and little duplicities (which of course I -was taught to consider serious sins) was so familiar a conception that I -might be said to live and move in the sense of it. Thus my life in -childhood morally, was much the same as it is physically to live in a -room full of sunlight. Later on, the evils which belong to this -Evangelical training, the excessive self-introspection and -self-consciousness, made themselves painfully felt, but in early years -there was nothing that was not perfectly wholesome in the religion which -I had so readily assimilated. - -Further, I was, as I have said, a very happy child, even conscious of my -own happiness; and gratitude to God or man has always come to me as a -sentiment enhancing my enjoyment of the good for which I have been -thankful. Thus I was,—not conventionally merely,—but genuinely and -spontaneously grateful to the Giver of all the pleasures which were -poured on my head. I think I may say, that I _loved God_, when I was -quite a young child. I can even remember being dimly conscious that my -good father and mother performed their religious exercises more _as a -duty_,—whereas to me such things, so far as I could understand them, -were real _pleasures_; like being taken to see somebody I loved. I have -since recognised that both my parents were, in Evangelical parlance, -“under the law;” while in my childish heart the germ of the mysterious -New Life was already planted. I think my mother was aware of something -of the kind and looked with a little wonder, blended with her tenderness -at my violent outbursts of penitence, and at my strange fancy for -reading the most serious books in my playhours. My brothers had not -exhibited any such symptoms, but then they were healthy schoolboys, -always engaged eagerly in their natural sports and pursuits; while I was -a lonely, dreaming girl. - -When I was seven years old, my father undertook to read the _Pilgrim’s -Progress_ to my brothers, then aged from 12 to 18, and I was allowed to -sit in the room and provided with a slate and sums. The sums, it -appeared, were never worked, while my eyes were fixed in absorbed -interest on the reader, evening after evening. Once or twice when the -delightful old copy of Bunyan was left about after the lesson, my slate -was covered with drawings of Apollyon and Great Heart which were -pronounced “wonderful for the child.” By the time Christian had come to -the Dark River, all pretence of arithmetic was abandoned and I was -permitted, proud and enchanted, to join the group of boys and listen -with my whole soul to the marvellous tale. When the reading was over my -father gave the volume (which had belonged to his grandmother) to me, -for my “very own”; and I read it over and over continually for years, -till the idea it is meant to convey,—Life a progress to Heaven—was -engraved indelibly on my mind. It seems to me that few of those who have -praised Bunyan most loudly have recognized that he was not only a great -religious genius, but a born poet, a _Puritan-Tinker-Shelley_; possessed -of what is almost the highest gift of poetry, the sense of the analogy -between outward nature and the human soul. He used allegory instead of -metaphor, a clumsier vehicle by far, but it carried the same exquisite -thoughts. I have the dear old book still, and it is one of my treasures -with its ineffably quaint old woodcuts and its delicious marginal notes; -as, for example, when “Giant Despair” is said to be unable one day to -maul the pilgrims in his dungeon, because he had fits. “For sometimes,” -says Bunyan, “in sunshiny weather Giant Despair has fits.” Could any one -believe that this gem of poetical thought and deep experience is noted -by the words in the margin, “_His Fits!_”? My father wrote on the -flyleaf of the blessed old book these still legible words:— - - - 1830. - - “This book, which belonged to my grandmother, was given as a present - to my dear daughter Fanny upon witnessing her delight in reading it. - May she keep the Celestial City steadfastly in view; may she surmount - the dangers and trials she must meet with on the road; and, finally, - be re-united with those she loved on earth in singing praises for ever - and ever to Him who loved them and gave himself for them, is the - fervent prayer of her affectionate father, - - “CHARLES COBBE.” - - -The notion of “getting to Heaven” by means of a faithful pilgrimage -through this “Vale of Tears” was the prominent feature I think, always, -in my father’s religion, and naturally took great hold on me. When the -day came whereon I began to doubt whether there were any Heaven to be -reached, that moral earthquake, as was inevitable, shook not only my -religion but my morality to their foundations; and my experience of the -perils of those years, has made me ever since anxious to base religion -in every young mind, on ground liable to no such catastrophes. The -danger came to me on this wise. - -Up to my eleventh year, my little life inward and outward had flown in a -bright and even current. Looking back at it and comparing my childhood -with that of others I seem to have been—probably from the effects of -solitude—_devout_ beyond what was normal at my age. I used to spend a -great deal of time secretly reading the Bible and that dullest of dull -books _The Whole Duty of Man_ (the latter a curious foretaste of my -subsequent life-long interest in the study of ethics)—not exactly -enjoying them but happy in the feeling that I was somehow approaching -God. I used to keep awake at night to repeat various prayers and -(wonderful to remember!) the Creed and Commandments! I made all sorts of -severe rules for myself, and if I broke them, manfully mulcted myself of -any little pleasures or endured some small self-imposed penance. Of none -of these things had any one, even my dear mother, the remotest idea, -except once when I felt driven like a veritable Cain, by my agonised -conscience to go and confess to her that I had said in a recent rage (to -myself) “_Curse them all!_” referring to my family in general and to my -governess in particular! The tempest of my tears and sobs on this -occasion evidently astonished her, and I remember lying exhausted on the -floor in a recess in her bedroom, for a long time before I was able to -move. - -But the hour of doubt and difficulty was approaching. The first question -which ever arose in my mind was concerning the miracle of the Loaves and -Fishes. I can recall the scene vividly. It was a winter’s night, my -father was reading the Sunday evening Sermon in the dining-room. The -servants, whose attendance was _de rigueur_, were seated in a row down -the room. My father faced them, and my mother and I and my governess sat -round the fire near him. I was opposite the beautiful classic black -marble mantelpiece, surmounted with an antique head of Jupiter Serapis -(all photographed on my brain even now), and listening with all my -might, as in duty bound, to the sermon which described the miracle of -the Loaves and Fishes. “How did it happen exactly?” I began cheerfully -to think, quite imagining I was doing the right thing to try to -understand it all. “Well! first there were the fishes and the loaves. -But what was done to them? Did the fish grow and grow as they were eaten -and broken? And the bread the same? No! that is nonsense. And then the -twelve basketsful taken up at the end, when there was not nearly so much -at the beginning. It is not possible!” “O! Heavens! (was the next -thought) _I am doubting the Bible!_ God forgive me! I must never think -of it again.” - -But the little rift had begun, and as time went on other difficulties -arose. Nothing very seriously, however, distracted my faith or altered -the intensity of my religious feelings for the next two years, till in -October, 1836, I was sent to school as I have narrated in the last -chapter, at Brighton and a new description of life opened. At school I -came under influence of two kinds. One was the preaching of the -Evangelical Mr. Vaughan, in whose church (Christ Church) were our seats; -and I recall vividly the emotion with which one winter’s night I -listened to his sermon on the great theme, “Though your sins be as -scarlet, they shall be white as wool.” The sense of “the exceeding -sinfulness of sin,” the rapturous joy of purification therefrom, came -home to me, and as I walked back to school with the waves thundering up -the Brighton beach beside us and the wind tossing the clouds in the -evening sky overhead, the whole tremendous realities of the moral life -seemed borne in on my heart. On the other hand, the perpetual overstrain -of schoolwork, and unjust blame and penalty for failure to do what it -was impossible to accomplish in the given time, drove me to all sorts of -faults for which I hated and despised myself. When I knelt by my bed at -night, after the schoolfellow who shared my room was, as I fancied, -asleep, she would get up and pound my head with a bolster, laughing and -crying out, “Get up, you horrid hypocrite; get up! I’ll go on beating -you till you do!” It was not strange if, under such circumstances, my -beautiful childish religion fell into abeyance and my conscience into -disquietude. But, as I have narrated, I came home at sixteen, and then, -once more able to enjoy the solitude of the woods and of my own bedroom -and its inner study where no one intruded, the old feelings, tinged with -deep remorse for the failures of my school life and for many present -faults (amongst others a very bitter and unforgiving temper) come back -with fresh vigour. I have always considered that in that summer in my -seventeenth year I went through what Evangelical Christians call -“conversion.” Religion became the supreme interest of life; and the -sense that I was pardoned its greatest joy. I was, of course, a -Christian of the usual Protestant type, finding infinite pleasure in the -simple old “Communion” of those pre-ritualistic days, and in endless -Bible readings to myself. Sometimes I rose in the early summer dawn and -read a whole Gospel before I dressed. I think I never ran up into my -room in the daytime for any change of attire without glancing into the -book and carrying away some echo of what I believed to be “God’s Word.” -Nobody knew anything about all this, of course; but as time went on -there were great and terrible perturbations in my inner life, and these -perhaps I did not always succeed in concealing from the watchful eyes of -my dear mother. - -So far as I can recall, the ideas of Christ and of God the Father, were -for all practical religious purposes identified in my young mind. It was -as God upon earth,—the Redeemer God, that I worshipped Jesus. To be -pardoned through his “atonement” and at death to enter Heaven, were the -religious objects of life. But a new and most disturbing element here -entered my thoughts. How did anybody know all that story of Galilee to -be true? How could we believe the miracles? I had read very carefully -Gibbon’s XV. and XVI. chapters, and other books enough to teach me that -everything in historical Christianity had been questioned; and my own -awakening critical, and reasoning, and above all, ethical,—faculties -supplied fresh crops of doubts of the truth of the story and of the -morality of much of the Old Testament history, and of the scheme of -Atonement itself. - -Then ensued four years on which I look back as pitiful in the extreme. -In complete mental solitude and great ignorance, I found myself facing -all the dread problems of human existence. For a long time my intense -desire to remain a Christian predominated, and brought me back from each -return to scepticism in a passion of repentance and prayer to Christ to -take my life or my reason sooner than allow me to stray from his fold. -In those days no such thing was heard of as “Broad” interpretations of -Scripture doctrines. We were fifty years before _Lux Mundi_ and thirty -before even _Essays and Reviews_. To be a “Christian,” then, was to -believe implicitly in the verbal inspiration of every word of the Bible, -and to adore Christ as “very God of very God.” With such implicit belief -it was permitted to hope we might, by a good life and through Christ’s -Atonement, attain after death to Heaven. Without the faith or the good -life, it was certain we should go to hell. It was taught us all that to -be good only from fear of Hell was not the highest motive; the _highest_ -motive was the hope of Heaven! Had anything like modern rationalising -theories of the Atonement, or modern expositions of the Bible stories, -or finally modern loftier doctrines of disinterested morality and -religion, been known to me at this crisis of my life, it is possible -that the whole course of my spiritual history would have been different. -But of all such “raising up the astral spirits of dead creeds,” as -Carlyle called it, or as Broad churchmen say, “Liberating the kernel of -Christianity from the husk,” I knew, and could know nothing. Evangelical -Christianity in 1840 presented itself as a thing to be taken whole, or -rejected wholly; and for years the alternations went on in my poor young -heart and brain, one week or month of rational and moral disbelief, and -the next of vehement, remorseful return to the faith which I supposed -could alone give me the joy of religion. As time went on, and my reading -supplied me with a little more knowledge and my doubts deepened and -accumulated, the returns to Christian faith grew fewer and shorter, and, -as I had no idea of the possibility of reaching any other vital -religion, I saw all that had made to me the supreme joy and glory of -life fade out of it, while that motive which had been presented to me as -the mainspring of duty and curb of passion, namely, the Hope of Heaven, -vanished as a dream. I always had, as I have described, somewhat of that -_mal-du-ciel_ which Lamartine talks of, that longing, as from the very -depths of our being for an Eden of Divine eternal love. I could scarcely -in those days read even such poor stuff as the song of the Peri in -Moore’s _Lalla Rookh_ (not to speak of Bunyan’s vision of the Celestial -City) without tears rushing to my eyes. But this, I saw, must all go -with the rest. If, as Clough was saying, all unknown to me, about that -same time,— - - “Christ is not risen, no! - He lies and moulders low.” - -If all the Christian revelation were a mass of mistakes and errors, no -firmer ground on which to build than the promises of Mahomet, or of -Buddha, or of the Old Man of the Mountain,—of course there was (so far -as I saw) no reason left for believing in any Heaven at all, or any life -after death. Neither had the Moral Law, which had come to me through -that supposed revelation on Sinai and the Mount of Galilee, any claim to -my obedience other than might be made out by identifying it with -principles common to heathen and Christian alike; an identity of which, -at that epoch, I had as yet only the vaguest ideas. In short my poor -young soul was in a fearful dilemma. On the one hand I had the choice to -accept a whole mass of dogmas against which my reason and conscience -rebelled; on the other, to abandon those dogmas and strive no more to -believe the incredible, or to revere what I instinctively condemned; and -then, as a necessary sequel, to cast aside the laws of Duty which I had -hitherto cherished; to cease to pray or take the sacrament; and to -relinquish the hope of a life beyond the grave. - -It was not very wonderful if, as I think I can recall, my disposition -underwent a considerable change for the worse while all these tremendous -questions were being debated in my solitary walks in the woods and by -the sea-shore, and in my room at night over my Gibbon or my Bible. I -know I was often bitter and morose and selfish; and then came the -alternate spell of paroxysms of self-reproach and fanciful -self-tormentings. - -The life of a young woman in such a home as mine is so guarded round on -every side and the instincts of a girl are so healthy, that the dangers -incurred even in such a spiritual landslip as I have described are very -limited compared to what they must inevitably be in the case of young -men or of women less happily circumstanced. It has been my profound -sense of the awful perils of such a downfall of faith as I experienced, -the peril of moral shipwreck without compass or anchorage amid the -tempests of youth, which has spurred me ever since to strive to -forestall for others the hour of danger. - -At last my efforts to believe in orthodox Christianity ceased -altogether. In the summer after my twentieth birthday I had reached the -end of the long struggle. The complete downfall of Evangelicalism,—which -seems to have been effected in George Eliot’s strong brain in a single -fortnight of intercourse with Mr. and Mrs. Bray,—had taken in my case -four long years of miserable mental conflict and unspeakable pain. It -left me with something as nearly like a _Tabula rasa_ of faith as can -well be imagined. I definitely disbelieved in human immortality and in a -supernatural revelation. The existence of God I neither denied nor -affirmed. I felt I had no means of coming to any knowledge of Him. I -was, in fact (long before the word was invented), precisely—an Agnostic. - -One day, while thus literally creedless, I wandered out alone as was my -wont into a part of our park a little more wild than the rest, where -deer were formerly kept and sat down among the rocks and the gorse which -was then in its summer glory of odorous blossoms, ever since rich to me -with memories of that hour. It was a sunny day in May, and after reading -a little of my favourite Shelley, I fell, as often happened, into -mournful thought. I was profoundly miserable; profoundly conscious of -the deterioration and sliding down of all my feelings and conduct from -the high ambitions of righteousness and holiness which had been mine in -the days of my Christian faith and prayer; and at the same time I knew -that the whole scaffolding of that higher life had fallen to pieces and -could never be built up again. While I was thus musing despairingly, -something stirred within me, and I asked myself, “Can I not rise once -more, conquer my faults, and live up to my own idea of what is right and -good? Even though there be no life after death, I may yet deserve my own -respect here and now, and, if there be a God, He must approve me.” - -The resolution was made very seriously. I came home to begin a new -course and to cultivate a different spirit. Was it strange that in a few -days I began instinctively, and almost without reflection, to pray -again? No longer did I make any kind of effort to believe this thing or -the other about God. I simply addressed Him as the Lord of conscience, -whom I implored to strengthen my good resolutions, to forgive my faults, -“to lift me out of the mire and clay and set my feet upon a rock and -order my goings.” Of course, there was Christian sentiment and the -results of Christian training in all I felt and did. I could no more -have cast them off than I could have leaped off my shadow. But of -dogmatical Christianity there was never any more. I have never from that -time, now more than fifty years ago, attached, or wished I could attach, -credence to any part of what Dr. Martineau has called the _Apocalyptic -side of Christianity_, nor (I may add with thankfulness) have I ever -lost faith in God. - -The storms of my youth were over. Henceforth through many years there -was a progressive advance to Theism as I have attempted to describe it -in my books; and there were many, many hard moral fights with various -Apollyons all along the road; but no more spiritual revolutions. - -About thirty years after that day, to me so memorable, I read in Mr. -Stopford Brooke’s _Life of Robertson_, these words which seem truly to -tell my own story and which I believe recorded Robertson’s own -experience, a little while later: - -“It is an awful moment when the soul begins to find that the props on -which it blindly rested are many of them rotten.... I know but one way -in which a man can come forth from this agony scatheless: it is by -holding fast to those things which are certain still. In the darkest -hour through which a human soul can pass, whatever else is doubtful, -this at least is certain. If there be no God and no future state, even -then _it is better to be generous than selfish, better to be true than -false, better to be brave than a coward_. Blessed beyond all earthly -blessedness is the man who in the tempestuous darkness of the soul has -dared to hold fast to these landmarks. I appeal to the recollection of -any man who has passed through that agony and stood upon the rock at -last, with a faith and hope and trust no longer traditional but his -own.” - -It may be asked, “What was my creed for those first years of what I may -call _indigenous_ religion?” Naturally, with no better guide than the -inductive philosophy of Locke and Bacon, I could have no outlook beyond -the Deism of the last century. Miracles and miraculous inspiration being -formally given up, there remained only (as I supposed) as testimony to -the existence and character of God such inductions as were drawn in -_Paley’s Theology_ and the _Bridgwater Treatises_; with all of which I -was very familiar. Voltaire’s “_Dieu Toutpuissant, Remunerateur -Vengeur_,” the God whose garb (as Goethe says,) is woven in “Nature’s -roaring loom”; the Beneficent Creator, from whom came all the blessings -which filled my cup; these were the outlines of Deity for me for the -time. The theoretical connection between such a God and my own duty I -had yet to work out through much hard study, but fortunately moral -instinct was practically sufficient to identify them; nay, it was, as I -have just narrated, _through_ such moral instincts that I was led back -straight to religion, and began to pray to my Maker as my Moral Lord, so -soon as ever I strove in earnest to obey my conscience. - -There was nothing in such simple Deism to warrant a belief in a future -life, and I deliberately trained myself to abandon a hope which was -always very dear to me. As regards Christ, there was inevitably, at -first, some reaction in my mind from the worship of my Christian days. I -almost felt I had been led into idolatry, and I bitterly resented then -(and ever since) the paramount prominence, the genuflexions at the -creed, and the especially reverential voice and language applied -constantly by Christians to the Son, rather than to the Father. But -after I had read F. W. Newman’s book of the _Soul_, I recognised, with -relief, how many of the phenomena of the spiritual life which Christians -are wont to treat as exclusively bound up with their creed are, in -truth, phases of the natural history of all devout spirits; and my -longing has ever since been rather to find grounds of sympathy with -believers in Christ and for union with them on the broadest bases of -common gratitude, penitence, restoration and adoration, rather than to -accentuate our differences. The view which I eventually reached of -Christ as an historical human character, is set forth at large in my -_Broken Lights_. He was, I think, the man whose life was to the life of -Humanity what Regeneration is to the individual soul. - -I may here conclude the story of my religious life extending through the -years after the above described momentous change. After a time, occupied -in part with study and with efforts to be useful to our poor neighbours -and to my parents, my Deism was lifted to a higher plane by one of those -inflowings of truth which seem the simplest things in the world, but are -as rain on the dry ground in summer to the mind which receives them. One -day while praying quietly, the thought came to me with extraordinary -lucidity: “God’s Goodness is what _I mean_ by Goodness! It is not a mere -title, like the ‘Majesty’ of a King. He has really that character which -we call ‘Good.’ He is Just, as I understand Justice, only more perfectly -just. He is Good as I understand Goodness, only more perfectly good. He -is not good in time and tremendous in eternity; not good to some of His -creatures and cruel to others, but wholly, eternally, universally good. -If I could know and understand all His acts from eternity, there would -not be one which would not deepen my reverence and call forth my adoring -praise.” - -To some readers this discovery may seem a mere platitude and truism: the -assertion of a thing which they have never failed to understand. To me -it was a real revelation which transformed my religion from one of -reverence only into one of vivid love for that Infinite Goodness which I -then beheld unclouded. The deep shadow left for years on my soul by the -doctrine of eternal Hell had rolled away at last. Another truth came -home to me many years later, and not till after I had written my first -book. It was one night, after sitting up late in my room reading (for -once) no grave work, but a pretty little story by Mrs. Gaskell. Up to -that time I had found the pleasures of knowledge the keenest of all, and -gloried in the old philosopher’s _dictum_, “Man was created to know and -to contemplate.” I looked on the pleasures of the affections as -secondary and inferior to those of the intellect, and I strove to -perform my duties to those around me, rather in a spirit of moral -rectitude and obedience to law than in one of lovingkindness. Suddenly -again it came to me to see that Love is greater than Knowledge; that it -is more beautiful to serve our brothers freely and tenderly, than to -“hive up learning with each studious year,” to compassionate the -failures of others and ignore them when possible, rather than undertake -the hard process (I always found it so!) of forgiveness of injuries; to -say, “What may I be allowed to do to help and bless this one—or that?” -rather than “What am I bound by duty to do for him, or her; and how -little will suffice?” As these thoughts swelled in my heart, I threw -myself down in a passion of happy tears, and passed most of the night -thinking how I should work out what I had learned. I had scarcely fallen -asleep towards morning when I was wakened by the intelligence that one -of the servants, a young laundress, was dying. I hurried to the poor -woman’s room which was at a great distance from mine, and found all the -men and women servants collected round her. She wished for some one to -pray for her, and there was no one to do it but myself, and so, while -the innocent girl’s soul passed away, I led, for the first and only -time, the prayers of my father’s household. - -I had read a good number of books by Deists during the preceding years. -Gibbon’s Miscellaneous Works (which I greatly admired), Hume, Tindal, -Collins, Voltaire, beside as many of the old heathen moralists and -philosophers as I could reach; Marcus Aurelius, Seneca, Epictetus, -Plutarch’s _Moralia_, Xenophon’s _Memorabilia_, and a little of Plato. -But of any modern book touching on the particular questions which had -tortured me I knew nothing till, by the merest good fortune, I fell in -with _Blanco White’s Life_. How much comfort and help I found in his -_Meditations_ the reader may guess. Curiously enough, long years -afterwards, Bishop Colenso told me that the same book, falling into his -hands in Natal by the singular chance of a colonist possessing the -volumes, had determined him to come over to England and bring out his -_Pentateuch_. Thus poor Blanco White, after all prophesied rightly when -he said that he was “one of those who, falling in the ditch, help other -men to pass over”! - -Another book some years later was very helpful to me—F. W. Newman’s -_Soul_. Dean Stanley told me that he thought in the far future that -single book would be held to outweigh in value all that the author’s -brother, Cardinal Newman, had ever written. I entered not long after -into correspondence with Professor Newman, and have had the pleasure of -calling him my friend ever since. We have interchanged letters, or at -least friendly greetings, at short intervals now for nearly fifty years. - -But the epoch-making book for me was Theodore Parker’s _Discourse of -Religion_. Reading a notice of it in the _Athenæum_, soon after its -publication (somewhere about the year 1845), I sent for it, and words -fail to tell the satisfaction and encouragement it gave me. One must -have been isolated and care-laden as I to estimate the value of such a -book. I had come, as I have narrated above, to the main conclusions of -Parker,—namely, the absolute goodness of God and the non-veracity of -popular Christianity,—three years before; so that it has been a mistake -into which some of my friends have fallen when they have described me as -converted from orthodoxy by Parker. But his book threw a flood of light -on my difficult way. It was, in the first place, infinitely satisfactory -to find the ideas which I had hammered out painfully and often -imperfectly, at last welded together, set forth in lucid order, -supported by apparently adequate erudition and heartwarmed by fervent -piety. But, in the second place, the _Discourse_ helped me most -importantly by teaching me to regard Divine Inspiration no longer as a -miraculous and therefore incredible thing; but as normal, and in -accordance with the natural relations of the infinite and finite spirit; -a Divine inflowing of _mental_ Light precisely analogous to that _moral_ -influence which divines call Grace. As every devout and obedient soul -may expect to share in Divine Grace, so the devout and obedient souls of -all the ages have shared (as Parker taught) in Divine Inspiration. And, -as the reception of Grace, even in large measure, does not render us -_impeccable_, so neither does the reception of Inspiration make us -_Infallible_. It is at this point that Deism stops and Theism begins; -namely, when our faith transcends all that can be gleaned from the -testimony of the bodily senses and accepts as supremely trustworthy the -direct Divine teaching, the “original revelation” of God’s holiness and -love in the depths of the soul. Theodore Parker adopted the alternative -synonym to mark the vital difference in the philosophy which underlies -the two creeds; a theoretic difference leading to most important -practical consequences in the whole temper and spirit of Theism as -distinct from Deism. I saw all this clearly ere long, and ranged myself -thenceforth as a THEIST: a name now familiar to everybody, but which, -when my family came to know I took it, led them to tell me with some -contempt that it was “a word in a Dictionary, not a Religion.” - -A few months after I had absorbed Parker’s _Discourse_, the great sorrow -of my life befell me. My mother, whose health had been feeble ever since -I could remember her, and who was now seventy years of age, passed away -from a world which has surely held few spirits so pure and sweet. She -died with her weeping husband and sons beside her bed and with her head -resting on my breast. Almost her last words were to tell me I had been -“the pride and joy” of her life. The agony I suffered when I realised -that she was gone I shall not try to tell. She was the one being in the -world whom I truly loved through all the passionate years of youth and -early womanhood; the only one who really loved me. Never one word of -anger or bitterness had passed from her lips to me, nor (thank God!) -from mine to her in the twenty-four years in which she blessed my life; -and for the latter part of that time her physical weakness had drawn a -thousand tender cares of mine around her. No relationship in all the -world, I think, can ever be so perfect as that of mother and daughter -under such circumstances, when the strength of youth becomes the support -of age, and the sweet dependance of childhood is reversed. - -But it was all over—I was alone; no more motherly love and tenderness -were ever again to reach my thirsting heart. But this was not as I -recall it, the worst pang in that dreadful agony. I had (as I said -above) ceased to believe in a future life, and therefore I had no choice -but to think that that most beautiful soul which was worth all the -kingdoms of earth had actually _ceased to be_. She was a “Memory;” -nothing more - -I was not then or at any time one of those fortunate people who can -suddenly cast aside the conclusions which they have reached by careful -intellectual processes, and leap to opposite opinions at the call of -sentiment. I played no tricks with my convictions, but strove as best I -could to endure the awful strain, and to recognise the Divine Justice -and Goodness through the darkness of death. I need not and cannot say -more on the subject. - -Happily for me, there were many duties waiting for me, and I could -recognise even then that, though _pleasure_ seemed gone for ever, yet it -was a relief to feel I had still _duties_. “Something to do for others” -was an assuagement of misery. My father claimed first and much -attention, and the position I now held of the female head of the family -and household gave me a good deal of employment. To this I added -teaching in my village school a mile from our house two or three times a -week, and looking after all the sick and hungry in the two villages of -Donabate and Balisk. Those were the years of Famine and Fever in -Ireland, and there was abundant call for all our energies to combat -them. I shall write of these matters in the next chapter. - -I had, though with pain, kept my heresies secret during my mother’s -declining years and till my father had somewhat recovered from his -sorrow. I had continued to attend family prayers and church services, -with the exception of the Communion, and had only vaguely allowed it to -be understood that I was not in harmony with them all. When my poor -father learned the full extent of my “infidelity,” it was a terrible -blow to him, for which I have, in later years, sincerely pitied him. He -could not trust himself to speak to me, but though I was in his house, -he wrote to tell me I had better go away. My second brother, a -barrister, had a year before given up his house in Queen Anne Street -under a terrible affliction, and had gone, broken-hearted, to live on a -farm which he hired in the wilds of Donegal. There I went as my father -desired and remained for nearly a year; not knowing whether I should -ever be permitted to return home and rather expecting to be -disinherited. He wrote to me two or three times and said that if my -doubts only extended in certain directions he could bear with them, “but -if I rejected Christ and disbelieved the Bible, a man was called upon to -keep the plague of such opinions from his own house.” Then he required -me to answer him on those points categorically. Of course I did so -plainly, and told him I did _not_ believe that Christ was God; and I did -_not_ (in his sense) believe in the inspiration or authority of the -Bible. After this ensued a very long silence, in which I remained -entirely ignorant of my destiny and braced myself to think of earning my -future livelihood. I was absolutely lonely; my brother, though always -very kind to me, had not the least sympathy with my heresies, and -thought my father’s conduct (as I do) quite natural; and I had not a -friend or relative from whom I could look for any sort of comfort. A -young cousin to whom I had spoken of them freely, and who had, in a way, -adopted my ideas, wrote to me to say she had been shown the error of -them, and was shocked to think she had been so misguided. This was the -last straw. After I received this letter I wandered out in the dusk as -usual down to a favourite nook—a natural seat under the bank in a bend -of the river which ran through Bonny Glen,—and buried my face in the -grass. As I did so my lips touched a primrose which had blossomed in -that precise spot since I had last been there, and the soft, sweet -flower which I had in childhood chosen for my mother’s birthday garland -seemed actually to kiss my face. No one who has not experienced _utter_ -loneliness can perhaps quite imagine how much comfort such an incident -can bring. - -As I had no duties in Donegal, and seldom saw our few neighbours, I -occupied myself, often for seven or eight or even nine hours a day, in -writing an _Essay on True Religion_. I possess this MS. still, and have -been lately examining it. Of course, as a first literary effort, it has -many faults, and my limited opportunities for reference render parts of -it very incomplete; but it is not a bad piece of work. The first part is -employed in setting forth my reasons for belief in God. The second, -those for not believing in (the apocalyptic part of) Christianity. The -chapter on _Miracles_ and Prophecy (written from the literal and -matter-of-fact standpoint of that epoch) are not ill-done, while the -moral failure of the Bible and of the orthodox theology, the histories -of Jacob, Jael, David, &c., and the dogmas of Original Sin, the -Atonement, a Devil and eternal Hell, are criticised pretty successfully. -A considerable part of the book consists in a comparison in parallel -columns of moral precepts from the Old and New Testaments on one side, -and from non-Christian writers, Euripides, Socrates (Xenophon), -Plutarch, Sextius, Marcus Aurelius, Epictetus, Seneca, the Zend Avesta -(Anquetil du Perron’s), The Institutes of Menu (Sir W. Jones’), the -Damma Padan, the Talmud, &c., on the other. For years I had seized every -opportunity of collecting the most striking ethical _dicta_, and I thus -marshalled them to what appeared to me good purpose, namely, the -disproof of the originality or exceptional loftiness of Christian -Morals. I did not apprehend till later years, how the supreme -achievement of Christianity was not the inculcation of a _new_, still -less of a _systematic_ Morality; but the introduction of a new spirit -into Morality; as Christ himself said, a leaven into the lump. - -Reading Parker’s _Discourse_, as I did very naturally in my solitude -once again, it occurred to me to write to him and ask him to tell me on -what ground he based the faith which I perceived he held, in a life -after death? It had seemed to me that the guarantee of Revelation having -proved worthless, there remained no sufficient reason for hope to -counter-weigh the obvious difficulty of conceiving of a survival of the -soul. Parker answered me in a most kind letter, accompanied by his -_Sermon of the Immortal Life_. Of course I studied this with utmost care -and sympathy, and by slow, very slow degrees, as I came more to take in -the full scope of the Theistic, as distinguished from the Deistic view, -I saw my way to a renewal of _the Hope of the Human Race_ which, twenty -years later, I set forth as best as I could in the little book of that -name. I learned to trust the intuition of Immortality which is “written -in the heart of man by a Hand which writes no falsehoods.” I deemed also -that I could see (as Parker says) the evidence of “a summer yet to be in -the buds which lie folded through our northern winter;” the presence in -human nature of many efflorescences—and they the fairest of all—quite -unaccountable and unmeaning on the hypothesis that the end of the man is -in the grave. In later years I think, as the gloom of the evil and -cruelty of the world has shrouded more the almost cloudless skies of my -youth, I have almost fervently held by the doctrine of Immortality -because it is, to me _the indispensable corollary of that of the -Goodness of God_. I am not afraid to repeat the words, which so deeply -shocked, when they were first published, my old friend, F. W. Newman. -“_If Man be not immortal, God is not Just._” - -Recovering this faith, as I may say, rationally and not by any gust of -emotion, I had the inexpressible happiness of thinking henceforth of my -mother as still existing in God’s universe, and (as well as I knew) -loving me wherever she might be, and under whatever loftier condition of -being. To meet her again “spirit to spirit, ghost to ghost,” has been to -me for forty years, the sweetest thought connected with death. Ere long, -now, it must be realised. - -After nine or ten months of this, by no means harsh, exile, my father -summoned me to return home. I resumed my place as his daughter in doing -all I could for his comfort, and as the head of his house; merely -thenceforth abstaining from attendance either at Church or at family -prayer. I had several favourite nooks and huts near and far in the -woods, which I made into little Oratories for myself, and to one or -other of them I resorted almost every evening at dusk; making it a -habit—not broken for many years afterwards, to repeat a certain -versified Litany of Thanksgiving which I had written and read to my -mother. On Sundays, when the rest of the family went to the village -church, I had the old garden for a beautiful cathedral. Having let -myself in with my own key, and locked the doors, I knew I had the lovely -six acres within the high walls, free for hours from all observation or -intrusion. How much difference it makes in life to have at command such -peace and solitude it is hard to estimate. I look back to some of the -summer forenoons spent alone in that garden as to the flowering time of -my seventy years. God grant that the afterglow of such hours may remain -with me to the last, and that “at eventide it may be light!” - -I knew that there were Unitarian chapels in Dublin at this time, and -much wished to attend them now and then; but I would not cause annoyance -to my father by the notice which my journey to the town on a Sunday -would have attracted. Only on New Year’s Day I thought I might go -unobserved and interpolate attendance at the service among my usual -engagements. I went accordingly to Dublin one 1st of January and drove -to the chapel of which I had heard in Eustace Street. It was a big, -dreary place with scarcely a quarter of the seats occupied, and a -middle-class congregation apparently very cool and indifferent. The -service was a miserable, hybrid affair, neither Christian as I -understood Christianity, nor yet Theistic; but it was a pleasure to me -merely to stand and kneel with other people at the hymns and prayers. At -last, the sermon, for which I might almost say, I was hungry, arrived. -The old Minister in his black-gown ascended the pulpit, having taken -with him—what?—could I believe my eyes? It was an _old printed book_, -bound in the blue and drab old fuzzy paper of the year 1810 or -thereabouts, and out of this he proceeded to read an erudite discourse -by some father of English Socinianism, on the precise value of the Greek -article when used before the word Θεός! My disappointment not to say -disgust were such that,—as it was easy from my seat to leave the place -without disturbing any one,—I escaped into the street, never (it may be -believed) to repeat my experiment. - -It was an anomalous position that which I held at Newbridge from the -time of my return from Donegal, till my father’s death eight years -later. I took my place as head of the household at the family table and -in welcoming our guests, but I was all the time in a sort of moral -Coventry, under a vague atmosphere of disapprobation wherein all I said -was listened to cautiously as likely to conceal some poisonous heresy. -Everything of this kind, however, wears down and becomes easier and -softer as time goes on, and most so when people are, _au fond_, -just-minded and good-hearted; and the years during which I remained at -home till my father’s death, though mentally very lonely, were far from -unhappy. In particular, the perfect clearness and straightforwardness of -my position was, and has ever since been, a source of strength and -satisfaction to me, for which I have thanked God a thousand times. My -inner life was made happy by my simple faith in God’s infinite and -perfect love; and I never had any doubt whether I had erred in -abandoning the creed of my youth. On the contrary, as the whole tendency -of modern science and criticism showed itself stronger and stronger -against the old orthodoxy, my hopes were unduly raised of a not distant -New Reformation which I might even live to see. These sanguine hopes -have faded. As Dean Stanley seems to have felt, there was, somewhere -between the years ’74 and ’78, a turn in the tide of men’s thoughts -(due, I think, to the paramount influence and insolence which physical -science then assumed), which has postponed any decisive “broad” movement -for years beyond my possible span of life. But though nothing appears -quite so bright to my old eyes as all things did to me in youth, though -familiarity with human wickedness and misery, and still more with the -horrors of scientific cruelty to animals, have strained my faith in -God’s justice sometimes even to agony,—I know that no form of religious -creed could have helped me any more than my own or as much as it has -done to bear the brunt of such trial; and I remain to the present -unshaken both in respect to the denials and the affirmations of Theism. -There are great difficulties, soul-torturing difficulties besetting it; -but the same or worse, beset every other form of faith in God; and -infinitely more, and to my mind insurmountable ones, beset Atheism. - -For fifty years Theism has been my staff of life. I must soon try how it -will support me down the last few steps of my earthly way. I believe it -will do so well. - - - - - CHAPTER - V. - _MY FIRST BOOK._ - - -When I was thirty years of age I had an attack of bronchitis from which -I nearly died. When very ill and not expecting to recover, I reflected -that while my own life had been made happy and strong by the faith which -had been given to me, I had done nothing to help any other human soul to -find that solution of the dread problem which had brought such peace to -me. I felt, as Mrs. Browning says, that a Truth was “like bread at -Sacrament” to be passed on. When, unexpectedly to myself, I slowly -recovered after a sojourn in Devonshire, I resolved to set about writing -something which should convey as much as possible of my own convictions -to whosoever should read it. For a time I thought of enlarging and -completing my MS. _Essay on True Religion_, written for my own -instruction; but the more I reflected the less I cared to labour to pull -down hastily the crumbling walls which yet sheltered millions of souls, -and the more I longed to build up anew on solid base a stronghold of -refuge for those driven like myself from the old ground of faith in God -and Duty. Especially I felt that as the worst dangers of such -transitions lay in the sudden snapping of the supposed bond of Morality, -and collapse of the hopes of heaven and terrors of hell which had been -used as motives of virtue and deterrents from vice; so the most urgent -need lay in the direction of a system of ethics which should base Duty -on ground absolutely apart from that of the supposed supernatural -revelation and supply sanctions and motives unconnected therewith. As it -happened at this very time, my good (orthodox) friend, Miss Felicia -Skene, had recommended me to read Kant’s _Metaphysic of Ethics_, and I -had procured Semple’s translation and found it almost dazzlingly -enlightening to my mind. It would be presumptuous for me to say that -then, or at any time, I have thoroughly mastered either this book or the -_Reinun Vernunft_ of this greatest of thinkers; but, so far as I have -been able to do so, I can say for my own individual mind (as his German -disciples were wont to do for themselves), “God said, Let there be -Light! and there was—the Kantian Philosophy.” It has been, and no doubt -will be still further, modified by succeeding metaphysicians and -sometimes it may appear to have been superseded, but I cannot think -otherwise than that Kant was and will finally be recognised to have been -the Newton of the laws of Mind. - -I shall now endeavour to explain the purpose of my first book (which is -also my _magnum opus_) by quoting the Preface at some length; and, as -the third edition has long been out of print and is unattainable in -England or America, I shall permit myself to embody in this chapter a -general account of the drift of it, with extracts sufficient to serve as -samples of the whole. Looking over it now, after the lapse of just forty -years, I can see that my reading at that time had lain so much among old -books that the style is almost that of a didactic Treatise of the -seventeenth century; and the ideas, likewise, are necessarily -exclusively those of the pre-Darwinian Era. Conceptions so familiar to -us now as that of an “hereditary set of the brain,” and of the -“Capitalised experience of the tribe,” were then utterly unthought of. I -have been well aware that it would, consequently, have been -necessary,—had the book been republished any time during the last twenty -years,—to rewrite much of it and define the standpoint of an -Intuitionist as regards the theory of Evolution in its bearing on the -foundation of ethics. For this task, however, I have always lacked -leisure: and my article on “_Darwinism in Morals_” (reprinted in the -book of that name) has been the best effort I have made in such -direction. I may here, perhaps, nevertheless be allowed to say as a last -word in favour of this Essay, namely, that such as it is, it has served -me, personally, as a scaffolding for all my life-work, a key to open -most of the locks which might have barred my way. If now I feel (as men -and women are wont to do at three-score years and ten), that I hold all -philosophic opinions with less tenacious grasp, less “cocksureness” than -in earlier days, and know that the great realities to which they led, -will remain realities for me still should those opinions prove here and -there unstable,—it is not that I am disposed in any way to abandon them, -still less that I have found any other systems of ethics or theology -more, or equally, sound and self-consistent. - -I wrote the “_Essay on the Theory of Intuitive Morals_” between my -thirtieth and thirty-third years. I had a great deal else to do—to amuse -and help my father (then growing old); to direct our household, -entertain our guests, carry on the feminine correspondence of the -family, teach in my village school twice a week or so, and to attend -every case of illness or other tribulation in Donabate and Balisk. My -leisure for writing and for the preliminary reading for writing, was -principally at night or in the early morning; and at last it was -accomplished. No one but my dear old friend, Harriet St. Leger, had seen -any part of the MS., and, as I have said, nobody belonging to my family -had ever (so far as I know) employed a printer or publisher before. I -took the MS. with me to London, where my father and I were fortunately -going for a holiday, and called with it in Paternoster Row, on Mr. -William Longman, to whom I had a letter of business introduction from my -Dublin bookseller. When I opened my affair to Mr. Longman, it was truly -a case of Byron’s address to Murray— - - “To thee with hope and terror dumb, - The unfledged MS. authors come; - Thou printest all, and sellest some, - My Murray!” - -Mr. Longman politely veiled a smile, and adopted the voice of friendly -dissuasion from my enterprise, looking no doubt on a young lady (as I -still was) as a very unpromising author for a treatise on Kantian -ethics! My spirit, however, rose with the challenge. I poured out for -some minutes much that I had been thinking over for years, and as I -paused at last, Mr. Longman said briefly, but decidedly, “_I’ll publish -your book._” - -After this fateful interview, I remember going into St. Paul’s and -sitting there a long while alone. - -The sheets of the book passed rapidly through the press, and I usually -took them to the British Museum to verify quotations and work quietly -over difficulties, for in the house which we occupied in Connaught -Square I had no study to myself. The foot-notes to the book (collected -some in the Museum, some from my own books and some from old works in -Archbishop Marsh’s Library) were themselves a heavy part of the work. -Glancing over the pages as I write, I see extracts, for example, from -the following:—Cudworth (I had got at some inedited MSS. of his in the -British Museum), Montesquieu, Philo, Hooker, Proclus, Thomas Aquinas, -Aristotle, Descartes, Müller, Whewell, Mozley, Leibnitz, St. Augustine, -Phillipsohn, Strabo, St. Chrysostom, Morell, Lewes, Dugald Stewart, -Mill, Oërsted, the Adée-Grunt’h (sacred book of the Sikhs), Herbert -Spencer, Hume, Maximus Tyriensis, Institutes of Menu, Victor Cousin, Sir -William Hamilton, Lucian, Seneca, Cory’s Fragments, St. Gregory the -Great, Justin Martyr, Jeremy Taylor, the Yajur Veda, Shaftesbury, Plato, -Marcus Aurelius, Diogenes Laertius, Cicero, Confucius, and many more. -There are also in the Notes sketches of the history of the doctrines of -Predestination, and of Original Sin, which involved very considerable -research. - -At last the proofs were corrected, the Notes verified, and the time had -come when the Preface must be written! How was I to find a quiet hour to -compose it? Like most women I was bound hand and foot by a fine web of -little duties and attentions, which men never feel or brush aside -remorselessly, (it was only Hooker, who rocked a cradle with his foot -while he wrote the Ecclesiastical Polity!); and it was a serious -question for me when I could find leisure and solitude. Luckily, just on -the critical day, my father was seized with a fancy to go to the play, -and, equally luckily, I had so bad a cold that it was out of question -that I should, as usual, accompany him. Accordingly I had an evening all -alone, and wrote fast and hard the pages which I shall presently quote, -finishing the last sentence of my _Preface_ as I heard my father’s knock -at the hall door. - -I had all along told my father (though, alas; to his displeasure), that -I was going to publish a book; of course, anonymously, to save him -annoyance. When the printing was completed, the torn and defaced sheets -of the MS. lay together in a heap for removal by the housemaid. Pointing -to this, my poor father said solemnly to me: “Don’t leave those about; -_you don’t know into whose hands they may fall_.” It was needless to -observe to him, that I was on the point of _publishing_ the “perilous -stuff”! - -The book was brought out by Longmans that year (1855) and afterwards by -Crosby and Nichols in Boston, and again by Trübner in London. It was -reviewed rather largely and, on the whole, very kindly, considering it -was by an unknown and altogether unfriended author; but sometimes also -in a manner which it is pleasant to know has gone out of fashion in -these latter days. It was amusing to see that not one of my critics had -a suspicion they were dealing with a woman’s work. They all said, “_He_ -reasons clearly.” “_His_ spirit and manner are particularly well suited -to ethical discussion.” “_His_ treatment of morals” (said the -_Guardian_) “is often both true and beautiful.” “It is a most noble -performance,” (said the _Caledonian Mercury_), “the work of a -_masculine_ and lofty mind.” “It is impossible,” (said the _Scotsman_), -“to deny the ability of the writer, or not to admire _his_ high moral -tone, his earnestness and the fulness of his knowledge.” But the heresy -of the book brought down heavy denunciation from the “religious” papers -on the audacious writer who, “instead of walking softly and humbly on -the firm ground and taking the Word of God as a lamp,” &c., had indulged -in “insect reasonings.” A rumour at last went out that a woman was the -author of this “able and attractive but deceptive and dangerous work,” -and then the criticisms were barbed with sharper teeth. “The writer” -(says the _Christian Observer_), “we are told, is a lady, but there is -nothing feeble or even feminine in the tone of the work.... Our dislike -is increased when we are told it is a female (!) who has propounded so -unfeminine and stoical a theory ... and has contradicted openly the true -sayings of the living God!” The _Guardian_ (November 21st, 1855) finally -had this delightful paragraph: “The author professes great admiration -for Theodore Parker and Francis Newman, but his own pages are not -disfigured by the arrogance of the one or the shallow levity of the -other” (think of the _shallow levity_ of Newman’s book of the _Soul_!). -“He writes gravely, not defiantly, as befits a man giving utterance to -thoughts which he knows _will be generally regarded as impious_.” - -I shall now offer the reader a few extracts; and first from the -_Preface_:— - - - “It cannot surely be questioned but that we want a System of Morals - better than any of those which are current amongst us. We want a - system which shall neither be too shallow for the requirements of - thinking men, nor too abstruse for popular acceptation; but which - shall be based upon the ultimate grounds of philosophy, and be - developed with such distinctness as to be understood by every one - capable of studying the subject. We want a System of Morals which - shall not entangle itself with sectarian creeds, nor imperil its - authority with that of tottering Churches, but which shall be - indissolubly blended with a Theology fulfilling all the demands of the - Religious Sentiment—a Theology forming a part, and the one living - part, of all the theologies which ever have been or shall be. We want - a system which shall not degrade the Law of the Eternal Right by - announcing it as a mere contrivance for the production of human - happiness, or by tracing our knowledge of it to the experience of the - senses, or by cajoling us into obeying it as a matter of expediency; - but a system which shall ascribe to that Law its own sublime office in - the universe, which shall recognise in man the faculties by which he - obtains a supersensible knowledge of it, and which shall inculcate - obedience to it on motives so pure and holy, that the mere statement - of them shall awaken in every breast that higher and better self which - can never be aroused by the call of interest or expediency. - - “It would be in itself a presumption for me to disclaim the ability - necessary for supplying such a want as this. In writing this book, I - have aimed chiefly at two objects. First. I have sought to unite into - one homogeneous and self-consistent whole the purest and most enlarged - theories hitherto propounded on ethical science. Especially I have - endeavoured to popularise those of Kant, by giving the simplest - possible presentation to his doctrines regarding the Freedom of the - Will and the supersensible source of our knowledge of all Necessary - Truths, including those of Morals. I do not claim however, even so far - as regards these doctrines, to be an exact exponent of Kant’s - opinions.... Secondly. I have sought (and this has been my chief aim) - to place for the first time, at the foundation of ethics, the great - but neglected truth that the End of Creation is not the Happiness, but - the Virtue, of Rational Souls. I believe that this truth will be found - to throw most valuable light, not only upon the Theory, but upon all - the details of Practical Morals. Nay, more, I believe that we must - look to it for such a solution of the ‘Riddle of the World’ as shall - satisfy the demands of the Intellect while presenting to the Religious - Sentiment that same God of perfect Justice and Goodness whose ideal it - intuitively conceives and spontaneously adores. Only with this view of - the Designs of God can we understand how His Moral Attributes are - consistent with the creation of a race which is indeed ‘groaning in - sin’ and ‘travailing in sorrow’; but by whose freedom to sin and trial - of sorrow shall be worked out at last the most blessed End which - Infinite Love could devise. With this clew, we shall also see how (as - the Virtue of each individual must be produced by himself, and is the - share committed to him in the grand end of creation) all Duties must - necessarily range themselves accordingly—the Personal before the - Social—in a sequence entirely different from that which is comformable - with the hypothesis that Happiness is ‘our being’s end and aim’; but - which is, nevertheless, precisely the sequence in which Intuition has - always peremptorily demanded that they should be arranged. We shall - see how (as the bestowal of Happiness on man must always be postponed - by God to the still more blessed aim of conducing to his Virtue) the - greatest outward woes and trials, so far from inspiring us with doubts - of His Goodness, must be taken as evidences of the glory of that End - of Virtue to which they lead, even as the depths of the foundations of - a cathedral may show how high the towers and spires will one day - ascend.”—_Pref._, pp. V.–X. - - -In the first chapter, entitled _What is the Moral Law?_ I take for motto -Antigone’s great speech:— - - “ἄγραπτα κᾀσφαλῆ θεῶν - νόμιμα.... - οὐ γἀρ τι νῦν γε κᾀχθὲς, ἀλλ’ ἀεί ποτε - ζῇ ταῦτα, κοὐδεὶς οἶδεν ἐξ ὅτου ‘φάνη. - Σοφ. Ἀντιγ. 454.” - -I begin by defining Moral actions and sentiments as those of Rational -Free Agents, to which alone may be applied the terms of Right or Wrong, -Good or Evil, Virtuous or Vicious. I then proceed to say:— - - - “This moral character of good or evil is a real, universal and eternal - distinction, existing through all worlds and for ever, wherever there - are rational creatures and free agents. As one kind of line is a - straight line, and another a crooked line, and as no line can be both - straight and crooked, so one kind of action or sentiment is right, and - another is wrong, and no action or sentiment can be both right or - wrong. And as the same line which is straight on this planet would be - straight in Sirius or Alcyone, and what constitutes straightness in - the nineteenth century will constitute straightness in the nineteenth - millennium, so that sentiment or action which is right in our world, - is right in all worlds; and that which constitutes righteousness now - will constitute righteousness through all eternity. And as the - character of straightness belongs to the line, by whatsoever hand it - may have been traced, so the character of righteousness belongs to the - sentiment or action, by what rational free agent soever it may have - been felt or performed.” - - “And of this distinction language affords a reliable exponent. When we - have designated one kind of figure by the word Circle, and another by - the word Triangle, those terms, having become the names of the - respective figures, cannot be transposed without transgression of the - laws of language. Thus it would be absurd to argue that the figure we - call a circle, may not be a circle; that a ‘plane figure, containing a - point from which all right lines drawn to the circumference shall be - equal,’ may not be a circle, but a triangle. In like manner, when we - have designated one kind of sentiment or action as Right, and another - as Wrong, it becomes an absurdity to say that the kind of sentiments - or actions we call Right may, perhaps, be Wrong. If a figure be not a - circle, according to our sense of the word, it is not a circle at all, - but an Ellipse, a Triangle, Trapezium, or something else. If a - sentiment or action be not Right, according to our sense of the word, - it is not Right at all, but, according to the laws of language, must - be called Wrong. - - “It is not maintained that we can commit no error in affixing the - _name_ of Circle to a particular figure, or of Right to a particular - sentiment or action. We may at a hasty glance pronounce an ellipse to - be a circle; but when we have proved the radii to be unequal, needs - must we arrive at a better judgment. Our error was caused by our first - haste and misjudgment, not by our inability to decide whether an - object presented to us bears or does not bear a character to which we - have agreed to affix a certain name. In like manner, from haste or - prejudice, we may pronounce a faulty sentiment or action to be Right; - but when we have examined it in all its bearings, we ourselves are the - first to call it Wrong.”—Pp. 4–7. - - -After much more on the _positive_ nature of Good, and the negative -nature of Evil, and on the relation of the Moral Law to God as -_impersonated_ in His Will, and not the result (as Ockham taught) of his -arbitrary decree,—I sum up the argument of this first chapter. To the -question, What is the Moral Law? I answer:— - - - “The Moral Law is the embodiment of the eternal Necessary obligation - of all Rational Free Agents to do and feel those actions and - sentiments which are Right. The identification of this law with His - will constitutes the _Holiness_ of the infinite God. Voluntary and - disinterested obedience to this law constitutes the _Virtue_ of all - finite creatures. Virtue is capable of infinite growth, of endless - approach to the Divine nature, and to perfect conformity with the law. - God has made all rational free agents for virtue, and (doubtless) all - worlds for rational free agents. The Moral Law, therefore, not only - reigns throughout His creation (its behests being finally enforced - therein by His power), but is itself the reason why that creation - exists. The material universe, with all its laws, and all the events - which result therefrom, has one great purpose, and tends to one great - end. It is that end which infinite Love has designed, and which - infinite Power shall surely accomplish,—the everlasting approximation - of all created souls to Goodness and to God.”—(Pp. 62, 63.) - - -The second chapter undertakes to answer the question, _Where is the -Moral Law Found?_ and begins by a brief analysis of the two great -classes of human knowledge as a preliminary to ascertaining to which of -these our knowledge of ethics belongs. - - - “All sciences are either Exact or Physical (or are applications of - Exact to Physical science). - - “Exact sciences are deduced from axiomatic Necessary truths and - results in universal propositions, each of which is a Necessary Truth. - - “Physical sciences are induced from Experimental Contingent truths, - and result in General Propositions, each of which is a contingent - truth. - - “We obtain our knowledge of the Experimental Contingent Truths from - which Physical science is induced, by the united action of our bodily - senses and of our minds themselves, which must both in each case - contribute their proper quota to make knowledge possible. Every - perception necessitates this double element of sensation and - intuition,—the objective and subjective factor in combination. - - “We obtain our knowledge of the axiomatic Necessary Truths from which - Exact science is deduced, by the _à priori_ operation of the mind - alone, and (_quoad_ the exact science in question) without the aid of - sensation (not, indeed, by _à priori_ operation of a mind which has - never worked with sensation, for such a mind would be altogether - barren; but of one which has reached normal development under normal - conditions; which conditions involve the continual united action - productive of perceptions of contingent truths). - - “In this distinction between the sources of our knowledge lies the - most important discovery of philosophy. Into whatsoever knowledge the - element of Sensation necessarily enters as a constituent part, therein - there can be no absolute certainty of truth; the fallibility of - Sensation being recognised on all hands, and neutralising the - certainty of the pure mental element. But when we discover an order of - sciences which, without aid from sensation, are deduced by the mind’s - own operation from those Necessary truths which we hold on a tenure - marking indelibly their distinction from all contingent truths - whatsoever, then we obtain footing in a new realm.... - - “In the ensuing pages I shall endeavour to demonstrate that the - science of Morals belongs to the class of Exact sciences, and that it - has consequently a right to that credence wherewith we hold the truths - of arithmetic and geometry....” - - -The test which divides the two classes is as follows:— - - - “What truth soever is _Necessary_ and of universal extent is derived - by the mind from its own operation, and does not rest on observation - or experience; as, conversely, what truth or perception soever is - present to the mind with a consciousness, not of its Necessity, but of - its Contingency, is ascribable not to the original agency of the mind - itself, but derives its origin from observation and experience.” - - -After lengthened discussion on this head and on the supposed mistakes of -moral intuition, I go on to say: - - - “The consciousness of the Contingency, or the consciousness of the - Necessity (_i.e._, the consciousness that the truth _cannot_ be - contingent, but must hold good in all worlds for ever), these - consciousnesses are to be relied on, for they have their origin in, - and are the marks of, the different elements from which they have been - derived.[9] We may apply them to the fundamental truths of any - science, and by observing whether the reception of such truths into - our minds be accompanied by the consciousness of Necessity or of - Contingency, we may decide whether the science be rightfully Exact or - Physical, deductive or inductive. - - “For example, we take the axioms of arithmetic and geometry, and we - find that we have distinct consciousness that they are Necessary - truths. We cannot conceive them altered any where or at any time. The - sciences which are deduced from these and from similar axioms are - then, Exact sciences. - - “Again: we take the ultimate facts of geology and anatomy, and we find - that we have distinct consciousness that they are Contingent truths. - We can readily suppose them other than we find them. The sciences, - then, which are induced from these and similar facts are not Exact - sciences. - - “If, then, morals can be shown to bear this test equally with - mathematics,—if there be any fundamental truths of morals holding in - our minds the status of those axioms of geometry and arithmetic of - whose Necessity we are conscious, then these fundamental truths of - morals are entitled to be made the basis of an Exact science the - subsequent theorems of which must all be deduced from them.—(P. - 76.)... - - “Men like Hume traverse the history of our race, to collect all the - piteous instances of aberrations which have resulted from neglect or - imperfect study of the moral consciousness; and then they cry, ‘Behold - what it teaches!’ Yet I suppose that it will be admitted that Man is - an animal capable of knowing geometry; though, if we were to go up and - down the world, asking rich and poor, Englishman and Esquimaux, what - are the ratios of solidity and superficies of a sphere, a right - cylinder and an equilateral cone circumscribed about it, there are - sundry chances that we should hear of other ratios besides the - sesquialterate. - - “He who should argue that, because people ignorant of geometry did not - know the sesquialterate ratio of the sphere, cylinder and cone, - therefore no man could know it, or that because they disputed it, that - therefore it was uncertain, would argue no more absurdly than he who - urges the divergencies of half civilised and barbarian nations as a - reason why no man could know, or know with certainty, the higher - propositions of morals.” - - -After analysing the Utilitarian and other theories which derive Morality -from Contingent truths, I conclude that “the truths of Morals are -Necessary Truths. The origin of our knowledge of them is Intuitive, and -their proper treatment is Deductive.” - -The third Chapter treats of the proposition, “That the Moral Law can be -obeyed,” and discusses the doctrine of Kant, that the true self of Man, -the _Homo Noumenon_, is free, self-legislative of Law fit for Law -Universal; while as the _Homo Phenomenon_, an inhabitant of the world of -sense, he is a mere link in the chain of causes and effects, and his -actions are locked up in mechanic laws which, had he no other rank, -would ensue exactly according to the physical impulses given by the -instincts and solicitations in the sensory. But as an inhabitant (also) -of the supersensitive world his position is among the causalities which -taking their rise therein, are the intimate ground of phenomena. The -discussion in this chapter on the above proposition cannot be condensed -into any space admissible here. - -The fourth Chapter seeks to determine _Why the Moral Law should be -Obeyed_. It begins thus:— - - - “In the last Chapter (Chapter III.) I endeavoured to demonstrate that - the pure Will, the true self of man, is by nature righteous; - self-legislative of the only Universal Law, viz., the Moral; and that - by this spontaneous autonomy would all his actions be squared, were it - not for his lower nature, which is by its constitution unmoral, - neither righteous nor unrighteous, but capable only of determining its - choice by its instinctive propensities and the gratifications offered - to them. Thus these two are contrary one to another, ‘and the spirit - lusteth against the flesh, and the flesh against the spirit.’ In the - valour of the higher nature acquired by its victory over the lower, in - the virtue of the tried and conquering soul, we look for the glorious - end of creation, the sublime result contemplated by Infinite - Benevolence in calling man into existence and fitting him with the - complicated nature capable of developing that Virtue which alone can - be the crown of finite intelligences. The great practical problem of - human life is this: ‘How is the Moral Will to gain the victory over - the unmoral instincts, the _Homo Noumenon_ over the _Homo Phenomenon_, - Michael over the Evil One, Mithras over Hyle?’” - - -In pursuing this enquiry of how the Moral Will is to be rendered -victorious, I am led back to the question: Is Happiness “our end and -aim?” What relation does it bear to Morality as a motive? - - - “I have already argued, in Chapter I., that Happiness, properly - speaking, is the gratification of _all_ the desires of our compound - nature, and that moral, intellectual, affectional, and sensual - pleasures are all to be considered as integers, whose sum, when - complete, would constitute perfect Happiness. From this multiform - nature of Happiness it has arisen, that those systems of ethics which - set it forth as the proper motive of Virtue have differed immensely - from one another, according as the Happiness they respectively - contemplated was thought of as consisting in the pleasures of our - Moral, or of our Intellectual, Affectional, and Sensual natures; - whether the pleasures were to be sought by the virtuous man for his - own enjoyment, or for the general happiness of the community. - - “The pursuit of Virtue for the sake of its intrinsic, _i.e._, Moral - pleasure, is designated EUTHUMISM. - - “The pursuit of Virtue for the sake of the extrinsic Affectional, - Intellectual, and Sensual pleasure resulting from it, is designated - EUDAIMONISM. - - “Euthumism is of one kind only, for the individual can only seek the - intrinsic pleasure of Virtue for his own enjoyment thereof. - - “Eudaimonism, on the contrary, is of two most distinct lands. That - which I have called PUBLIC EUDAIMONISM sets forth the intellectual, - affectional, and sensual pleasures of _all mankind_ as the proper - object of the Virtue of each individual. PRIVATE EUDAIMONISM sets - forth the same pleasures of the _individual himself_ as the proper - object of his Virtue. - - “These two latter systems are commonly confounded under the name of - ‘UTILITARIAN ETHICS.’ Their principles, as I have stated them, will be - seen to be wide asunder; yet there are few of the advocates of either - who have not endeavoured to stand on the grounds of both, and even to - borrow elevation from those of the Euthumist. Thus, by appealing - alternately to philanthropy[10] and to a gross and a refined - Selfishness, they suit the purpose of the moment, and prevent their - scheme from deviating too far from the intuitive conscience of - mankind. It may be remarked, also, that the Private Eudaimonists - insist more particularly on the pleasure of a _Future Life_; and in - the exposition of them necessarily approach nearer to the Euthumists.” - - -I here proceeded to discuss the three systems which have arisen from the -above-defined different views of Happiness; each contemplating it as the -proper motive of Virtue: namely, 1st, Euthumism; 2nd, Public -Eudaimonism; and 3rd, Private Eudaimonism. - - - “1st. Euthumism. This system, as I have said, sets forth the _Moral - Pleasure_, the peace and cheerfulness of mind, and applause of - conscience enjoyed in Virtue, as the proper motive for its practice. - Conversely, it sets forth as the dissuadent from Vice, the pain of - remorse, the inward uneasiness and self-contempt which belong to it. - - “Democritus appears to have been the first who gave clear utterance to - this doctrine, maintaining that Εύθυμία was the proper End of human - actions, and sharply distinguishing it from the ‘Ηδονή’ proposed as - such by Aristippus. The claims of a ‘_mens conscia recti_’ to be the - ‘Summum Bonum,’ occupied, as is well known, a large portion of the - subsequent disputes of the Epicureans, Cynics, Stoics and Academics, - and were eagerly argued by Cicero, and even down to the time of - Boethius. Many of these sects, however, and in particular the Stoics, - though maintaining that Virtue alone is sufficient for Happiness (that - is, that the inward joy of Virtue is enough to constitute Happiness in - the midst of torments), yet by no means set forth that Happiness as - the sole _motive_ of Virtue. They held, on the contrary, the noblest - ideas of ‘living according to Nature,’ that is, as Chrysippus - explained it, according to the ‘Nature of the universe, the common Law - of all, which is the right reason spread everywhere, the same by which - Jupiter governs the world’; and that both Virtue and Happiness - consisted in so regulating our actions that they should produce - harmony between the Spirit in each of us, and the Will of Him who - rules the universe. There is little or no trace of Euthumism in the - Jewish or Christian Scriptures, or (to my knowledge) in the sacred - books of the Brahmins, Buddhists, or Parsees. The ethical problems - argued by the mediæval Schoolmen do not, so far as I am aware, embrace - the subject in question. The doctrine was revived, however, in the - seventeenth century, and besides blending with more or less - distinctness with the views of a vast number of lesser moralists, it - reckons among its professed adherents no less names than Henry More - and Bishop Cumberland. Euthumism, philosophically considered, will be - found to affix itself most properly on the doctrine of the ‘Moral - Sense’ laid down by Shaftesbury as the origin of our _knowledge_ of - moral distinctions, which, if it were, it would naturally follow that - it must afford also the right _motive_ of Virtue. Hutcheson, also, - still more distinctly stated that this Moral Pleasure in Virtue (which - both he and Shaftesbury likened to the æsthetic Pleasure in Beauty) - was the true ground of our choice. To this Balguy replied, that ‘to - make the rectitude of moral actions depend upon instinct, and, in - proportion to the warmth and strength of the Moral Sense, rise and - fall like spirits in a thermometer, is depreciating the most sacred - thing in the world, and almost exposing it to ridicule.’ And Whewell - has shown that the doctrine of the Moral Sense as the foundation of - Morals must always fail, whether understood as meaning a sense like - that of Beauty (which may or may not be merely a modification of the - Agreeable), or a sense like those of Touch or Taste (which no one can - fairly maintain that any of our moral perceptions really resemble). - - “But though neither the true source of our _Knowledge_ of Moral - Distinctions nor yet the right _Motive_ why we are to choose the Good, - this Moral Sense of Pleasure in Virtue, and Pain in Vice, is a - psychological fact demanding the investigation of the Moralist. - Moreover, the error of allowing our moral choice to be decided by a - regard to the pure joy of Virtue or awful pangs of self-condemnation, - is an error so venial in comparison of other moral heresies, and so - easily to be confounded with a truer principle of Morals, that it is - particularly necessary to warn generous natures against it. ‘It is - quite beyond the grasp of human thought,’ says Kant, ‘to explain how - reason can be practical; how the mere Morality of the law, - independently of every object man can be interested in, can itself - beget an interest which is purely Ethical; how a naked thought, - containing in it nothing of the sensory, can bring forth an emotion of - pleasure or pain.’ - - “Unconsciously this Sense of Pleasure in a Virtuous Act, the thought - of the peace of conscience which will follow it, or the dread of - remorse for its neglect, must mingle with our motives. But we can - never be permitted, consciously to exhibit them to ourselves as the - ground of our resolution to obey the Law. That Law is not valid for - man because it interests him, but it interests him because it has - validity for him—because it springs from his true being, his proper - self. The interest he feels is an Effect, not a Cause; a Contingency, - not a Necessity. Were he to obey the Law merely from this Interest, it - would not be free Self-legislation (autonomy), but (heteronomy) - subservience of the Pure Will to a lower faculty—a Sense of Pleasure. - And, practically, we may perceive that all manner of mischiefs and - absurdities must arise if a man set forth Moral Pleasure as the - determinator of his Will.... - - “Thus, the maxim of Euthumism, ‘_Be virtuous for the sake of the Moral - Pleasure of Virtue_,’ may be pronounced false. - - “2nd. Public Eudaimonism sets forth, both as the ground of our - knowledge of Virtue and the motive for our practice of it, ‘_The - Greatest Happiness of the Greatest Number_.’ This Happiness, as Paley - understood it, is composed of Pleasures to be estimated only by their - Intensity and Duration; or, as Bentham added, by their Certainty, - Propinquity, Fecundity, and Purity (or freedom from admixture of - evil). - - “Let it be granted for argument’s sake, that the calculable Happiness - resulting from actions can determine their Virtue (although all - experience teaches that resulting Happiness is not calculable, and - that the Virtue must at least be one of the items determining the - resulting Happiness). On the Utilitarian’s own assumption, what sort - of motive for Virtue can be his end of ‘_The Greatest Happiness of the - Greatest Number_?’ - - “No sooner had Paley laid down the grand principle of his system, - ‘_Whatever is Expedient is Right_,’ than he proceeds (as he thinks) to - guard against its malapplication by arguing that nothing is expedient - which produces, along with _particular_ good consequences, _general_ - bad ones, and that this is done by the violation of any general rule. - ‘You cannot,’ says he, ‘permit one action, and forbid another without - showing a difference between them. Consequently the same sort of - actions must be generally permitted or generally forbidden. Where - therefore, the general permission of them would be pernicious, it - becomes necessary to lay down and support the rule which generally - forbids them.’ - - “Now, let the number of experienced consequences of actions be ever so - great, it must be admitted that the Inductions we draw therefrom can, - at the utmost, be only provisional, and subject to revision should new - facts be brought in to bear in an opposite scale.... - - “Further, the rules induced by experience must be not only - provisional, but partial. The lax term ‘general’ misleads us. A Moral - Rule must be either universal and open to no exception, or, properly - speaking, no _rule_ at all. Each case of Morals stands alone. - - “Thus, the Experimentalist’s conclusion, for example, that ‘Lying does - more harm than good,’ may be quite remodelled by the fortunate - discovery of so prudent a kind of falsification as shall obviate the - mischief and leave the advantage. No doubt can remain on the mind of - any student of Paley, that this would have been his own line of - argument: ‘If we can only prove that a lie be expedient, then it - becomes a duty to lie.’ As he says himself of the rule (which if any - rule may do so may surely claim to be general) ‘Do not do evil that - good may come,’ that it is ‘salutary, for the most part, the advantage - seldom compensating for the violation of the rule.’ So to do evil is - sometimes salutary, and does now and then compensate for disregarding - even the Eudaimonist’s last resource—a General Rule! - - “2nd. Private Eudaimonism. There are several formulas, in which this - system, (the lowest, but the most logical, of Moral heresies) is - embodied. Rutherford puts it thus: ‘Every man’s Happiness is the - ultimate end which Reason teaches him to pursue, and the constant and - uniform practice of Virtue towards all mankind becomes our duty, when - Revelation has informed us that God will make us finally happy in a - life after this.’ Paley (who properly belongs to this school, but - endeavours frequently to seat himself on the corners of the stools of - Euthumism and Public Eudaimonism), Paley, the standard Moralist of - England,[11] defines Virtue thus: ‘_Virtue is the doing good to - mankind in obedience to the will of God, and for the sake of - Everlasting Happiness_. According to which definition, the good of - mankind is the subject; the will of God the rule; and Everlasting - Happiness the motive of Virtue.’ - - “Yet it seems to me, that if there be any one truth which intuition - does teach us more clearly than another, it is precisely this one—that - Virtue to be Virtue must be disinterested. The moment we picture any - species of reward becoming the bait of our Morality, that moment we - see the holy flame of Virtue annihilated in the noxious gas. A man is - not Virtuous at all who is honest because it is ‘good policy,’ - beneficent from love of approbation, pious for the sake of heaven. All - this is prudence not virtue, selfishness not self-sacrifice. If he be - honest for sake of policy, would he be dishonest, if it could be - proved that it were more politic? If he would _not_, then he is not - really honest from policy but from some deeper principle thrust into - the background of his consciousness. If he _would_, then it is idlest - mockery to call that honesty Virtuous which only waits a bribe to - become dishonest. - - “But there are many Eudaimonists who will be ready to acknowledge that - a prudent postponement of our happiness in _this_ world cannot - constitute virtue. But wherefore do they say we are to postpone it? - Not for present pleasure or pain, that would be base; but for that - anticipation of future pleasure or pain which we call Hope and Fear. - And this, not for the Hope and Fear of this world, which are still - admitted to be base motives; but for Hope and Fear extended one step - beyond the tomb—the Hope of Heaven and the Fear of Hell.” - - -After a general glance at the doctrine of Future Rewards and Punishments -as held by Christians and heathens, I go on to argue: - - - “But in truth this doctrine of the Hope of Heaven being the true - Motive of Virtue is (at least in theory) just as destructive of Virtue - as that which makes the rewards of this life—health, wealth, or - reputation—the motive of it. Well says brave Kingsley: - - ‘Is selfishness for time a sin, - Stretched out into eternity celestial prudence?’ - - “If to act for a small reward cannot be virtuous, to act for a large - one can certainly merit no more. To be bribed by a guinea is surely no - better than to be bribed by a penny. To be deterred from ruin by fear - of transportation for life, is no more noble than to be deterred by - fear of twenty-four hours in prison. There is no use multiplying - illustrations. He who can think that Virtue is the doing right for - pay, may think himself very judicious to leave his pay in the - savings-bank now and come into a fortune all at once by and by; but he - who thinks that Virtue is the doing right for Right’s own sake, cannot - possibly draw a distinction between small bribes and large ones; a - reward to be given to-day, and a reward to be given in eternity. - - “Nevertheless it cannot be denied that the belief in immortal progress - is of incalculable value. Such belief, and that in an ever-present - God, may be called the two wings of human Virtue. I look on the - advantages of a faith in immortality to be two-fold. First, it cuts - the knot of the world, and gives to our apprehension a God whose - providence need no longer perplex us, and whose immeasurable and - never-ending goodness shines ever brighter before our contemplating - souls. Secondly, it gives an importance to personal progress which we - can hardly attribute to it so long as we deem it is to be arrested for - ever by death. The man who does not believe in Immortality may be, and - often actually is, more virtuous than his neighbour; and it is quite - certain that his Virtue is of far purer character than that which - bargains for Heaven as its pay. But his task is a very hard one, a - task without a result; and his road a dreary one, unenlightened even - by the distant dawn of - - ‘That great world of light which lies - Behind all human destinies.’ - - We can scarcely do him better service than by leading him to trust - that intuition of Immortality which is written in the heart of the - human race by that Hand which writes no falsehoods. - - “But if the attainment of Heaven be no true motive for the pursuit of - Virtue, surely I may be held excused from denouncing that practice of - holding out the fear of Hell wherewith many fill up the measure of - moral degradation? Here it is vain to suppose that the fear is that of - the immortality of sin and banishment from God; as we are sometimes - told the hope of Heaven is that of an immortality of Virtue and union - with Him. The mind which sinks to the debasement of any Fear is - already below the level at which sin and estrangement are terrors. It - is his weakness of will which alone hinders the Prodigal from saying, - ‘I will arise and go to my Father,’ and unless we can strengthen that - Will by some different motive, it is idle to threaten him with its own - persistence. - - * * * * * - - “Returning from the contemplation of the lowness of aim common to all - the forms of Eudaimonism, how magnificent seems the grand and holy - doctrine of true Intuitive Morality? DO RIGHT FOR THE RIGHT’S OWN - SAKE: Love God and Goodness because they are Good! The soul seems to - awake from death at such archangel’s call as this, and mortal man puts - on his rightful immortality. The prodigal grovels no longer, seeking - for Happiness amid the husks of pleasure; but, ‘coming to himself,’ he - arises and goes to his Father, heedless if it be but as the lowest of - His servants he may yet dwell beneath that Father’s smile. Hope and - fear for this life or the next, mercenary bargainings, and labour of - eye-service, all are at end. He is a Freeman, and free shall be the - oblation of his soul and body, the reasonable, holy, and acceptable - sacrifice. - - “O Living Soul! wilt thou follow that mighty hand, and obey that - summons of the trumpet? Perchance thou hast reached life’s solemn - noon, and with the bright hues of thy morning have faded away the - beautiful aspirations of thy youth. Doubtless thou hast often - struggled for the Right; but, weary with frequent overthrows, thou - criest, ‘This also is vanity.’ But think again, O Soul, whose sun - shall never set! Have no poor and selfish ambitions mingled with those - struggles and made them vanity? Have no theologic dogmas from which - thy maturer reason revolts, been blended with thy purer principle? - Hast thou nourished no extravagant hope of becoming suddenly sinless, - or of heaping up with an hour’s labour a mountain of benefits on thy - race? Surely some mistake like these lies at the root of all moral - discouragement. But mark:— - - “Pure morals forbid all base and selfish motives—all - happiness-seeking, fame-seeking, love-seeking—in this world or the - next, as motives of Virtue. Pure Morals rest not on any traditional - dogma, not on history, on philology, on criticism, but on those - intuitions, clear as the axioms of geometry, which thine own soul - finds in its depths, and knows to be necessary truths, which, short of - madness, it cannot disbelieve. - - “Pure Morals offer no panacea to cure in a moment all the diseases of - the human heart, and transform the sinner into the saint. They teach - that the passions, which are the machinery of our moral life, are not - to be miraculously annihilated, but by slow and unwearying endeavour - to be brought into obedience to the Holy Will; while to fall and rise - again many a time in the path of virtue is the inevitable lot of every - pilgrim therein.... Our hearts burn within us when for a moment the - vision rises before our sight of what we might make our life even here - upon earth. Faintly can any words picture that vision! - - “A life of Benevolence, in which every word of our lips, every work of - our hands, had been a contribution to human virtue or human happiness; - a life in which, ever wider and warmer through its three score years - and ten had grown our pure, unwavering, Godlike Love, till we had - spread the same philanthropy through a thousand hearts ere we passed - away from earth to love yet better still our brethren in the sky. - - “A life of Personal Virtue, in which every evil disposition had been - trampled down, every noble sentiment called forth and strengthened; a - life in which, leaving day by day further behind us the pollutions of - sin, we had also ascended daily to fresh heights of purity, till - self-conquest, unceasingly achieved, became continually more secure - and more complete, and at last— - - ‘The lordly Will o’er its subject powers - Like a thronèd God prevailed,’ - - and we could look back upon the great task of earth, and say, ‘It is - finished!’ - - “A life of Religion, in which the delight in God’s presence, the - reverence for His moral attributes, the desire to obey His Will, and - the consciousness of His everlasting love, had grown continually - clearer and stronger, and of which Prayer, deepest and intensest, had - been the very heart and nucleus, till we had found God drawing ever - nearer to us as we drew near to him, and vouchsafing to us a communion - the bliss of which no human speech may ever tell; the dawning of that - day of adoration which shall grow brighter and brighter still while - all the clusters of the suns fade out and die. - - “And turning from our own destiny, from the endless career opened to - our Benevolence, our Personal Virtue, and our Piety, we take in a yet - broader view, and behold the whole universe of God mapped out in one - stupendous Plan of Love. In the abyss of the past eternity we see the - Creator for ever designing and for ever accomplishing the supremest - end at which infinite Justice and Goodness could aim, and absolute - Wisdom and Power bring to pass. For this end, for the Virtue of all - finite Intelligences, we behold Him building up millions of starry - abodes and peopling them with immortal spirits clothed in the garbs of - flesh, and endowed with that moral freedom whose bestowal was the - highest boon of Omnipotence. As ages of millenniums roll away, we see - a double progress working through all the realms of space; a progress - of each race and of each individual. Slowly and securely, though with - many an apparent retrogression, does each world-family become better, - wiser, nobler, happier. Slowly and securely, though with many a - grievous backsliding, each living soul grows up to Virtue. Nor pauses - that awful march for a moment, even in the death of the being or the - cataclysm of the world. Over all Death and Change reigns that Almighty - changeless will which has decreed the holiness and happiness of every - spirit He hath made. Through the gates of the grave, and on the ruins - of worlds, shall those spirits climb, higher and yet higher through - the infinite ages, nearer and yet nearer to Goodness and to God.” - - - - - CHAPTER - VI. - _IRELAND IN THE FORTIES._ - _THE PEASANTRY._ - - -The prominence which Irish grievances have taken of late years in -English politics has caused me often to review with fresh eyes the state -of the country as it existed in my childhood and youth, when, of course, -both the good and evil of it appeared to me to be part of the order of -nature itself. - -I will first speak of the condition of the working classes, then of the -gentry and clergy. - -I had considerable opportunities for many years of hearing and seeing -all that was going on in our neighbourhood, which was in the district -known as “Fingal” (the White Strangers’ land), having been once the -territory of the Danes. Fingal extends along the sea-coast between -Dublin and Drogheda, and our part lay exactly between Malahide and Rush. -My father, and at a later time my eldest brother, were indefatigable as -magistrates, Poor law Guardians and landlords, in their efforts to -relieve the wants and improve the condition of the people; and it fell -on me naturally, as the only active woman of the family, to play the -part of Lady Bountiful on a rather large scale. There was my father’s -own small village of Donabate in the first place, claiming my attention; -and beyond it a larger straggling collection of mud cabins named -“Balisk”; the landlord of which, Lord Trimleston, was an absentee, and -the village a centre of fever and misery. In Donabate there was never -any real distress. In every house there were wage-earners or pensioners -enough to keep the wolf from the door. Only when sickness came was there -need for extra food, wine, and so on. The wages of a field-labourer -were, at that time, about 8s. a week; of course without keep. His diet -consisted of oatmeal porridge, wheaten griddle-bread, potatoes and -abundance of buttermilk. The potatoes, before the Famine, were delicious -tubers. Many of the best kinds disappeared at that time (notably I -recall the “Black Bangers”), and the Irish housewife cooked them in a -manner which no English or French _Cordon Bleu_ can approach. I remember -constantly seeing little girls bringing the mid-day dinners to their -fathers, who sat in summer under the trees, and in winter in a -comfortable room in our stable-yard, with fire and tables and chairs. -The cloth which carried the dinner being removed there appeared a plate -of “smiling” potatoes (_i.e._, with cracked and peeling skins) and in -the midst a _well_ of about a sixth of a pound of butter. Along with the -plate of potatoes was a big jug of milk, and a hunch of griddle-bread. -On this food the men worked in summer from six (or earlier, if mowing -was to be done) till breakfast, and from thence till one o’clock. After -an hour’s dinner the great bell tolled again, and work went on till 6. -In winter there was no cessation of work from 8 a.m. till 5 p.m., when -it ended. Of course these long hours of labour in the fields, without -the modern interruptions, were immensely valuable on the farm. I do not -think I err in saying that my father had thirty per cent. more -profitable labour from his men for 8s. a week, than is now to be had -from labourers at 16s.; at all events where I live here, in Wales. It is -fair to note that beside their wages my father’s men, and also the old -women whose daughters (eight in number) worked in the shrubberies and -other light work all the year round, were allowed each the grazing of a -cow on his pastures, and were able to get coal from the ships he -chartered every winter from Whitehaven for 11s. a ton, drawn to the -village by his horses. At Christmas an ox was divided among them, and -generally also a good quantity of frieze for the coats of the men, and -for the capes of the eight “Amazons.” - -I cannot say what amount of genuine loyalty really existed among our -people at that time. Outwardly, it appeared they were happy and -contented, though, in talking to the old people, one never failed to -hear lamentations for the “good old times” of the past generations. In -those times, as we knew very well, nothing like the care we gave to the -wants of the working classes was so much as dreamed of by our -forefathers. But they kept open house, where all comers were welcome to -eat and drink in the servants’ hall when they came up on any pretext; -and this kind of hospitality has ever been a supreme merit in Celtic -eyes. Some readers will remember that the famous chieftainess, Grana -Uaile, invading Howth in one of her piratical expeditions in the -“spacious times of great Elizabeth,” found the gates of the ancient -castle of the St. Lawrences, closed, _though it was dinner-time_! -Indignant at this breach of decency, Grana Uaile kidnapped the heir of -the lordly house and carried him to her robbers’ fortress in Connaught, -whence she only released him in subsequent years on the solemn -engagement of the Lords of Howth always to dine with the doors of Howth -Castle wide open. I believe it is not more than 50 years, if so much, -since this practice was abolished. - -I think the only act of “tyranny” with which I was charged when I kept -my father’s house, and which provoked violent recalcitration, was when I -gave orders that men coming from our mountains to Newbridge on business -with “the Master” should be served with largest platefuls of meat and -jugs of beer, but should not be left in the servants’ hall _en -tête-à-tête_ with whole rounds and sirloins of beef, of which no account -could afterwards be obtained! - -Of course, the poor labourer in Ireland at that time after the failure -of the potatoes, who had no allowances, and had many young children -unable to earn anything for themselves, was cruelly tightly placed. I -shall copy here a calculation which I took down in a note-book, still in -my possession, after sifting enquiries concerning prices at our village -shops, in, or about, the year 1845:— - - Wheatmeal costs 2s. 3d. per stone of 14 lbs. - Oatmeal costs 2s. 4d. per stone of 14 lbs. - India meal costs 1s. 8d. per stone of 14 lbs. - 14 lbs. of wheatmeal makes 18 lbs. of griddle-bread. - 1 lb. of oatmeal makes 3 lbs. of stirabout. - - A man will require 4 lbs. food per day 28 lbs. per week. - A woman will require 3 lbs. food per day 21 lbs. per week. - Each child at least 2 lbs. food per day 14 lbs. per week. - -A family of 3 will therefore require 63 lbs. of food per week—_e.g._, - - _s._ _d._ - 1 stone wheat— 18 lbs. bread 2 3 - 1 stone oatmeal— 42 lbs. stirabout 2 4 - -- - - - 60 lbs. food; cost 4 7 - -A family of 5 will require— - - Man 28 lbs. - Wife 21 lbs. - 3 children 42 lbs. - —— - 91 lbs. food. - - _s._ _d._ - Say 30 lbs. bread—23 lbs. wheatmeal 3 10 - 61 lbs. stirabout—20 lbs. oatmeal 3 4 - —— — —— - 91 lbs. 7 2 - -Thus, when a man had five children to support, and no potatoes, his -weekly wages scarcely covered bare food. - -Before the Famine and the great fever, the population of our part of -Ireland was exceedingly dense; more than 200 to the square mile. There -were an enormous number of mud cabins consisting of one room only, run -up at every corner of the roadside and generally allowed to sink into -miserable squat, _sottish_-looking hovels with no drainage at all; mud -floor; broken thatch, two or three rough boards for a door; and the four -panes of the sole window stuffed with rags or an old hat. Just 500,000 -of these one-roomed cabins, the Registrar-General, Mr. William Donelly, -told me, disappeared between the census before, and the census after the -Famine! Nothing was easier than to run them up. Thatch was cheap, and -mud abundant, everywhere; and as to the beams (they called them -“_bames_”), I remember a man addressing my father coaxingly, “Ah yer -Honour will ye plaze spake to the steward to give me a ‘_handful of -sprigs_?’” “A handful of _sprigs_? What for?” asked my father; “Why for -the roof of me new little house, yer Honour, that I’m building fornenst -the ould wan!” - -I never saw in an Irish cottage any of the fine old oak settles, -dressers and armchairs and coffers to be found usually in Welsh ones. A -good unpainted deal dresser and table, a wooden bedstead, a couple of -wooden chairs, and two or three straw “bosses” (stools) made like -beehives, completed the furniture of a well-to-do cabin, with a range of -white or willow-pattern plates on the dresser, and two or three -frightfully coloured woodcuts pasted on the walls for adornment. Flowers -in the gardens or against the walls were never to be seen. Enormous -chimney corners, with wooden stools or straw “bosses” under the -projecting walls, were the most noticeable feature. Nothing seems to be -more absurd and unhistorical than the common idea that the Celt is a -beauty-loving creature, æsthetically far above the Saxon. If he be so, -it is surprising that his home, his furniture, his dress, his garden -never show the smallest token of his taste! When the young girls from -the villages, even from very respectable families, were introduced into -our houses, it was a severe tax on the housekeepers’ supervision to -prevent them from resorting to the most outrageous shifts and misuse of -utensils of all sorts. I can recall, for example, one beautiful young -creature with the lovely Irish grey eyes and long lashes, and with -features so fine that we privately called her “Madonna.” For about two -years she acted as housemaid to my second brother, who, as I have -mentioned, had taken a place in Donegal, and whose excellent London -cook, carefully trained “Madonna” into what were (outwardly) ways of -pleasantness for her master. At last, and when apparently perfectly -“domesticated”—as English advertisers describe themselves,—Madonna -married the cowman; and my brother took pleasure in setting up the young -couple in a particularly neat and rather lonely cottage with new deal -furniture. After six months they emigrated; and when my brother visited -their deserted house he found it in a state of which it will suffice to -record one item. The pig had slept all the time under the bedstead; and -no attempt had been made to remove the resulting heap of manure! - -My father had as strong a sense as any modern sanitary reformer of the -importance of good and healthy cottages; and having found his estate -covered with mud and thatched cabins, he (and my brother after him) -laboured incessantly, year by year, to replace them by mortared stone -and slated cottages, among which were five schoolhouses supported by -himself. As it was my frequent duty to draw for him the plans and -elevations of these cottages, farmhouses and village shops, with -calculations of the cost of each, it may be guessed how truly absurd it -seems to me to read exclusively, as I do so often now, of “tenants’ -improvements” in Ireland. It is true that my father occasionally let, on -long leases and without fines, large farms (of the finest wheat-land in -Ireland, within ten miles of Dublin market), at the price of £2 per -Irish acre, with the express stipulation that the tenant should -undertake the re-building of the house or farm-buildings as the case -might be. But these were, of course, perfectly just bargains, made with -well-to-do farmers, who made excellent profits. I have already narrated -in an earlier chapter, how he sold the best pictures among his -heirlooms—one by Hobbema now in Dorchester House and one by Gaspar -Poussin,—to rebuild some eighty cottages on his mountains. These -cottages had each a small farm attached to it, which was generally held -at will, but often continued to the tenants’ family for generations. The -rent was, in some cases I think, as low as thirty or forty shillings a -year; and the tenants contrived to make a fair living with sheep and -potatoes; cutting their own turf on the bog, and very often earning a -good deal by storing ice in the winter from the river Dodder, and -selling it in Dublin in summer. I remember one of them who had been -allowed to fall into arrears of rent to the extent of £3, which he -loudly protested he could not pay, coming to my father to ask his help -as a magistrate to recover _forty pounds_, which an ill-conditioned -member of his family had stolen from him out of the usual Irish private -hiding-place “under the thatch.” - -But outside my father’s property, when we passed into the next villages -on either side, Swords or Rush or Balisk, the state of things was bad -enough. I will give a detailed description of the latter village, some -of which was written when the memory of the scene and people was less -remote, than now. It is the most complete picture of Irish poverty, -fifty years ago, which I can offer. - -Balisk was certainly _not_ the “loveliest village of the plain.” -Situated partly on the edge of an old common, partly on the skirts of -the domain of a nobleman who had not visited his estate for thirty -years, it enjoyed all the advantages of freedom from restraint upon the -architectual genius of its builders. The result was a long crooked, -straggling street, with mud cabins turned to it, and from it, in every -possible angle of incidence: some face to face, some back to back, some -sideways, some a little retired so as to admit of a larger than ordinary -heap of manure between the door and the road. Such is the ground-plan of -Balisk. The cabins were all of mud, with mud floors and thatched roofs; -some containing one room only, others two, and, perhaps, half-a-dozen, -three rooms: all, very literally, on the ground; that is on the bare -earth. Furniture, of course, was of the usual Irish description: a bed -(sometimes having a bedstead, oftener consisting of a heap of straw on -the floor), a table, a griddle, a kettle, a stool or two and a boss of -straw, with occasionally a grand adjunct of a settle; a window whose -normal condition was being stuffed with an old hat; a door, over and -under and around which all the winds and rains of heaven found their -way; a population consisting of six small children, a bedridden -grandmother, a husband and wife, a cock and three hens, a pig, a dog, -and a cat. Lastly, a decoration of coloured prints, including the Virgin -with seven swords in her heart, St. Joseph, the story of Dives and -Lazarus, and a caricature of a man tossed by a bull, and a fat woman -getting over a stile. - -Of course as Balisk lies in the lowest ground in the neighbourhood and -the drains were originally planned to run at “their own sweet will,” the -town (as its inhabitants call it) is subject to the inconvenience of -being about two feet under water whenever there are any considerable -floods of rain. I have known a case of such a flood entering the door -and rising into the bed of a poor woman in childbirth, as in Mr. -Macdonald’s charming story of Alec Forbes. The woman, whom I knew, -however, did not die, but gave to the world that night a very fine -little child, whom I subsequently saw scampering along the roads with -true Irish hilarity. At other times, when there were no floods, only the -usual rains, Balisk presented the spectacle of a filthy green stream -slowly oozing down the central street, now and then draining off under -the door of any particularly lowly-placed cabin to form a pool in the -floor, and finally terminating in a lake of stagnant abomination under -the viaduct of a railway. Yes, reader! a railway ran through Balisk, -even while the description I have given of it held true in every -respect. The only result it seemed to have effected in the village was -the formation of the Stygian pool above-mentioned, where, heretofore, -the stream had escaped into a ditch. - -Let us now consider the people who dwelt amid all this squalor. They -were mostly field-labourers, working for the usual wages of seven or -eight shillings a week. Many of them held their cabins as freeholds, -having built or inherited them from those who had “squatted” unmolested -on the common. A few paid rent to the noble landlord before-mentioned. -Work was seldom wanting, coals were cheap, excellent schools were open -for the children at a penny a week a head. Families which had not more -than three or four mouths to fill besides the breadwinners’, were not in -absolute want, save when disease, or a heavy snow, or a flood, or some -similar calamity arrived. Then, down on the ground, poor souls, -literally and metaphorically, they could fall no lower, and a week was -enough to bring them to the verge of starvation. - -Let me try to recall some of the characters of the inhabitants of Balisk -in the Forties. - -Here in the first cabin is a comfortable family where there are three -sons at work, and mother and three daughters at home. Enter at any hour -there is a hearty welcome and bright jest ready. Here is the -schoolmaster’s house, a little behind the others, and back to back with -them. It has an attempt at a curtain for the window, a knocker for the -door. The man is a curious deformed creature, of whom more will be said -hereafter. The wife is what is called in Ireland a “Voteen;” a person -given to religion, who spends most of her time in the chapel or -repeating prayers, and who wears as much semblance of black as her poor -means may allow. Balisk, be it said, is altogether Catholic and devout. -It is honoured by the possession of what is called “The Holy Griddle.” -Perhaps my readers have heard of the Holy Grail, the original -sacramental chalice so long sought by the chivalry of the middle ages, -and may ask if the Holy Griddle be akin thereto? I cannot trace any -likeness. A “griddle,” as all the Irish and Scotch world knows, is a -circular iron plate, on which the common unleavened cakes of wheatmeal -and oatmeal are baked. The Holy Griddle of Balisk was one of these -utensils, which was bequeathed to the village under the following -circumstances. Years ago, probably in the last century, a poor, “lone -widow” lay on her death-bed. She had none to pray for her after she was -gone, for she was childless and altogether desolate; neither had she any -money to give to the priest to pray for her soul. Yet the terrors of -purgatory were near. How should she escape them? She possessed but one -object of any value—a griddle, whereon she was wont to bake the meal of -the wheat she gleaned every harvest to help her through the winter. So -the widow left her griddle as a legacy to the village for ever, on one -condition. It was to pass from hand to hand as each might want it, but -every one who used her griddle was to say a prayer for her soul. Years -had passed away, but the griddle was still in my time in constant use, -as “the best griddle in the town.” The cakes baked on the Holy Griddle -were twice as good as any others. May the poor widow who so simply -bequeathed it have found long ago “rest for her soul” better than any -prayers have asked for her, even the favourite Irish prayer, “May you -sit in heaven on a golden chair!” - -Here is another house, where an old man lives with his sister. The old -woman is the Mrs. Gamp of Balisk. Patrick Russell has a curious story -attached to him. Having laboured long and well on my father’s estate, -the latter finding him grow rheumatic and helpless, pensioned him with -his wages for life, and Paddy retired to the enjoyment of such privacy -as Balisk might afford. Growing more and more helpless, he at last for -some years hobbled about feebly on crutches, a confirmed cripple. One -day, with amazement, I saw him walking without his crutches, and -tolerably firmly, up to Newbridge House. My father went to speak to him, -and soon returned, saying: “Here is a strange thing. Paddy Russell says -he has been to Father Mathew, and Father Mathew has blessed him, and he -is cured! He came to tell me he wished to give up his pension, since he -returns to work at Smith’s farm next week.” Very naturally, and as might -be expected, poor Paddy, three weeks later, was again helpless, and a -suppliant for the restoration of his pension, which was of course -immediately renewed. But one who had witnessed only the scene of the -long-known cripple walking up stoutly to decline his pension (the very -best possible proof of his sincere belief in his own recovery) might -well be excused for narrating the story as a miracle wrought by a true -moral reformer, the Irish “Apostle of Temperance.” - -Next door to Paddy Russell’s cabin stood “The Shop,” a cabin a trifle -better than the rest, where butter, flour, and dip candles, Ingy-male -(Indian meal), and possibly a small quantity of soap, were the chief -objects of commerce. Further on came a miserable hovel with the roof -broken in, and a pool of filth, _en permanence_, in the middle of the -floor. Here dwelt a miserable good-for-nothing old man and equally -good-for-nothing daughter; hopeless recipients of anybody’s bounty. -Opposite them, in a tidy little cabin, always as clean as whitewash and -sweeping could make its poor mud walls and earthen floor, lived an old -woman and her daughter. The daughter was deformed, the mother a -beautiful old woman, bedridden, but always perfectly clean, and provided -by her daughter’s hard labour in the fields and cockle-gathering on the -sea-shore, with all she could need. After years of devotion, when Mary -was no longer young, the mother died, and the daughter, left quite alone -in the world, was absolutely broken-hearted. Night after night she -strayed about the chapel-yard where her mother lay buried, hoping, as -she told me, to see her ghost. - -“And do you think,” she asked, fixing her eyes on me, “do you think I -shall ever see her again? I asked Father M—— would I see her in heaven? -and all he said was, ‘I should see her in the glory of God.’ What does -that mean? I don’t understand what it means. Will I see her _herself_—my -poor old mother?” - -After long years, I found this faithful heart still yearning to be -re-united to the “poor old mother,” and patiently labouring on in -solitude, waiting till God should call her home out of that little white -cabin to one of the “many mansions,” where her mother is waiting for -her. - -Here is a house where there are many sons and daughters and some sort of -prosperity. Here, again, is a house with three rooms and several -inmates, and in one room lives a strange, tall old man, with something -of dignity in his aspect. He asked me once to come into his room, and -showed me the book over which all his spare hours seemed spent; “Thomas -à Kempis.” - -“Ah, yes, that is a great book; a book full of beautiful things.” - -“Do you know it? do Protestants read it?” - -“Yes, to be sure; we read all sorts of books.” - -“I’m glad of it. It’s a comfort to me to think you read this book.” - -Here again is an old woman with hair as white as snow, who deliberately -informs me she is ninety-eight years of age, and next time I see her, -corrects herself, and “believes it is eighty-nine, but it is all the -same, she disremembers numbers.” This poor old soul in some way hurt her -foot, and after much suffering was obliged to have half of it amputated. -Strange to say, she recovered, but when I congratulated her on the happy -event, I shall never forget the outbreak of true feminine sentiment -which followed. Stretching out the poor mutilated and blackened limb, -and looking at it with woeful compassion, she exclaimed, “Ah, ma’am, but -it will never be a _purty_ foot again!” Age, squalor, poverty, and even -mutilation, had not sufficed to quench that little spark of vanity which -“springs eternal in the (female) breast.” - -Here, again, are half-a-dozen cabins, each occupied by widows with one -or more daughters; eight of whom form my father’s pet corps of Amazons, -always kept working about the shrubberies and pleasure-grounds, or -haymaking or any light fieldwork; houses which, though poorest of all, -are by no means the most dirty or uncared for. Of course there are -dozens of others literally overflowing with children, children in the -cradle, children on the floor, children on the threshold, children on -the “midden” outside; rosy, bright, merry children, who thrive with the -smallest possible share of buttermilk and stirabout, are utterly -innocent of shoes and stockings, and learn at school all that is taught -to them at least half as fast again as a tribe of little Saxons. Several -of them in Balisk are the adopted children of the people who provide for -them. First sent down by their parents (generally domestic servants) to -be nursed in that salubrious spot, after a year or two it generally -happened that the pay ceased, the parent was not heard of, and the -foster-mother and father would no more have thought of sending the child -to the Poor-house than of sending it to the moon. The Poor-house, -indeed, occupied a very small space in the imagination of the people of -Balisk. It was beyond Purgatory, and hardly more real. Not that the -actual institution was conducted on other than the very mildest -principles, but there was a fearful Ordeal by Water—in the shape of a -warm bath—to be undergone on entrance; there were large rooms with -glaring windows, admitting a most uncomfortable degree of light, and -never shaded by any broken hats or petticoats; there were also stated -hours and rules thoroughly disgusting to the Celtic mind, and, lastly, -for the women, there were caps without borders! - -Yes! cruelty had gone so far (masculine guardians, however -compassionate, little recking the woe they caused), till at length a -wail arose—a clamour—almost a Rebellion! “Would they make them wear caps -without borders?” The stern heart of manhood relented, and answered -“No!” - -But I must return to Balisk. Does any one ask, was nothing done to -ameliorate the condition of that wretched place? Certainly; at all -events there was much attempted. Mrs. Evans, of Portrane, of whom I -shall say more by and by, built and endowed capital schools for both -boys and girls, and pensioned some of the poorest of the old people. My -father having a wholesome horror of pauperising, tried hard at more -complete reforms, by giving regular employment to as many as possible, -and aiding all efforts to improve the houses. Not being the landlord of -Balisk, however, he could do nothing effectually, nor enforce any kind -of sanitary measures; so that while his own villages were neat, trim and -healthy, poor Balisk went on year after year deserving the epithet it -bore among us, of the Slough of Despond. The failures of endeavours to -mend it would form a chapter of themselves. On one occasion my eldest -brother undertook the true task for a Hercules; to drain, _not_ the -stables of Augeas, but the town of Balisk. The result was that his main -drain was found soon afterwards effectually stopped up by the dam of an -old beaver bonnet. Again, he attempted to whitewash the entire village, -but many inhabitants objected to whitewash. Of course when any flood, or -snow, or storm came (and what wintry month did they not come in -Ireland?) I went to see the state of affairs at Balisk, and provide what -could be provided. And of course when anybody was born, or married, or -ill, or dead, or going to America, in or from Balisk, embassies were -sent to Newbridge seeking assistance; money for burial or passage; wine, -meat, coals, clothes; and (strange to say), in cases of death—always -jam! The connection between dying and wanting raspberry jam remained to -the last a mystery, but whatever was its nature, it was invariable. -“Mary Keogh,” or “Peter Reilly,” as the case might be, “isn’t expected, -and would be very thankful for some jam;” was the regular message. Be it -remarked that Irish delicacy has suggested the euphuism of “isn’t -expected” to signify that a person is likely to die. What it is that he -or she “is not expected” to do, is never mentioned. When the supplicant -was not supposed to be personally known at Newbridge, or a little extra -persuasion was thought needful to cover too frequent demands, it was -commonly urged that the petitioner was a “poor orphant,” commonly aged -thirty or forty, or else a “desolate widow.” The word desolate, however, -being always pronounced “dissolute,” the epithet proved less affecting -than it was intended to be. But absurd as their words might sometimes be -(and sometimes, on the contrary, they were full of touching pathos and -simplicity), the wants of the poor souls were only too real, as we very -well knew, and it was not often that a petitioner from Balisk to -Newbridge went empty away. - -But such help was only of temporary avail. The Famine came and things -grew worse. In poor families, that is, families where there was only one -man to earn and five or six mouths to feed, the best wages given in the -country proved insufficient to buy the barest provision of food; -wheatmeal for “griddle” bread, oatmeal for stirabout, turnips to make up -for the lost potatoes. Strong men fainted at their work in the fields, -having left untasted for their little children the food they needed so -sorely. Beggars from the more distressed districts (for Balisk was in -one of those which suffered least in Ireland) swarmed through the -country, and rarely, at the poorest cabin, asked in vain for bread. -Often and often have I seen the master or mistress of some wretched -hovel bring out the “griddle cake,” and give half of it to some -wanderer, who answered simply with a blessing and passed on. Once I -remember passing by the house of a poor widow, who had seven children of -her own, and as if that were not enough, had adopted an orphan left by -her sister. At her cabin door one day, I saw, propped up against her -knees, a miserable “traveller,” a wanderer from what a native of Balisk -would call “other nations; a bowzy villiain from other nations,” that is -to say, a village eight or ten miles away. The traveller lay senseless, -starved to the bone and utterly famine-stricken. The widow tried -tenderly to make him swallow a spoonful of bread and water, but he -seemed unable to make the exertion. A few drops of whiskey by and by -restored him to consciousness. The poor “bowzy” leaned his head on his -hands and muttered feebly, “Glory be to God”! The widow looked up, -rejoicing, “Glory be to God, he’s saved anyhow.” Of course all the -neighbouring gentry joined in extensive soup-kitchens and the like, and -by one means or other the hard years of famine were passed over. - -Then came the Fever, in many ways a worse scourge than the famine. Of -course it fell heavily on such ill-drained places as Balisk. After a -little time, as each patient remained ill for many weeks, it often -happened that three or four were in the fever in the same cabin, or even -all the family at once, huddled in the two or three beds, and with only -such attendance as the kindly neighbours, themselves overburdened, could -supply. Soon it became universally known that recovery was to be -effected only by improved food and wine; not by drugs. Those whose -condition was already good, and who caught the fever, invariably died; -those who were in a depressed state, if they could be raised, were -saved. It became precisely a question of life and death how to supply -nourishment to all the sick. As the fever lasted on and on, and -re-appeared time after time, the work was difficult, seeing that no -stores of any sort could ever be safely intrusted to Irish prudence and -frugality. - -Then came Smith O’Brien’s rebellion. The country was excited. In every -village (Balisk nowise behindhand) certain clubs were formed, popularly -called “Cutthroat Clubs,” for the express purpose of purchasing pikes -and organising the expected insurrection in combination with leaders in -Dublin. Head-Centre of the club of Balisk was the ex-schoolmaster, of -whom we have already spoken. How he obtained that honour I know not; -possibly because he could write, which most probably was beyond the -achievements of any other member of the institution; possibly also -because he claimed to be the lawful owner of the adjoining estate of -Newbridge. How the schoolmaster’s claim was proved to the satisfaction -of himself and his friends is a secret which, if revealed, would -probably afford a clue to much of Irish ambition. Nearly every parish in -Ireland has thus its lord _de facto_, who dwells in a handsome house in -the midst of a park, and another lord who dwells in a mud-cabin in the -village and is fully persuaded he is the lord _de jure_. In the endless -changes of ownership and confiscation to which Irish land has been -subjected, there is always some heir of one or other of the dispossessed -families, who, if nothing had happened that did happen, and nobody had -been born of a score or two of persons who somehow, unfortunately, were -actually born, then he or she might, could, would, or should have -inherited the estate. In the present case my ancestor had purchased the -estate some 150 years before from another English family who had held it -for some generations. When and where the poor Celtic schoolmaster’s -forefathers had come upon the field none pretended to know. Anxious, -however, to calm the minds of his neighbours, my father thought fit to -address them in a paternal manifesto, posted about the different -villages, entreating them to forbear from entering the “Cutthroat -Clubs,” and pointing the moral of the recent death of the Archbishop of -Paris at the barricades. The result of this step was that the newspaper, -then published in Dublin under the audacious name of _The Felon_, -devoted half a column to exposing my father by name to the hatred of -good Clubbists, and pointing him out as “one of the very first for whose -benefit the pikes were procured.” Boxes of pikes were accordingly -actually sent by the railway before mentioned, and duly delivered to the -Club; and still the threat of rebellion rose higher, till even calm -people like ourselves began to wonder whether it were a volcano on which -we were treading, or the familiar mud of Balisk. - -Newbridge, as described in the first chapter of this book, bore some -testimony to the troubles of the last century when it was erected. There -was a long corridor which had once been all hung with weapons, and there -was a certain board in the floor of an inner closet which could be taken -up when desirable, and beneath which appeared a large receptacle wherein -the aforesaid weapons were stored in times of danger. Stories of ’98 -were familiar to us from infancy. There was the story of Le Hunts of -Wexford, when the daughter of the family dreamed three times that the -guns in her father’s hall were all broken and, on inducing Colonel Le -Hunt to examine them, the dream was found to be true and his own butler -the traitor. Horrible stories were there, also, of burnings and cardings -(_i.e._, tearing the back with the iron comb used in carding wool); and -nursery threats of rebels coming up back stairs on recalcitrant -“puckhawns” (naughty children—children of Puck), insomuch that to “play -at rebellion” had been our natural resource as children. Born and bred -in this atmosphere, it seemed like a bad dream come true that there were -actual pikes imported into well-known cabins, and that there were in the -world men stupid and wicked enough to wish to apply them to those who -laboured constantly for their benefit. Yet the papers teemed with -stories of murders of good and just landlords; yet threats each day more -loud, came with every post of what Smith O’Brien and his friends would -do if they but succeeded in raising the peasantry, alas! all too ready -to be raised. Looking over the miserable fiasco of that “cabbage garden” -rebellion now, it seems all too ridiculous to have ever excited the -least alarm. But at that time, while none could doubt the final triumph -of England, it was very possible to doubt whether aid could be given by -the English Government before every species of violence might be -committed by the besotted peasantry at our gates. - -I have been told on good authority that Smith O’Brien made his escape -from the police in the “habit” of an Anglican Sisterhood, of which his -sister, Hon. Mrs. Monsell, was Superior. - -A little incident which occurred at the moment rather confirmed the idea -that Balisk was transformed for the nonce into a little Hecla; not under -snow, but mud. I was visiting the fever patients, and was detained late -of a summer’s evening in the village. So many were ill, there seemed no -end of sick to be supplied with food, wine and other things needed. In -particular, three together were ill in a house already mentioned, where -there were several grown-up sons, and the people were somewhat better -off than usual, though by no means sufficiently so to be able to procure -meat or similar luxuries. Here I lingered, questioning and prescribing, -till at about nine o’clock my visit ended; and I left money to procure -some of the things required. Next morning my father addressed me:— - -“So you were at Balisk last night?” - -“Yes, I was kept there.” - -“You stayed in Tyrell’s house till nine o’clock?” - -“Yes; how do you know?” - -“You gave six and sixpence to the mother to get provisions?” - -“Yes; how do you know?” - -“Well, very simply. The police were watching the door and saw you -through it. As soon as you were gone the Club assembled there. They were -waiting for your departure; and the money you gave was subscribed to buy -pikes; of course to _pike me_!” - -A week later, the bubble burst in the memorable Cabbage garden. The -rebel chiefs were leniently dealt with by the Government, and their -would-be rebel followers fell back into all the old ways as if nothing -had happened. What became of the pikes no one knew. Possibly they exist -in Balisk still, waiting for a Home Rule Government to be brought forth. -At the end of a few months the poor schoolmaster, claimant of Newbridge, -died; and as I stood by his bedside and gave him the little succour -possible, the poor fellow lifted his eyes full of meaning, and said, “To -think _you_ should come to help me now!” It was the last reference made -to the once-dreaded rebellion. - -After endless efforts my brother carried his point and drained the whole -village—beaver bonnets notwithstanding. Whitewash became popular. -“Middens” (as the Scotch call them, the Irish have a simpler phrase) -were placed more frequently behind houses than in front of them. Costume -underwent some vicissitudes, among which the introduction of shoes and -stockings, among even the juvenile population, was the most remarkable -feature; a great change truly, since I can remember an old woman, to -whom my youngest brother had given a pair, complaining that she had -caught cold in consequence of wearing, for the first time in her life, -those superfluous garments. - -Many were drawn into the stream of the Exodus, and have left the -country. How helpless they are in their migrations, poor souls! was -proved by one sad story. A steady, good young woman, whose sister had -settled comfortably in New York, resolved to go out to join her, and for -the purpose took her passage at an Emigration Agency office in Dublin. -Coming to make her farewell respects at Newbridge, the following -conversation ensued between her and myself: - -“So, Bessie, you are going to America?” - -“Yes, ma’am, to join Biddy at New York. She wrote for me to come, and -sent the passage-money.” - -“That is very good of her. Of course you have taken your passage direct -to New York?” - -“Well, no, ma’am. The agent said there was no ship going to New York, -but one to some place close by, New-something-else.” - -“New-something-else, near New York; I can’t think where that could be.” - -“Yes, ma’am, New—New—I disremember what it was, but he told me I could -get from it to New York immadiently.” - -“Oh, Bessie, it wasn’t New Orleans?” - -“Yes, ma’am, that was it! New Orleans—New Orleans, close to New York, he -said.” - -“And you have paid your passage-money?” - -“Yes, ma’am, I must go there anyhow, now.” - -“Oh, Bessie, Bessie, why would you never come to school and learn -geography? You are going to a terrible place, far away from your sister. -That wicked agent has cheated you horribly.” - -The poor girl went to New Orleans, and there died of fever. The birds of -passage and fish which pass from sea to sea seem more capable of knowing -what they are about than the greater number of the emigrants driven by -scarcely less blind an instinct. Out of the three millions who are said -to have gone since the famine from Ireland to America, how many must -there have been who had no more knowledge than poor Bessie Mahon of the -land to which they went! - -Before I conclude these reminiscences of Irish peasant life in the -Forties, I must mention an important feature of it—the Priests. Most of -those whom I saw in our villages were disagreeable-looking men with the -coarse mouth and jaw of the Irish peasant undisguised by the beards and -whiskers worn by their lay brethren; and often the purple and bloated -appearance of their cheeks suggested too abundant diet of bacon and -whisky-punch. They worried me dreadfully by clearing out all the -Catholic children from my school every now and then on the pretence of -withdrawing them from heretical instruction, though nothing was further -from the thoughts or wishes of any of us than proselytizing; nor was a -single charge ever formulated against our teachers of saying a word to -the children against their religion. What the priests really wanted was -to obstruct education itself and too close and friendly intercourse with -Protestants. For several winters I used to walk down to the school on -certain evenings in the week and give the older lads and lassies lessons -in Geography (with two huge maps of the world which I made myself, 11 -ft. by 9 ft.!) and the first steps in Astronomy and history. Several -times, when the class had been well got together and began to be -interested, the priest announced that _he_ would give them lessons on -the same night, and they were to come to him instead of to me. Of course -I told them to do so, and that I was very glad he would take the -trouble. A fortnight or so later however I always learnt that the -priest’s lessons had dropped and all was to be recommenced. - -The poor woman I mentioned above as so devoted to her mother went to -service with one of the priests in the neighbourhood in the hope that -she would receive religious consolation from him. Meeting her some time -after I expressed my hope that she had found it. “Ah, no Ma’am!” she -answered sorrowfully, “He never spakes to me unless about the bacon or -the like of that. _Priests does be dark!_” I thought the phrase -wonderfully significant. - -My father, though a Protestant of the Protestants as the reader has -learned, thought it right to send regularly every year a cheque to the -priest of Donabate as an aid to his slender resources; and there never -was _openly_, anything but civility between the successive _curés_ and -ourselves. We bowed most respectfully to each other on the roads, but I -never interchanged a word with any of them save once when I was busy -attending a poor woman in Balisk in the cramps of cholera; the disease -being at the time raging through the country. With the help of the good -souls who in Ireland are always ready for any charitable deed, I was -applying mustard poultices, when Father M—— entered the cabin (a -revolting looking man he was, whose nose had somehow been frost-bitten), -and turned me out. I implored him to defer, or at least hasten his -ministrations; and stood outside the door in great impatience for half -an hour while I knew the hapless patient was in agony and peril of -death, inside. At last the priest came out,—and when I hurried back to -the bedside I found he had been gumming some “Prayers to the Holy -Virgin” on the wall. Happily we were not too late with our mustard and -“sperrits,” and the woman was saved; whether by Father M—— and the -Virgin or by me I cannot pretend to say. - -I have spoken of our village school and must add that the boys and girls -who attended it were exceedingly clever and bright. They caught up -ideas, were moved by heroic or pathetic stories and understood jokes to -a degree quite unmatched by English children of the same humble class, -as I found later when I taught in Miss Carpenter’s Ragged Schools at -Bristol. The ingenuity with which, when they came to a difficult word in -reading, they substituted another was very diverting. One boy read that -St. John had a leathern _griddle_ about his loins; and a young man with -a deep manly voice, once startled me by announcing, “He casteth out -divils through,—through, through,—_Blazes_, the chief of the Divils!” - -In Drumcar school a child, elaborately instructed by dear, good Lady -Elizabeth M‘Clintock concerning Pharisees, and then examined:—“What was -the sin of the Pharisees?” replied promptly: “_Ating camels_, my lady!” - -Alas, I have reason to fear that the erudition of my little scholars, if -quickly obtained, was far from durable. Paying a visit to my old home -ten years later I asked my crack scholar, promoted to be second gardener -at Newbridge, “Well, Andrew, how much do you remember of all my -lessons?” - -“Ah, Ma’am, then, never a word!” - -“O, Andrew, Andrew! And have you forgotten all about the sun, the moon -and stars, the day and night, and the Seasons?” - -“O, no, Ma’am! I do remember now, and you set them on the schoolroom -table, and Mars was a red gooseberry, and I ate him!” - - - - - CHAPTER - VII. - _IRELAND IN THE FORTIES._ - _THE GENTRY._ - - -I now turn to describe, as my memory may serve, the life of the Irish -gentry in the Forties. There never has been much of a middle class, -unhappily, in the country, and therefore in speaking of the gentry I -shall have in view mostly the landowners and their families. These, with -few and always much noted exceptions, were Protestants, of English -descent and almost exclusively of Saxon blood; the Anglo-Irish families -however long settled in Ireland, naturally intermarrying chiefly with -each other. So great was, in my time, the difference in outward looks -between the two races, that I have often remarked that I could walk down -Sackville Street and point to each passenger “Protestant,” “Catholic,” -“Protestant,” “Catholic”; and scarcely be liable to make a mistake. - -As I have said, my memory bridges over the gulf between a very typical -_ancien régime_ household and the present order of things, and I may be -able to mark some changes, not unworthy of registration. But it must be -understood that I make no attempt to describe what would be precisely -called _Irish society_, for into this, I never really entered at all. I -wearied of the little I had seen of it after a few balls and -drawing-rooms in Dublin by the time I was eighteen and thenceforward -only shared in home entertainments and dinners among neighbours in our -own county, with a few visits to relatives at greater distance. I -believe the origin of my great boredom in Dublin balls (for I was very -fond of dancing) was the extraordinary inanity of the men whom I met. -The larger number were officers of Horse Artillery, then under the -command of my uncle, and I used to pity the poor youths, thinking that -they danced with me as in duty bound, while their really marvellous -silliness and dulness made conversation wearisome in the extreme. Many -of these same empty-headed young coxcombs afterwards fought like Trojans -through the Crimean War and came back,—transformed into heroes! I -remember my dentist telling me, much to the same purpose, that half the -officers in the garrison had come to him to have their teeth looked -after before they went to the Crimea and had behaved abominably in his -chair of torture, groaning and moaning and occasionally vituperating him -and kicking his shins. But it was another story when some of those very -men charged at Balaklava! We are not, I think, yet advanced far enough -to dispense altogether with the stern teaching of war, or the virtues -which spring out of the dreadful dust of the battlefield. - -Railways were only beginning to be opened in 1840, and were much dreaded -by landed proprietors through whose lands they ran. When surveyors came -to plan the Dublin and Drogheda Railway my father and our neighbour Mrs. -Evans, were up in arms and our farmers ready to throttle the -trespassers. I suggested we should erect a Notice-board in Donabate with -this inscription:— - - “Survey the world from China to Peru; - Survey not here,—we’ll shoot you if you do.” - -The voyage to England, which most of us undertook at least once or twice -a year, was a wretched transit in miserable, ill-smelling vessels. From -Dublin to Bristol (our most convenient route) took at least thirty -hours. From Holyhead to London was a two days’ journey by coach. On one -of these journeys, having to stop at Bristol for two nights, I enjoyed -an opportunity (enchanting at sixteen) of being swung in a basket -backward and forward across the Avon, where the Suspension Bridge now -stands. Preparations for these journeys of ours to England were not -quite so serious as those which were necessarily made for our cousins -when they went out to India and were obliged for five or six months -wholly to dispense with the services of a laundress. Still, our -hardships were considerable, and youngsters who were going to school or -college were made up like little Micawbers “expecting dirty weather.” -Elderly ladies, I remember, usually travelled in mourning and sometimes -kept their little corkscrew curls in paper under their bonnet caps for -the whole journey; a less distressing proceeding, however, than that of -Lady Cahir thirty years earlier, who had her hair dressed, (powdered and -on a cushion) by a famous hairdresser in Bath, and came over to exhibit -it at St. Patrick’s ball in Dublin Castle, having passed five nights at -sea, desperately ill, but heroically refusing to lie down and disarrange -the magnificent structure on her aching head. - -This lady by the way—of whom it was said that “Lady Cahir _cares_ for no -man”—had had a droll adventure in her youth, which my mother, who knew -her well and I think was her schoolfellow, recounted to me. Before she -married she lived with her mother, a rather extravagant widow, who -plunged heavily into debt. One day the long-expected bailiffs came to -arrest her and were announced as at the hall door. Quick as lightning -Lady Cahir (then, I think, Miss Townsend) made her mother exchange dress -and cap with her, to which she added the old lady’s wig and spectacles -and then sat in her armchair knitting sedulously, with the blinds drawn -down and her back to the window. The mother having vanished, the bailiff -was shown up, and, exhibiting his credentials, requested the lady to -accompany him to the sponging house. Of course there was a long palaver; -but at last the captive consented to obey and merely said, “Well! I will -go if you like, but I warn you that you are committing a great mistake -in apprehending me.” - -“O, O! We all know about that, Ma’am! Please come along! I have a -hackney carriage at the door.” - -The damsel, well wrapped in cloaks and furbelows and a great bonnet of -the period, went quietly to her destination; but when the time came for -closing the door on her as a prisoner, she jumped up, threw off wig, -spectacles and old woman’s cap, and disclosed the blue eyes, golden -hair, and radiant young beauty for which she was long afterwards -renowned. Meanwhile, of course, her mother had had abundance of time to -clear out of the way of her importunate creditors. - -Many details of comforts and habits in those days were very much in -arrear of ours, perhaps about equally in Ireland and in England. It is -droll to remember, for example, as I do vividly, seeing in my childhood -the housemaids striving with infinite pains and great loss of time to -obtain a light with steel and flint and a tinder-box, when by some -untoward accident all the fires in the house (habitually burning all -night) had been extinguished. - -The first matchbox I saw was a long upright red one containing a bottle -of phosphorus and a few matches which were lighted by insertion in the -bottle. After this we had Lucifers which nearly choked us with gas; but -in which we gloried as among the greatest discoveries of all time. -Seriously I believe few of the vaunted triumphs of science have -contributed so much as these easy illuminators of our long dark Northern -nights to the comfort and health of mankind. - -Again our grandmothers had used exquisite China basins with round -long-necked jugs for all their ablutions and we had advanced to the use -of large basins and footpans, slipper baths and shower baths, when, as -nearly as possible in 1840, the first sponge bath was brought to -Ireland. I was paying a visit to my father’s cousin, Lady Elizabeth -M‘Clintock, at Drumcar in Co. Louth, when she exhibited with pride to me -and her other guests the novel piece of bedroom furniture. When I -returned home and described it my mother ordered a supply for our house, -and we were wont for a long time to enquire of each other, “how we -enjoyed our tubs?” as people are now supposed to ask: “Have you used -Pears’ soap?” I believe it was from India these excellent inventions -came. - -Many other differences might be noted between the habits of those days -and of ours. _Diners Russes_ were, of course, not thought of. We dined -at six, or six-thirty, at latest; and after the soup and fish, all the -first course was placed at once on the table. For a party, for example, -of 16 or 18, there would be eight dishes; joints, fowls and entrées. It -was a triumph of good cookery, but rarely achieved, to serve them all -hot at once. Tea, made with an urn, was a regular meal taken in the -drawing-room about nine o’clock; _never_ before dinner. The modern five -o’clock tea was altogether unknown in the Forties, and when I ventured -sometimes to introduce it in the Fifties, I was so severely reprehended -that I used to hold a secret symposium for specially favoured guests in -my own room after our return from drives or walks. All old gentlemen -pronounced five o’clock tea an atrocious and disgraceful practice. - -Another considerable difference in our lives was caused by the scarcity -of newspapers and periodicals. I can remember when the _Dublin Evening -Mail_,—then a single sheet, appearing three times a week and received at -Newbridge on the day after publication,—was our only source of news. I -do not think any one of our neighbours took the _Times_ or any English -paper. Of magazines we had _Blackwood_ and the _Quarterly_, but -illustrated ones were unknown. There was a tolerable circulating library -in Dublin, to which I subscribed and from whence I obtained a good many -French books; but the literary appetites of the Irish gentry generally -were frugal in the extreme! - -The real differences, however, between Life in 1840 and Life in 1890 -were much deeper than any record of these altered manners, or even any -references to the great changes caused by steam and the telegraph, can -convey. There were certain principles which in those days were almost -universally accepted and which profoundly influenced all our works and -ways. The first of them was Parental and Marital Authority. Perhaps my -particular circumstances as the daughter of a man of immense force of -will, caused me to see the matter especially clearly, but I am sure that -in the Thirties and Forties (at all events in Ireland) there was very -little declension generally from the old Roman _Patria Potestas_. -Fathers believed themselves to possess almost boundless rights over -their children in the matter of pursuits, professions, marriages and so -on; and the children usually felt that if they resisted any parental -command it was on their peril and an act of extreme audacity. My -brothers and I habitually spoke of our father, as did the servants and -tenants, as “_The Master_;” and never was title more thoroughly -deserved. - -Another important difference was in the position of women. Of this I -shall have more to say hereafter; suffice it to note that it was the -universal opinion, that no gentlewoman could possibly earn money without -derogating altogether from her rank (unless, indeed, by card-playing as -my grandmother did regularly!); and that housekeeping and needlework (of -the most inartistic kinds) were her only fitting pursuits. The one -natural ambition of her life was supposed to be a “suitable” marriage; -the phrase always referring to _settlements_, rather than _sentiments_. -Study of any serious sort was disapproved, and “accomplishments” only -were cultivated. My father prohibited me when very young from learning -Latin from one of my brothers who kindly offered to teach me; but, as I -have recounted, he paid largely and generously that I might be taught -Music, for which I had no faculties at all. Other Irish girls my -contemporaries, were much worse off than I, for my dear mother always -did her utmost to help my studies and my liberal allowance permitted me -to buy books. - -The laws which concerned women at that date were so frightfully unjust -that the most kindly disposed men inevitably took their cue from them, -and looked on their mothers, wives, and sisters as beings with wholly -inferior rights; with _no_ rights, indeed, which should ever stand -against theirs. The _deconsideration_ of women (as dear Barbara Bodichon -in later years used to say) was at once cause and result of our legal -disabilities. Let the happier women of these times reflect on the state -of things which existed when a married woman’s inheritance and even her -own earnings (if she could make any), were legally robbed from her by -her husband, and given, if he pleased, to his mistress! Let them -remember that she could make no will, but that her husband might make -one which should bequeath the control of her children to a man she -abhorred or to a woman of evil life. Let them remember that a husband -who had beaten and wronged his wife in every possible way could yet -force her by law to live with him and become the mother of his children. -Personally and most fortunately (for I know not of what crime I might -not have been guilty if so tried!) I never had cause of complaint on the -score of injustice or unkindness from any of the men with whom I had to -do. But the knowledge, when it came to me, of the legalised oppressions -under which other women groaned, lay heavy on my mind. I was not, -however, in those early days, interested in politics or large social -reforms; and did not covet the political franchise, finding in my -manifold duties and studies over-abundant outlets for my energies. - -Another difference between the first and latter half of the century is, -I think, the far greater simplicity of character of the older -generation. No doubt there were, at the time of which I write, many fine -and subtle minds at work among the poets, philosophers and statesmen of -the day; but ordinary ladies and gentlemen, even clever and -well-educated ones, would, I think, if they could revive now, seem to us -rather like our boys and girls than our grandparents. Thousands of -allusions, ideas, shades of sentiment and reflection which have become -common-places to us, were novel and strange to them. What Cowper’s -poetry is to Tennyson’s, what the _Vicar of Wakefield_ is to -_Middlemarch_, so were their transparent minds to ours. I remember once -(for a trivial example of what I mean) walking with my father in his -later days in the old garden one exquisite spring day when the apple -trees were covered with blossoms and the birds were singing all round -us. As he leaned on my arm, having just recovered from an illness which -had threatened to be fatal and was in a mood unusually tender, I was -tempted to say, “Don’t you feel, Father, that a day like this is almost -too beautiful and delicious, that it softens one’s feelings to the verge -of pain?” In these times assuredly such a remark would have seemed to -most people too obvious to deserve discussion, but it only brought from -my father the reply: “God bless my soul, what nonsense you talk, my -dear! I never heard the like. Of course a fine day makes everybody -cheerful and a rainy day makes us dull and dismal.” Everyone I knew -then, was, more or less, similarly simple; and in some of the ablest -whom I met in later years of the same generation, (_e.g._, Mrs. -Somerville) I found the same single-mindedness, the same absence of all -experience of the subtler emotions. Conversation, as a natural -consequence, was more downright and matter of fact, and rarely if ever -was concerned with critical analyses of impressions. In short, (as I -have said) our fathers were in many respects, like children compared to -ourselves. - -Another and a sad change has taken place in the amount of animal spirits -generally shared by young and old in the Thirties and Forties and down, -I think, to the Crimean War, which brought a great seriousness into all -our lives. It was not only the young who laughed in joyous “fits” in -those earlier days; the old laughed then more heartily and more often -than I fear many young people do now; that blessed laugh of hearty -amusement which causes the eyes to water and the sides to ache—a laugh -one hardly ever hears now in any class or at any age. An evidence of the -high level of ordinary spirits may be found in the readiness with which -such genuine laughter responded to the smallest provocation. It did not -need the delightful farce of the Keeley’s acting (though I recall the -helpless state into which Mr. Keeley’s pride in his red waistcoat -reduced half the house), but even an old, well-worn, good story, or -family catch-word with some ludicrous association, was enough to provoke -jovial mirth. It was part of a young lady’s and young gentleman’s home -training to learn how to indulge in the freest enjoyment of fun without -boisterousness or shrieks or discordance of any kind. Young people were -for ever devising pranks and jests among themselves, and even their -seniors occupied themselves in concocting jokes, many of which we should -now think childish; the order of the “April Fool,” being the general -type. Comic verse making; forging of love letters; disguising and -begging as tramps; sending boxes of bogus presents; making “ghosts” with -bolsters and burnt cork eyes to be placed in dark corners of passages; -these and a score of such monkey-tricks for which nobody now has -patience, were common diversions in every household, and were nearly -always taken good-humouredly. My father used to tell of one ridiculous -deception in which the chief actress and inventor was that very _grande -dame_ Elizabeth Hastings, Countess of Moira, daughter of the Methodist -Countess of Huntingdon. Lady Moira, my father and two other young men, -by means of advertising and letters, induced some wretched officer to -walk up and down a certain part of Sackville Street for an hour with a -red geranium in his buttonhole, to show himself off, as he thought, to a -young lady with a large fortune who proposed to marry him. The -conspirators sat in a window across the street watching their victim and -exploding with glee at his peacock behaviour. The sequel was better than -the joke. The poor man wrote a letter to his tormentress (whom he had at -last detected) so pitiful that her kind heart melted, and she exerted -her immense influence effectually on his behalf and provided for him -comfortably for life. - -Henry, the third Marquis of Waterford, husband of the gifted and -beautiful lady whose charming biography Mr. Hare has recently written, -was the last example I imagine in Ireland of these redundant spirits. It -was told of him, and I remember hearing of it at the time, that a -somewhat grave and self-important gentleman had ridden up to Curraghmore -on business and left his bay horse at the door. Lord Waterford, seeing -the animal, caught up a pot of whitewash in use by some labourer and -rapidly _whitewashed the horse_; after which exploit he went indoors to -interview his visitor, and began by observing, “That is a handsome grey -horse of yours at the door.” “A bay, my Lord.” - -“Not at all. It is a grey horse. I saw you on it.” - -Eventually both parties adjourned to the front of the house and found -the whitewashed horse walking up and down with a groom. “You see it is -grey,” said the Marquis triumphantly. - -Certainly no one in those days dreamed of asking the question, “Is Life -worth Living?” We were all, young and old, quite sure that life was -extremely valuable; a boon for which to be grateful to God. I recall the -amazement with which I first read of the Buddhist and Brahmin Doctrine -that Existence is _per se_ an evil, and that the reward of the highest -virtue will be Absorption, or Nirvana. The pessimism which prevails in -this _fin de siècle_ was as unknown in the Forties as the potato disease -before the great blight. - -I much wish that some strong thinker would undertake the useful task of -tracking this mental and moral _anæmia_ of the present generation to its -true origin, whether that origin be the ebb of religious hope and faith -and the reaction from the extreme and too hasty optimism which -culminated in 1851, and has fallen rapidly since 1875, or whether, in -truth, our bodily conditions, though tending to prolong life and working -power to an amazing degree, are yet less conducive to the development of -the sanguine and hilarious temperament common in my youth. I have heard -as a defence for the revolution which has taken place in medical -treatment—from the depletory and antiphlogistic to the nourishing and -stimulating, and for the total abandonment of the practice of -bleeding—that it is not the doctors who have altered their minds, but -the patients, whose bodies have undergone a profound modification. I can -quite recall the time when (as all the novels of the period testify), if -anybody had a fall or a fit, or almost any other mishap, it was the -first business of the doctor to whip out his lancet, bare the sufferer’s -arm, and draw a large quantity of blood, when everybody and the -aforesaid novels always remarked; “It was providential that there was a -doctor at hand” to do it. I have myself seen this operation performed on -one of my brothers in our drawing-room about 1836, and I heard of it -every day occurring among our neighbours, rich and poor. My father’s -aunt, whom I well remember, Jane Power Trench (sister of the first Lord -Clancarty), who lived in Marlborough Buildings in Bath, was habitually -bled every year just before Easter, having previously spent the entire -winter in her bedroom of which the windows were pasted down and the -doors doubled. A few days after the phlebotomy the old lady invariably -bought a new bonnet and walked in it up to the top of Beacon Hill. She -continued the annual ritual unbroken till she died at 79. Surely these -people were made of stronger _pâte_ than we? In corroboration of this -theory I may record how much more hardy were the gentlemen of the -Forties in all their habits than are those of the Nineties. When my -father and his friends went on grouse-shooting expeditions to our -mountain-lodge, I used to provide for the large parties only abundance -of plain food for dinners, and for luncheons merely sandwiches, bread -and cheese, with a keg of ale, and a basket of apples. By degrees it -became necessary (to please my brother’s guests) to provide the best of -fish, fowl and flesh, champagne and peaches. The whole odious system of -_battues_, rendering sport unmanly as well as cruel, with all its -attendant waste and cost and disgusting butchery, has grown up within my -recollection by the extension of luxury, laziness and ostentation. - -To turn to another subject. There was very little immorality at that -time in Ireland either in high or low life, and what there was received -no quarter. But there was, certainly, together with the absence of vice, -a lack of some of the virtues which have since developed amongst us. It -is not easy to realise that in my lifetime men were hanged for forgery -and for sheep-stealing; and that no one agitated for the repeal of such -Draconian legislation, but everybody placidly repeated the observation -(now-a-days so constantly applied to the scientific torture of animals), -that it was “NECESSARY.” Cruelties, wrongs and oppressions of all kinds -were rife, and there were (in Ireland at all events) none to raise an -outcry such as would echo now from one end of England to the other. - -The Protestant pulpit was occupied by two distinct classes of men. There -were the younger sons of the gentry and nobles, who took the large -livings and were booked for bishoprics; and these were educated at -Oxford and Cambridge, were more or less cultivated men and associated of -course on equal terms with the best in the land. Not seldom they were -men of noble lives, and extreme piety; such for example, as the last -Protestant Archbishop of Tuam, and a certain Archdeacon Trench, whom I -remember regarding with awe and curiosity since I had heard that he had -once got up into his own pulpit, and (like Maxwell Gray’s _Dean -Maitland_) made a public confession of all his life’s misdoings. The -second class of Irish clergymen in those days were men of a rather lower -social grade, educated in Trinity College, often, no doubt, of excellent -character and devotion but generally extremely narrow in their views, -conducting all controversies by citations of isolated Bible-texts and -preaching to their sparse country congregations with Dublin brogues -which, not seldom, reduced the sublimity of their subjects to bathos. -There was one, for example, who said, as the peroration of his sermon on -the Fear of Death:— - -“Me brethren the doying Christian lepps into the arrums of Death and -makes his hollow jaws ring with eternal hallelujahs!” - -I have myself heard another read the concluding chapters of the gospels, -substituting with extraordinary effect the words “two Meal-factors,” for -the “two malefactors,” who were crucified. There was a chapter in the -Acts which we dreaded to hear, so difficult was it to help laughing when -we were told of “_Perthians_ and _Mades_, and the dwellers in -_Mesopotamia_ and the parts of Libya about _Cyraine_, streengers of -_Roum_, Jews and Proselytes, _Crates_ and Arabians.” It was also hard to -listen gravely to a vivid description of Jonah’s catastrophe, as I have -heard it, thus: “The weves bate against the ship, and the ship bate -against the weves;” (and, at last) “The Wheel swallowed Jonah!” - -They had a difficult place to hold, these humbler Irish clergymen, -properly associating with no class of their parishioners; but to their -credit be it said, they were nearly all men of blameless lives, who did -their duty as they understood it, fairly well. The disestablishment of -the Irish Church which I had regarded beforehand with much prejudice, -did (I have since been inclined to think), very little mischief, and -certainly awakened in the minds of the Irish squirearchy who had to -settle their creed afresh, an interest in theology which was never -exhibited in my earlier days. I was absolutely astounded on paying a -visit to my old home a few years after disestablishment and while the -Convention (commonly called the _Contention_!) was going on, to hear -sundry recondite mysteries discussed at my brother’s table and to find -some of my old dancing partners actually greedily listening to what I -could tell them of the then recent discovery of Mr. Edmund -Ffoulkes,—that the doctrine of the Double Procession of the Holy Ghost -had been invented by King Reccared. - -As regards any moral obligation or duty owed by men and women to the -lower animals, such ideas were as yet scarcely beginning to be -recognised. It was in 1822, the year in which I was born, that brave old -Richard Martin carried in Parliament the first Act ever passed by any -legislature in the world on behalf of the brutes. Tom Moore had laughed -at this early _Zoophilist_. - - “Place me midst O’Rourkes, O’Tooles, - The ragged royal blood of Tara! - Place me where Dick Martin rules - The houseless wilds of Connemara - -But in the history of human civilisation, “Martin’s Act” will hereafter -assuredly hold a distinct place of honour when many a more pompous -political piece of legislation is buried in oblivion. For a long time -the new law, and the Society for Prevention of Cruelty which arose to -work it, were objects of obloquy and jest even from such a man as Sydney -Smith, who did his best in the _Edinburgh Review_ to sneer them down. -But by degrees they formed, as Mr. Lecky says every system of -legislation _must_ do, a system of _moral education_. A sense of the -Rights of Animals has slowly been awakened, and is becoming, by not -imperceptible degrees, a new principle of ethics. In my youth there were -plenty of good people who were fond of dogs, cats and horses; but -nothing in their behaviour, or in that of any one I knew at that time, -testified to the existence of any latent idea that it was _morally -wrong_ to maltreat animals to any extent. Pious sportsmen were wont to -scourge their dogs with frightful dog-whips, for any disobedience or -mistake, with a savage violence which I shudder to remember; and which I -do not think the most brutal men would now exhibit openly. Miss -Edgeworth’s then recent novel of _Ennui_ had described her hero as -riding five horses to death to give himself a sensation, without (as it -would appear) forfeiting in the author’s opinion his claims to the -sympathies of the reader. I can myself recall only laughing, not crying -as I should be more inclined to do now, at the spectacle of miserable -half-starved horses made to gallop in Irish cars to win a bribe for the -driver, who flogged them over ruts and stones, shouting (as I have heard -them) “Never fare! I’ll _batther_ him out of that!” The picture of a -“_Rosinante_,” from Cervantes’ time till a dozen or two years ago, -instead of being one of the most pathetic objects in the world,—the -living symbol of human cruelty,—was always considered a particularly -laughable caricature. Only tender-hearted Bewick in his woodcut, -_Waiting for Death_, tried to move the hearts of his generation to -compassion for the starved and worn-out servant of ungrateful man. - -The Irish peasantry do not habitually maltreat animals, but the -frightful mutilations and tortures which of late years they have -practised on cattle belonging to their obnoxious neighbours, is one of -the worst proofs of the existence in the Celtic character of that -undercurrent of ferocity of which I have spoken elsewhere. - -Among Irish ladies and gentlemen in the Forties there was a great deal -of interest of course in our domestic pets, and I remember a beautiful -and beloved young bride coming to pay us a visit, and asking in a tone -of profound conviction: “What _would_ life be without dogs?” Still there -was nothing then existing, I think, in the world like the sentiment -which inspired Mathew Arnold’s _Geist_ or even his “_Kaiser Dead_.” The -gulf between the canine race and ours was thought to be measureless. -Darwin had not yet written the Descent of Man or made us imagine that -“God had made of one blood” at least all the mammals “upon earth.” No -one dreamed of trying to realise what must be the consciousness of -suffering animals; nor did anyone, I think, live under the slightest -sense of responsibility for their well-being. Even my dear old friend, -Harriet St. Leger, though she was renowned through the county for her -attachment to her great black Retrievers, said to me one day, many years -after I had left Ireland, “I don’t understand your feelings about -animals at all. To me a _dog is a dog_. To you it seems to be something -else!” - -Another difference was, that there was very little popularity-hunting in -the Forties. The “working man” was seen, but not yet heard of; and, so -far as I remember, we thought as little of the public opinion of our -villages respecting us as we did of the public opinion of the stables. -The wretched religious bigotry which, as we knew, made the Catholics -look on us as infallibly condemned of God in this world and the next, -was an insuperable barrier to sympathy from them, and we never expected -them to understand either our acts or motives. But if we cared little or -nothing what they thought of us, I must in justice say that we did care -a great deal for _their_ comfort, and were genuinely unhappy in their -afflictions and active to relieve their miseries. When the famine came -there was scarcely one Irish lady or gentleman, I think, who did not -spend time, money and labour like water to supply food to the needy. I -remember the horror with which my father listened to a visitor, who was -not an Irishwoman but a purse-proud _nouveau riche_ married to a very -silly baronet in our neighbourhood, who told him that her husband’s Mayo -property had just cost them £70. “That will go some way in supplying -Indian meal to your tenants,” said my father, supposing that to such -purpose it must be devoted. “O dear, no! We are not sending it for any -such use,” said Lady —. “We are spending it _on evictions_!” “Good God!” -shouted my father; “how shocking! At such a time as this!” - -It has been people like these who have ever since done the hard things -of which so much capital has been made by those whose interest it has -been to stir up strife in the “distressful country.” - -I happen to be able to recall precisely the day, almost the hour, when -the blight fell on the potatoes and caused the great calamity. A party -of us were driving to a seven o’clock dinner at the house of our -neighbour, Mrs. Evans, of Portrane. As we passed a remarkably fine field -of potatoes in blossom, the scent came through the open windows of the -carriage and we remarked to each other how splendid was the crop. Three -or four hours later, as we returned home in the dark, a dreadful smell -came from the same field, and we exclaimed, “Something has happened to -those potatoes; they do not smell at all as they did when we passed them -on our way out.” Next morning there was a wail from one end of Ireland -to the other. Every field was black and every root rendered unfit for -human food. And there were nearly eight millions of people depending -principally upon these potatoes for existence! - -The splendid generosity of the English public to us at that time warmed -all our Anglo-Irish hearts and cheered us to strain every nerve to feed -the people. But the agitators were afraid it would promote too much good -feeling between the nations, which would not have suited their game. I -myself heard O’Connell in Conciliation Hall (that ill-named place!) -endeavour to belittle English liberality. He spoke (a strange figure in -the red robes of his Mayoralty and with a little sandy wig on his head) -to the following purpose:— - - - “They have sent you over money in your distress. But do you think they - do it for love of you, or because they feel for you, and are sorry for - your trouble? Devil a bit! _They are afraid of you!_—that is it! _They - are afraid of you._ You are eight millions strong.” - - -It was as wicked a speech as ever man made, but it was never, that I -know of, reported or remarked upon. He spoke continually to similar -purpose no doubt, in that Hall, where my cousin—afterwards the wife of -John Locke, M.P. for Southwark—and I had gone to hear him out of girlish -curiosity. - -The part played by Anglo-Irish ladies when the great fever which -followed the famine came on us, was the same. It became perfectly well -known that if any of the upper classes caught the fever, they almost -uniformly died. The working people could generally be cured by a total -change of diet and abundant meat and wine, but to the others no -difference could be made in that way, and numbers of ladies and -gentlemen lost their lives by attending their poor in the disease. It -was very infectious, or at least it was easily caught in each locality -by those who went into the cabins. - - -There were few people whom I met in Ireland in those early days whose -names would excite any interest in the reader’s mind. One was poor -Elliot Warburton, the author of the _Crescent and the Cross_, who came -many times to Newbridge as an acquaintance of my brother. He was very -refined and, as we considered, rather effeminate; but how grand, even -sublime, was he in his death! On the burning _Amazon_ in mid-Atlantic he -refused to take a place in the crowded boats, and was last seen standing -alone beside the faithful Captain at the helm as the doomed vessel was -wrapped in flames. I have never forgotten his pale, intellectual face -and somewhat puny frame, and pictured him thus—a true hero. - -His brother, who was commonly known as _Hochelaga_, from the name of his -book on Canada, was a hale and genial young fellow, generally popular. -One rainy day he was prompted by a silly young lady-guest of ours to -sing a series of comic songs in our drawing-room, the point of the jokes -turning on the advances of women to men. My dear mother, then old and -feeble, after listening quietly for a time, slowly rose from her sofa, -walked painfully across the room, and leaning over the piano said in her -gentle way a few strong words of remonstrance. She could not bear, she -said, that men should ridicule women. Respect and chivalrous feeling for -them, even when they were foolish and ill-advised, were the part, she -always thought, of a generous man. She would beg Mr. Warburton to choose -some other songs for his fine voice. All this was done so gently and -with her sweet, kind smile, that no one could take offence. Mr. -Warburton was far from doing so. He was, I could see, touched with -tender reverence for his aged monitress, and rising hastily from the -piano, made the frankest apologies, which of course were instantly -accepted. I have described this trivial incident because I think it -illustrates the kind of influence which was exercised by women of the -old school of “_decorum_.” - -Another man who sometimes came to our house, was Dr. Longley, then -Bishop of Ripon, afterwards Archbishop of Canterbury. He was a very -charming person, without the slightest episcopal _morgue_ or -affectation, and with the kindest brown eyes in the world. His wife was -niece, and, I believe, eventually heiress, of our neighbour Mrs. Evans; -and he and his family spent some summers at Portrane in the Fifties when -we had many pleasant parties and picnics. I shall not forget how the -Bishop laughed when the young Longleys and I and a few guests of my own, -inaugurated some charades, and our party, all in disguise, were -announced on our arrival at Portrane, as “Lady Worldly,” “Miss Angelina -Worldly,” “Sir Bumpkin Blunderhead,” and the “Cardinal Lord Archbishop -of Rheims.” - -Our word was “Novice.” I, as Lady Worldly, in my great-grandmother’s -petticoat and powdered _toupee_, gave my daughter Angelina a lecture on -the desirability of marrying “Sir Bumpkin Blunderhead” who was rich, and -of dismissing Captain Algernon who was poor. Sir Bumpkin then made his -proposals, to which Angelina emphatically answered “No.” In the second -scene I met Sir Bumpkin at the gaming table, and fleeced him utterly; -the end of his “VICE” being suicide on the adjacent sofa. Angelina then, -in horror took the veil, and became a “_No-vice_,” duly admitted to her -Nunnery by the Cardinal Lord Archbishop of Rheims (my youngest brother -in a superb scarlet dressing gown) who pronounced a Sermon on the -pleasures of fasting and going barefoot. Angelina retired to her cell, -but was soon disturbed by a voice outside the window (Henry Longley’s); -and exclaiming “Algernon, beloved Algernon!” a speedy elopement over the -back of the sofa concluded the fate of the _Novice_ and the charade. - -There was another charade in which we held a debate in Parliament on a -Motion to “abolish the sun and moon,” which amused the bishop to the -last degree, especially as we made fun of Joseph Hume’s retrenchments; -he being a particular friend and frequent guest of our hostess. The -abolition of the Sun would, we feared, affect the tax on parasols. - -At Ripon, as Dr. Longley told me, the Palace prepared for him (the first -bishop of the new see) had, as ornaments of the front of the house, two -full-sized stone (or plaster) Angels. One day a visitor asked him: -“Pray, my Lord, is it supposed by Divines that Angels wear the order of -the Garter?” On inspection it proved that the Ripon Angels had formerly -done service as statues of the Queen and Prince Albert, but that wings -had been added to fit them for the episcopal residence. Sufficient care, -however, had not been taken to efface the insignia of the Most -Illustrious Order; and “_Honi soit qui mal y pense_” might be dimly -deciphered on the leg of the male celestial visitant. - -A lady nearly related to Mrs. Longley, who had married an English -nobleman, adopted the views of the Plymouth Brothers (or as all the Mrs. -Malaprops of the period invariably styled them, the “Yarmouth -Bloaters”), which had burst into sudden notoriety. When her husband died -leaving her a very wealthy woman, she thought it her duty to carry out -the ideas of her sect by putting down such superfluities of her -establishment as horses and carriages, and a well appointed table. She -accordingly wrote to her father and begged him to dispose of all her -plate and equipages. Lord C—— made no remonstrance and offered no -arguments; and after a year or two he received a letter from his -daughter couched in a different strain. She told him that she had now -reached the conviction that it was “the will of God that a peeress -should live as a peeress,” and she begged him to buy for her new -carriages and fresh plate. Lord C——’s answer must have been a little -mortifying. “I knew, my dear, that you would come sooner or later to -your senses. You will find your carriages at your coachmakers and your -plate at your bankers.” - -Mrs. Evans, _née_ Sophia Parnell, the aunt of both these ladies, and a -great-aunt of Charles Stewart Parnell, was, as I have said, our nearest -neighbour and in the later years of my life at Newbridge my very kind -old friend. For a long time political differences between my father and -her husband,—George Hampden Evans, M.P., who had managed to wrest the -county from the Tories,—kept the families apart, but after his death we -were pleasantly intimate for many years. She often spoke to me of the -Avondale branch of her family, and more than once said: “There is -mischief brewing! I am troubled at what is going on at Avondale. My -nephew’s wife” (the American lady, Delia Stewart) “has a hatred of -England, and is educating my nephew, like a little Hannibal, to hate it -too!” How true was her foresight there is no need now to rehearse, nor -how near that “little Hannibal” came to our Rome! Charles Parnell was -very far from being a representative Irishman. He was of purely English -extraction, and even in the female line had no drop of Irish blood. His -mother, as all the world knows, was an American; his grandmother was one -of the Howards of the family of the Earls of Wicklow, his -great-grandmother a Brooke, of a branch of the old Cheshire house; and, -beyond this lady again, his grand-dames were Wards and Whitsheds. In -short, like other supposed “illustrious Irishmen”—Burke, Grattan, -Goldsmith, and Wellington—Mr. Parnell was only one example more of the -supremacy of the Anglo-Saxon intellect in every land of its adoption. - -Mrs. Evans had known Madame de Stael, Condorcet and many other -interesting French people in her youth, and loved the Condorcets warmly. -She described to me a stiff, old-fashioned dinner at which she had been -present when Madame de Stael was a guest. After dinner, the ladies, -having retired to the drawing-room, sat apart from Madame de Stael in -terror, and she looked them over with undisguised contempt. After a -while she rose and, without asking the consent of the mistress of the -house, rang the bell. When the footman appeared, she delivered the -startling order: “Tell the gentlemen to come up!” The sensation among -the formal and scandalized ladies upstairs, and the gentlemen just -settling down to their usual long potations below, may be well imagined. - -When her husband died, Mrs. Evans built in his memory a fine Round Tower -on the plan and of the size of the best of the old Irish towers. It -stands on high ground on what was her deer-park, and is a useful -landmark to sailors all along that dangerous coast, where the dreadful -wreck of the _Tayleur_ took place. On the shore below, under the lofty -black cliffs, are several very imposing caverns. In the largest of -these, which is lighted from above by a shaft, Mrs. Evans, on one -occasion, gave a great luncheon party, at which I was present. The -company were all in high spirits and thoroughly enjoying the pigeon-pies -and champagne, when some one observed that the tide might soon be -rising. Mrs. Evans replied that it was all right, there was plenty of -time, and the festival proceeded for another half-hour, when somebody -rose and strolled to the mouth of the cavern and soon uttered a cry of -alarm. The tide _had_ risen, and was already beating at a formidable -depth against both sides of the rocks which shut in the cave. -Consternation of course reigned among the party. A night spent in the -further recesses of that damp hole, even supposing the tide did not -reach the end (which was very doubtful), afforded anything but a -cheerful prospect. Could anybody get up through the shaft to the upper -cliff? Certainly, if they had a long ladder. But there were no ladders -lying about the cave; and, finally, everybody stood mournfully watching -the rising waters at the mouth of their prison. Mrs. Evans all this time -appeared singularly calm, and administered a little encouragement to -some of the almost fainting ladies. When the panic was at its climax, -Mrs. Evans’ own large boat was seen quietly rounding the projecting -rocks and was soon comfortably pushed up to the feet of the imprisoned -party, who had nothing to do but to embark in two or three detachments -and be safely landed in the bay outside, beyond the reach of the sea. -The whole incident, it is to be suspected, had been pre-arranged by the -hostess to infuse a little wholesome excitement among her country -guests. - -Our small village church at Donabate was not often honoured by this -lady’s presence, but one Sunday she saw fit to attend service with some -visitors; and a big dog unluckily followed her into the pew and lay -extended on the floor, which he proceeded to beat with his tail after -the manner of impatient dogs under durance. This disturbance was too -much for the poor parson, who did not love Mrs. Evans. As he proceeded -with the service and the rappings were repeated again and again, his -patience gave way, and he read out this extraordinary lesson to his -astonished congregation:—“The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with -himself. Turn out that dog, if you please! It’s extremely wrong to bring -a dog into church.” During the winter Mrs. Evans was wont to live much -alone in her country house, surrounded only by her old servants and -multitudes of old books. When at last, in old age, she found herself -attacked by mortal disease she went to Paris to profit by the skill of -some French physician in whom she had confidence, and there, with -unshaken courage she passed away. Her remains, enclosed in a leaden -coffin, were brought back to Portrane, and her Irish terrier who adored -her, somehow recognised the dreadful chest and exhibited a frenzy of -grief; leaping upon it and tearing at the pall with piteous cries. Next -morning, strange to say, the poor brute was, with six others about the -place, in such a state of excitement as to be supposed to be rabid and -it was thought necessary to shoot them all. One of them leaped the gate -of the yard and escaping bit two of my father’s cows, which became -rabid, and were shot in my presence. Mrs. Evans was buried beside her -beloved husband in the little roofless and ruined church of Portrane, -close by the shore. On another grave in the same church belonging to the -same family, a dog had some years previously died of grief. - -A brother of this lady, who walked over often to Newbridge from Portrane -to bring my mother some scented broom which she loved, was a very -singular and pathetic character. He was a younger brother of that -sufficiently astute man of the world, Sir Henry Parnell, afterwards Lord -Congleton, but was his antipodes in disposition. Thomas Parnell, “Old -Tom Parnell,” as all Dublin knew him for forty years, had a huge -ungainly figure like Dr. Johnson’s, and one of the sweetest, softest -faces ever worn by mortal man. He had, at some remote and long forgotten -period, been seized with a fervent and self-denying religious enthusiasm -of the ultra-Protestant type; and this had somehow given birth in his -brain to a scheme for arranging texts of the Bible in a mysterious order -which, when completed, should afford infallible answers to every -question of the human mind! To construct the interminable tables -required for this wonderful plan, poor Tom Parnell devoted his life and -fortune. For years which must have amounted to many decades, he laboured -at the work in a bare, gloomy, dusty room in what was called a -“Protestant Office” in Sackville Street. Money went speedily to clerks -and printers; and no doubt the good man (who himself lived, as he used -to say laughingly, on “a second-hand bone,”) gave money also freely in -alms. One way or another Mr. Parnell grew poorer and more poor, his coat -looked shabbier, and his beautiful long white hair more obviously in -need of a barber. Once or twice every summer he was prevailed on by his -sister to tear himself from his work and pay her a few weeks’ visit in -the country at Portrane; and to her and all her visitors he preached -incessantly his monotonous appeal: “Repent; and cease to eat good -dinners, and devote yourselves to compiling texts!” When his sister—who -had treated him as a mother would treat a silly boy—died, she left him a -small annuity, to be paid to him weekly in dribblets by trustees, lest -he should spend it at once and starve if he received it half-yearly. -After this epoch he worked on with fewer interruptions than ever at his -dreary text-books in that empty, grimy office. Summer’s sun and winter’s -snow were alike to the lonely old man. He ploughed on at his hopeless -task. There was no probability that he should live to fill up the -interminable columns, and no apparent reason to suppose that any human -being would use the books if he ever did so and supposing them to be -printed. But still he laboured on. Old friends—myself among them—who had -known him in their childhood, looked in now and then to shake hands with -him, and, noticing how pale and worn and aged he seemed, tried to induce -him to come to their homes. But he only exhorted them (like Tolstoi, -whom he rather resembled), as usual, to repent and give up good dinners -and help him with his texts, and denounced wildly all rich people who -lived in handsome parks with mud villages at their gates, as he said, -“like a velvet dress with a draggled skirt.” Then, when his visitor had -departed, Mr. Parnell returned patiently to his interminable texts. At -last one day, late in the autumn twilight, the porter, whose duty it was -to shut up the office, entered the room and found the old man sitting -quietly in the chair where he had laboured so long—fallen into the last -long sleep. - - -I never saw much of Irish society out of our own county. Once, when I -was eighteen, my father and I went a tour of visits to his relations in -Connaught, travelling, as was necessary in those days, very slowly with -post-horses to our carriage, my maid on the box, and obliged to stop at -inns on the way. Some of these inns were wretched places. I remember in -one finding a packet of letters addressed to some attorney, under my -bolster! At another, this dialogue took place between me and the -waiter:— - -“What can we have for dinner?” - -“Anything you please, Ma’am. _Anything_ you please.” - -“Well, but exactly what can we have?” - -(Waiter, triumphantly): “You can have a pair of ducks.” - -“I am sorry to say Mr. Cobbe cannot eat ducks. What else?” - -“They are very fine ducks, Ma’am.” - -“I dare say. But what else?” - -“You might have the ducks boiled, Ma’am!” - -“No, no. Can we have mutton?” - -“Well; not mutton, to-day, Ma’am.” - -“Some beef?” - -“No, Ma’am.” - -“Some veal?” - -“Not any veal, I’m afraid.” - -“Well, then, a fowl?” - -“We haven’t got a fowl.” - -“What on earth have you got, then?” - -“Well, then, Ma’am, I’m afeared if you won’t have the fine pair of -ducks, there’s nothing for it but bacon and eggs!” - -We went first to Drumcar and next (a two days’ drive) to Moydrum Castle -which then belonged to my father’s cousin, old Lady Castlemaine. Another -old cousin in the house showed me where, between two towers covered with -ivy, she had looked one dark night out of her bedroom window on hearing -a wailing noise below, and had seen some white object larger than any -bird, floating slowly up and then sinking down into the shadow below -again, and yet again. Of course it was the Banshee; and somebody had -died afterwards! We also had our Banshee at Newbridge about that time. -One stormy and rainy Sunday night in October my father was reading a -sermon as usual to the assembled household, and the family, gathered -near the fire in what we were wont to call on these evenings “Sinner’s -chair” and the “Seat of the Scornful,” were rather somnolent, when the -most piercing and unearthly shrieks arose apparently just outside the -windows in the pleasure ground, and startled us all wide awake. At the -head of the row of servants sat our dear old housekeeper “Joney” then -the head-gardener’s wife, who had adopted a child of three years old, -and this evening had left him fast asleep in the housekeeper’s room, -which was under part of the drawing-room. Naturally she and all of us -supposed that “Johnny” had wakened and was screaming on finding himself -alone; and though the outcries were not like those of a child, “Joney” -rose and hastily passed down the room and went to look after her charge. -To reach the housekeeper’s room she necessarily passed the servants’ -hall and out of it rushed the coachman—a big, usually red-faced -Englishman, whom she declared was on that occasion as pale as death. The -next instant one of the housemaids, who had likewise played truant from -prayers, came tottering down from a bedroom (so remote that I have -always wondered how _any_ noise below the drawing-room could have -reached it), and sunk fainting on a chair. The little boy meanwhile was -sleeping like a cherub in undisturbed repose in a clothes basket! What -that wild noise was,—heard by at least two dozen people,—we never -learned and somehow did not care much to investigate. - -After our visit at Moydrum my father and I went to yet other cousins at -Garbally; his mother’s old home. At that time—I speak of more than half -a century ago,—the Clancarty family was much respected in Ireland; and -the household at Garbally was conducted on high religious principles and -in a very dignified manner. It was in the Forties that the annual Sheep -Fair of Ballinasloe was at its best, and something like 200,000 sheep -were then commonly herded at night in Garbally Park. The scene of the -Fair was described as curious, but (like a stupid young prig, as I must -have been) I declined the place offered me in one of the carriages and -stopped in the house on the plea of a cold, but really to enjoy a -private hunt in the magnificent library of which I had caught a glimpse. -When the various parties came back late in the day there was much talk -of a droll mishap. The Marquis of Downshire of that time, who was -stopping in the house, was a man of colossal strength, and rumour said -he had killed two men by accidental blows intended as friendly. However -this may be, he was on this occasion overthrown _by sheep_! He was -standing in the gangway between the hurdles in the great fair, when an -immense flock of terrified animals rushed through, overset him and -trampled him under their feet. When he came home, laughing good -humouredly at his disaster, he presented a marvellous spectacle with his -rather _voyant_ light costume of the morning in a frightful pickle. -Another agreeable man in the house was the Lord Devon of that day, a -very able and cultivated man (whom I straightway interrogated concerning -Gibbon’s chapter on the Courtenays!); and poor Lord Leitrim, a kindly -and good Irish landlord, afterwards most cruelly murdered. There were -also the Ernes and Lord Enniskillen and many others whom I have -forgotten, and a dear aged lady; the Marchioness of Ormonde. Hearing I -had a cold, she kindly proposed to treat me medically and said: “I -should advise you to try Brandy and Salt. For my own part I take -Morrison’s pills whenever I am ill, if I cannot get hydropathic baths; -but I have a very great opinion of Tar-water. Holloway’s ointment and -pills, too, are excellent. My son, you know, joined Mr. ——” (I have -forgotten the name) “to pay £15,000 to St. John Long for his famous -recipe; but it turned out no good when he had it. No! I advise you -decidedly to try brandy and salt.” - -From Garbally we drove to Parsonstown, where Lady Rosse was good enough -to welcome us to indulge my intense longing to see the great telescope, -then quite recently erected. Lord Rosse at that time believed that, as -he had resolved into separate stars many of the nebulæ which were -irresolvable by Herschel’s telescope, there was a presumption that _all_ -were resolvable; and consequently that the nebular hypothesis must be -abandoned. The later discovery of gaseous nebulæ by the spectroscope -re-established the theory. I was very anxious on the subject, having -pinned my faith already on the _Vestiges of Creation_ (then a new book), -in sequence to Nichol’s _Architecture of the Heavens_: that prose-poem -of science. Lord Rosse was infinitely indulgent to my girlish curiosity, -and took me to see the process of polishing the speculum of his second -telescope; a most ingenious piece of mechanism invented mainly by -himself. He also showed me models which he has made in plaster of lunar -craters. I saw the great telescope by day, but, alas, when darkness came -and it was to have been ready for me to look through it and I was -trembling with anticipation, the butler came to the drawing-room door -and announced: “A rainy night, my lord”! It was a life-long -disappointment, for we could not stay another day though hospitably -pressed to do so; and I never had another chance. - -Lord Rosse had guessed already that Robert Chambers was the author of -the _Vestiges_. He explained to me the reason for the enormous mass of -masonry on which the seven-foot telescope rested, by the curious fact -that even where it stood within his park, the roll of a cart more than -two miles away, outside, was enough to make the ground tremble and to -disturb the observation. - -There was a romantic story then current in Ireland about Lord and Lady -Rosse. It was said that, as a young man, he had gone _incog._ and worked -as a handicraftsman in some large foundry in the north of England to -learn the secrets of machine making. After a time his employer, -considering him a peculiarly promising young artisan, invited him -occasionally to a Sunday family dinner when young Lord Parsons, as he -then was, speedily fell in love with his host’s daughter. Observing what -was going on, the father put a veto on what he thought would be a -_mésalliance_ for Miss Green, and the supposed artisan left his -employment and the country; but not without receiving from the young -lady an assurance that she returned his attachment. Shortly afterwards, -having gone home and obtained his father, Lord Rosse’s consent, he -re-appeared and now made his proposals to Mr. Green, _père_, in all due -form as the heir of a good estate and an earldom. He was not rejected -this time. - -I tell this story only as a pretty one current when I saw Lord and Lady -Rosse; a very happy and united couple with little children who have -since grown to be distinguished men. Very possibly it may be only a -myth! - -I never saw Archbishop Whately except when he confirmed me in the church -of Malahide. He was no doubt a sincerely pious man, but, his rough and -irreverent manner (intended, I believe, as a protest against the -Pecksniffian tone then common among evangelical dignitaries) was almost -repulsive and certainly startling. Outside his palace in Stephen’s Green -there was at that time a row of short columns connected from top to top -by heavy chains which fell in festoons and guarded the gardens of the -square. Nothing would serve his Grace (we were told with horror by the -spectators) than to go of a morning after breakfast and sit on these -chains smoking his cigar as he swung gently back and forth, kicking the -ground to gain impetus. - -On the occasion of my confirmation he exhibited one of his whims most -unpleasantly for me. This was, that he must actually touch, in his -episcopal benediction, the _head_, not merely the _hair_, of the -kneeling catechumen. Unhappily, my maid had not foreseen this -contingency, but had thought she could not have a finer opportunity for -displaying her skill in plaiting my redundant locks; and had built up -such an edifice with plaits and pins, (on the part of my head which -necessarily came under the Archbishop’s hand) that he had much ado to -overthrow the same! He did so, however, effectually; and I finally -walked back, through the church to my pew with all my _chevelure_ -hanging down in disorder, far from “admired” by me or anybody. - -Of all the phases of orthodoxy I think that of Whately,—well called the -_Hard Church_,—was the last which I could have adopted at any period of -my life. It was obviously his view that a chain of propositions might be -constructed by iron logic, beginning with the record of a miracle two -thousand years ago and ending with unavoidable conversion to the love of -God and Man! - -The last person of whom I shall speak as known to me first in Ireland, -was that dear and noble woman, Fanny Kemble. She has not mentioned in -her delightful _Records_ how our acquaintance, destined to ripen into a -life-long friendship, began at Newbridge, but it was in a droll and -characteristic way. - -Mrs. Kemble’s friend “H.S.”—Harriet St. Leger—lived at Ardgillan Castle, -eight Irish miles from Newbridge. Her sister, the wife of Hon. and Rev. -Edward Taylor and mother of the late Tory Whip, was my mother’s -best-liked neighbour, and at an early age I was taught to look with -respect on the somewhat singular figure of Miss St. Leger. In those days -any departure from the conventional dress of the time was talked of as -if it were altogether the most important fact connected with a woman, no -matter what might be the greatness of her character or abilities. Like -her contemporaries and fellow countrywomen, the Ladies of Llangollen, -(also Irish), Harriet St. Leger early adopted a costume consisting of a -riding habit (in her case with a skirt of sensible length) and a black -beaver hat. All the empty-headed men and women in the county prated -incessantly about these inoffensive garments, insomuch that I arrived -early at the conviction that, rational and convenient as such dress -would be, the game was not worth the candle. Things are altered so far -now that, could dear Harriet reappear, I believe the universal comment -on her dress would rather be: “How sensible and befitting”! rather than -the silly, “How odd”! Anyway I imagine she must have afforded a somewhat -singular contrast to her ever magnificent, not to say gorgeous friend -Fanny Kemble, when at the great Exhibition of 1851, they were the -observed of observers, sitting for a long time side by side close to the -crystal fountain. - -Every reader of the charming _Records of a Girlhood_ and _Recollections -of Later Life_, must have felt some curiosity about the personality of -the friend to whom those letters of our English Sevigné were addressed. -I have before me as I write an excellent reproduction in platinotype -from a daguerreotype of herself which dear Harriet gave me some twenty -years ago. The pale, kind, sad face is, I think inexpressibly touching; -and the woman who wore it deserved all the affection which Fanny Kemble -gave her. She was a deep and singularly critical thinker and reader, and -had one of the warmest hearts which ever beat under a cold and shy -exterior. The iridescent genius of Fanny Kemble in the prime of her -splendid womanhood, and my poor young soul, overburdened with thoughts -too great and difficult for me, were equally drawn to seek her sympathy. - -It happened once, somewhere in the early Fifties, that Mrs. Kemble was -paying a visit to Miss St. Leger at Ardgillan, and we arranged that she -should bring her over some day to Newbridge to luncheon. I was, of -course, prepared to receive my guest very cordially but, to my -astonishment, when Mrs. Kemble entered she made me the most formal -salutation conceivable and, after being seated, answered all my small -politenesses in monosyllables and with obvious annoyance and -disinclination to converse with me or with any of my friends whom I -presented to her. Something was evidently frightfully amiss, and Harriet -perceived it; but what could it be? What could be done? Happily the gong -sounded for luncheon, and, my father being absent, my eldest brother -offered his arm to Mrs. Kemble and led her, walking with more than her -usual stateliness across the two halls to the dining-room, where he -placed her, of course, beside himself. I was at the other end of the -table but I heard afterwards all that occurred. We were a party of -eighteen, and naturally the long table had a good many dishes on it in -the old fashion. My brother looked over it and asked: “What will you -take, Mrs. Kemble? Roast fowl? or galantine? or a little Mayonnaise, or -what else?” - -“Thank you,” replied Mrs. Kemble, “_If there be a potato!_” - -Of course there was a potato—nay, several; but a terrible _gêne_ hung -over us all till Miss Taylor hurriedly called for her carriage, and the -party drove off. - -The moment they left the door after our formal farewells, Harriet St. -Leger (as she afterwards told me) fell on her friend: “Well, Fanny, -never, _never_ will I bring you anywhere again. How _could_ you behave -so to Fanny Cobbe?” - -“I cannot permit any one,” said Mrs. Kemble, “to invite a number of -people to meet me without having asked my consent; I do not choose to be -made a gazing-stock to the county. Miss Cobbe had got up a regular party -of all those people, and you could see the room was decorated for it.” - -“Good Heavens, what are you talking of?” said Harriet, “those ladies and -gentlemen are all her relations, stopping in the house. She could not -turn them out because you were coming, and her room is always full of -flowers.” - -“Is that really so?” said Mrs. Kemble, “Then you shall tell Fanny Cobbe -that I ask her pardon for my bad behaviour, and if she will forgive me -and come to see me in London, _I will never behave badly to her again_?” - -In a letter of hers to Harriet St. Leger given to me after her death, I -was touched to read the following reference to this droll incident:— - - - “Bilton Hotel, - “Wed. 9th. - - “I am interrupted by a perfect bundle of fragrance and fresh colour - sent by Miss Cobbe with a note in which I am sorry to say she gives me - very little hope of seeing her at all while I am in Dublin. This, as - you know, is a real disappointment to me. I had rather fallen in love - with her, and wished very much to have had some opportunity of more - intercourse with her. Her face when I came to talk to her seemed to me - keen and sweet—a charming combination—and I was so grateful to her for - not being repelled by my ungracious demeanour at her house, that I had - quite looked forward to the pleasure of seeing her again. - - “F. A. K.” - - -I did go to see her in London; and she kept her word, and was my dear -and affectionate friend and bore many things from me with perfect good -humour, for forty years; including (horrible to recall!) my falling fast -asleep while she was reading Shakespeare to Mary Lloyd and me in our -drawing-room here at Hengwrt! Among her many kindnesses was the gift of -a mass of her Correspondence from the beginning of her theatrical career -in 1821 to her last years. She also successively gave me the MSS. of all -her _Records_, but in each case I induced her to take them back and -publish them herself. I have now, as a priceless legacy, a large parcel -of her own letters, and five thick volumes of autograph letters -addressed to her by half the celebrated men and women of her time. They -testify uniformly to the admiration, affection and respect -wherewith,—her little foibles notwithstanding,—she was regarded by three -generations. - - - - - CHAPTER - VIII. - _UPROOTED._ - - -I draw now to the closing years of my life at Newbridge, after I had -published my first book and before my father died. They were happy and -peaceful years, though gradually overshadowed by the sense that the long -tenure of that beloved home must soon end. It is one of the many -perversities of woman’s destiny that she is, not only by hereditary -instinct a home-making animal, but is encouraged to the uttermost to -centre all her interests in her home; every pursuit which would give her -anchorage elsewhere, (always excepting marriage) being more or less -under general disapproval. Yet when the young woman takes thoroughly to -this natural home-making, when she has, like a plant, sent her roots -down into the cellars and her tendrils up into the garrets and every -room bears the impress of her personality, when she glories in every -good picture on the walls or bit of choice china on the tables and -blushes for every stain on the carpets, when, in short, her home is, as -it should be, her outer garment, her nest, her shell, fitted to her like -that of a murex, then, almost invariably comes to her the order to leave -it all, tear herself out of it,—and go to make (if she can) some other -home elsewhere. Supposing her to have married early, and that she is -spared the late uprooting from her father’s house at his death, she has -usually to bear a similar transition when she survives her husband; and -in this case often with the failing health and spirits of old age. I do -not know how these heartbreaks are to be spared to women of the class of -the daughters and wives of country gentlemen or clergymen; but they are -hard to bear. Perhaps the most fortunate daughters (harsh as it seems to -say so) are those whose fathers die while they are themselves still in -full vigour and able to begin a new existence with spirit and make new -friends; as was my case. Some of my contemporaries, whose fathers lived -till they were fifty, or even older, had a bitterer trial in quitting -their homes and were never able to start afresh. - -In my last few years at Newbridge my father and I were both cheered by -the frequent presence of my dear little niece, Helen, on whom he doted, -and towards whom flowed out the tenderness which had scarcely been -allowed its free course with his own children. _L’Art d’être Grandpère_ -is surely the most beautiful of arts! When all personal pleasures have -pretty well died away then begins the reflected pleasure in the fresh, -innocent delights of the child; a moonlight of happiness perhaps more -sweet and tender than the garish joys of the noontide of life. To me, -who had never lived in a house with little children, it brought a whole -world of revelations to have this babe and afterwards her little sister, -in a nursery under my supervision during their mother’s long illnesses. -I understood for the first time all that a child may be in a woman’s -life, and how their little hands may pull our heart-strings. My nieces -were dear, good, little babes then; they are dear and good women now; -the comfort of my age, as they were the darlings of my middle life. - -Having received sufficient encouragement from the _succès d’estime_ of -my _Theory of Intuitive Morals_, I proceeded now to write the first of -the three books on _Practical Morals_, with which I designed to complete -the work. My volume of _Religious Duty_, then written, has proved, -however, the only one of the series ever published. At a later time I -wrote some chapters on _Personal_ and on _Social Duty_, but was -dissatisfied with them, and destroyed the MSS. - -As _Religious Duty_ (3rd edition) is still to be had (included by Mr. -Fisher Unwin in his late re-issue of my principal works), I need not -trouble the reader by any such analysis of it as I have given of the -former volume. In writing concerning _Religious Duty_ at the time, I -find in a letter of mine to Harriet St. Leger (returned to me when she -grew blind), that I spoke of it thus:— - - - “Newbridge, April 25th, 1857. - - “You see I have, after all, inserted a little preface. I thought it - necessary to explain the object of the book, lest it might seem - superfluous where it coincides with orthodox teaching, and offensively - daring where it diverges from it. Your cousin’s doubt about my - Christianity lasting till she reached the end of _Intuitive Morals_, - made me resolve to forestall in this case any such danger of seeming - to fight without showing my colours. You see I have now nailed them - mast-high. But though I have done this, I cannot say that it has been - in any way to _make converts_ to my own creed that I have written this - book. I wanted to show those who are already Theists, actually or - approximately, that Theism is something far more than they seem - commonly to understand. I wanted, too, to show to those who have had - their historical faith shaken, but who still cling to it from the - belief that without it no real _religion_ is possible, that they may - find all which their hearts can need in a faith purely intuitive. - Perhaps I ought rather to say that these objects have been before me - in working at my book. I suppose in reality the impulse to such an - undertaking comes more simply. We think we have found some truths, and - we long to develop and communicate them. We do not sit down and say - ‘Such and such sort of people want such and such a book. I will try - and write it.’” - - -The plan of this book is simple. After discussing in the first chapter -the _Canon of Religious Duty_, which I define to be “Thou shalt love the -Lord thy God with all thine heart and soul and strength,”—I discuss, in -the next chapter, _Religious Offences_ against that Law,—Blasphemy, -Hypocrisy, Perjury, &c. The third chapter deals with _Religious Faults_ -(failures of duty) such as Thanklessness, Irreverence, Worldliness, &c. -The fourth, which constitutes the main bulk of the book, consists of -what are practically six Sermons on Thanksgiving, Adoration, Prayer, -Repentance, Faith, and Self-Consecration. - -The book has been very much liked by some readers, especially the -chapter on _Thanksgiving_, which I reprinted later in a tiny volume. It -is strange in these days of pessimism to read it again. I am glad I -wrote it when my heart was unchilled, my sight undimmed, by the frozen -fog which has been hanging over us for the last two decades. An incident -connected with this chapter touched me deeply. My father in his last -illness permitted it to be read to him. Having never before listened to -anything I had written, and having, even then, no idea who wrote the -book, he expressed pleasure and sympathy with it, especially with a -passage in which I speak of the hope of being, in the future life, -“young again in all that makes childhood beautiful and holy.” It was a -pledge to me of how near our hearts truly were, under apparently the -world-wide differences. - -My father was now sinking slowly beneath the weight of years and of -frequent returns of the malarial fever of India,—in those days called -“Ague,”—which he had caught half a century before in the Mahratta wars. -I have said something already of his powerful character, his upright, -honourable, fearless nature; his strong sense of Duty. Of the lower sort -of faults and vices he was absolutely incapable. No one who knew him -could imagine him as saying a false or prevaricating word; of driving a -hard bargain; of eating or drinking beyond the strictest rules of -temperance; least of all, of faithlessness in thought or deed to his -wife or her memory. His mistakes and errors, such as they were, arose -solely from a fiery temper and a despotic will, nourished rather than -checked by his ideas concerning the rights of parents, and husbands, -masters and employers; and from his narrow religious creed. Such as he -was, every one honoured, some feared, and many loved him. - -Before I pass on to detail more of the incidents of my own life, I shall -here narrate all that I can recall of his descriptions of the most -important occurrence in his career—the battle of Assaye. - -In Mr. George Hooper’s delightful Life of Wellington (_English Men of -Action Series_) there is a spirited account of that battle, whereby -British supremacy in India was practically secured. Mr. Hooper speaks -enthusiastically of the behaviour, in that memorable fight, of the 19th -Light Dragoons, and of its “splendid charge,” which, with the -“irresistible sweep” of the 78th, proved the “decisive stroke” of the -great day. He describes this charge thus:— - - - ... “The piquets, or leading troops on the right were by mistake led - off towards Assaye, uncovering the second line, and falling themselves - into a deadly converging fire. The Seventy-Fourth followed the piquets - into the cannonade, and a great gap was thus made in the array. The - enemy’s horse rode up to charge, and so serious was the peril on the - right that the Nineteenth Light Dragoons and a native cavalry regiment - were obliged to charge at once. Eager for the fray, they galloped up, - cheering as they went, and cheered by the wounded; and, riding home, - even to the batteries, saved the remnants of the piquets and of the - Seventy-Fourth.” (P. 76.) - - -My father, then a cornet in the regiment, carried the regimental flag of -the Nineteenth through that charge, and for the rest of the day; the -non-commissioned officer whose duty it was to bear it having been struck -dead at the first onset, and my father saving the flag from falling into -the hands of the Mahrattas. - -The Nineteenth Light Dragoons of that epoch wore a grey uniform, and -heavy steel helmets with large red plumes, which caused the Mahrattas to -nickname them “The Red Headed Rascals.” On their shoulders were simple -epaulettes made of chains of some common white metal, one of which I -retrieved from a heap of rubbish fifty years after Assaye, and still -wear as a bracelet. The men could scarcely have deserved the name of -_Light_ if many of them weighed, as did my father at 18, no less than 18 -stone, inclusive of his saddle and accoutrements! The fashion of long -hair, tied in “pig tails,” still prevailed; and my father often -laughingly boasted that the mass of his fair hair, duly tied with black -ribbon, had descended far enough to reach his saddle and to form an -efficient protection from sabre cuts on his back and shoulders. Mr. -Hooper estimates the total number of the British army at Assaye at -5,000; my father used to speak of it as about 4,500; while the _cavalry_ -alone, of the enemy were some 30,000. The infantry were seemingly -innumerable, and altogether covered the plain. There was also a -considerable force of artillery on Scindias’ side, and, commanding them, -was a French officer whose name my father repeatedly mentioned, but -which I have unfortunately forgotten.[12] The handful of English troops -had done a full day’s march under an Indian sun before the battle began. -When the Nineteenth received orders to charge they had been sitting long -on their horses in a position which left them exposed to the _ricochet_ -of the shot of the enemy, and the strain on the discipline of the men, -as one after another was picked off, had been enormous; not to prevent -them from _retreating_—they had no such idea,—but to stop them from -charging without orders. At last the word of command to charge came from -Wellesley, and the whole regiment responded with a _roar_! Then came the -fire of death and men and officers fell all around, as it seemed almost -every second man. Among the rest, as I have said, the colour-sergeant -was struck down, and my father, as was his duty, seized the flag from -the poor fellow’s hands as he fell and carried it, waving in front of -the regiment up to the guns of the enemy. - -In one or other of the repeated charges which the Nineteenth continued -to make even after their commanding officer, Colonel Maxwell, had been -killed, my father found himself in hand to hand conflict with the French -General who was in command of the Mahratta artillery. He wore an -ordinary uniform and my father, having struck him with his sabre at the -back of his neck, expected to see terrible results from the blow of a -hand notorious all his life for its extraordinary strength. But -fortunately the General had prudently included a coat of armour under -his uniform; and the blow only resulted in a considerable dent in the -blade of my father’s sabre; a dent which (in Biblical language) “may be -seen unto this day,” where the weapon hangs in the study at Newbridge. - -At another period of this awful battle the young Cornet dismounted -beside a stream to drink, and to allow his horse to do the same. While -so occupied, Colonel Wellesley came up to follow his example, and they -conversed for a few minutes while dipping their hands and faces in the -brook (or river). As they did so, there slowly oozed down upon them, -trickling through the water, a streamlet of blood. Of course they both -turned away in horror and remounted to return to the battle. - -At last the tremendous struggle was over. An army of 4,500 or 5,000 -tired English troops, had routed five times as many horsemen and perhaps -twenty times as many infantry of the warlike Mahrattas. The field was -clear and the English flag waved over the English Marathon. - -After this the poor, wearied soldiers were compelled to ride back _ten -miles_ to camp for the night; and when they reached their ground and -dismounted, many of them—my father among the rest—fell on the earth and -slept where they lay. Next morning they marched back to the field of -Assaye and the scene which met their eyes was one which no lapse of -years could efface from memory. The pomp and glory and joy of victory -were past; the horror of it was before them in mangled corpses of men -and horses, over which hung clouds of flies and vultures. Fourteen -officers of his own regiment, whose last meal on earth he had shared in -convivial merriment, my father saw buried together in one grave. Then -the band of the regiment played “_The Rose Tree_” and the men marched -away with set faces. Long years afterwards I happened to play that old -air on the piano, but my father stopped me, “Do not play _that_ tune, -pray! I cannot bear the memories it brings to me.” - -After Assaye my father fought at Argaon (or Argaum), a battle which Mr. -Turner describes as “even more decisive than the last”; and on December -14th he joined in the terrific storming of the great fortress of -Gawiljarh, with which the war in the Deccan terminated. He received -medals for Assaye and Argaum, just fifty years after those battles were -fought! - -[Illustration: - - _Charles Cobbe_, - 1857. -] - -After his return from India, my father remained at his mother’s house in -Bath till 1809, when he married my dear mother, then living with her -guardians close by, at 29, Royal Crescent; and brought her to Newbridge, -where they both lived, as I have described, with few and short -interruptions till she died in October, 1847, and he in November, 1857. -For all that half century he acted nobly the part to which he was -called, of landlord, magistrate and head of a family. There was nothing -in him of the ideal Irish, fox-hunting, happy-go-lucky, much indebted -Squire. There never was a year in his life in which every one of his -bills was not settled. His books, piled on his study table, showed the -regular payment, week by week, of all his labourers for fifty years. No -quarter day passed without every servant in the house receiving his, or -her wages. So far was Newbridge from a Castle Rackrent that though much -in it of the furniture and decorations belonged to the previous century, -everything was kept in perfect order and repair in the house and in the -stables, coach-houses and beautiful old garden. Punctuality reigned -under the old soldier’s _régime_; clocks and bells and gongs sounded -regularly for prayers and meals; and dinner was served sharply to the -moment. I should indeed be at a loss to say in what respect my father -betrayed his Anglo-Irish race, if it were not his high spirit. - -At last, and very soon after the photograph which I am inserting in this -book was taken, the long, good life drew to its end in peace. I have -found a letter which I wrote to Harriet St. Leger a day or two after his -death, and I will here transcribe part of it, rather than narrate the -event afresh. - - - “Nov. 14th, 1857. - - “Dearest Harriet, - - “My poor father’s sufferings are over. He died on Wednesday evening, - without the least pain or struggle, having sunk gradually into an - unconscious state since Sunday morning. At all events it proved a most - merciful close to his long sufferings, for he never seemed even aware - of the terrible state into which the poor limbs fell, but became - weaker and weaker, and as the mortification advanced, died away as if - in the gentlest sleep he had known for many a day. It is all very - merciful, I can feel nothing else, though it is very sad to have had - no parting words of blessing, such as I am sure he would have given - me. All those he loved best were near him. He had Dotie till the last - day of his consciousness, and the little thing continually asked - afterwards to go to his study, and enquired, ‘Grandpa ‘seep?’ When he - had ceased to speak at all comprehensibly, the morning before he died - he pointed to her picture, and half smiled when I brought it to him. - Poor old father! He is free now from all his miseries—gone home to God - after his long, long life of good and honour! Fifty years he has lived - as master here. Who but God knows all the kind and generous actions he - has done in that half century! To the very last he completed - everything, paying his labourers and settling his books on Saturday; - and we find all his arrangements made in the most perfect and - thoughtful way for everybody. There was a letter left for me. It only - contained a £100 note and the words, ‘The last token of the love and - affection of a father to his daughter.’... ‘He is now looking so noble - and happy, I might say, so handsome; his features seem so glorified by - death, that it does one good to go and sit beside him. I never saw - Death look so little terrible. Would that the poor form could lie - there, ever! The grief will be far worse after to-day, when we shall - see it for the last time. Jessie has made an outline of the face as it - is now, very like. How wonderful and blessed is this glorifying power - of death; taking away the lines of age and weak distension of muscles, - and leaving only, as it would seem, the true face of the man as he was - beneath all surface weaknesses; the ‘garment by the soul laid by’ - smoothed out and folded! My cousins and Jessie and I all feel very - much how blessedly this face speaks to us; how it is _not him_, but a - token of what he is now. I grieve that I was not more to him, that I - did not better win his love and do more to deserve it; but even this - sorrow has its comfort. Perhaps he knows now that with all my heart I - did feel the deepest tenderness for his sufferings and respect for his - great virtues. At all events the wall of _creed_ has fallen down from - between our souls for ever, and I believe that was the one great - obstacle which I could never overthrow entirely. Forbearing as he - proved himself, it was never forgotten. Now _all_ that divided us is - over.... It seems all very dream-like just now, long as we have - thought of it, and I know the waking will be a terrible pang when - _all_ is over and I have left _everything_ round which my heart roots - have twined in five and thirty years. But I don’t fear—how can I, when - my utmost hopes could not have pointed to an end so happy as God has - given to my poor old father? Everything is merciful about it—even to - the time when we were all together here, and when I am neither young - enough to need protection, or old enough to feel diminished - energies....” - - -I carried out my long formed resolution, of course, and started on my -pilgrimage just three weeks after my father’s death. Leaving Newbridge -was the worst wrench of my life. The home of my childhood and youth, of -which I had been mistress for nineteen years, for every corner of which -I had cared, and wherein there was not a room without its tender -associations,—it seemed almost impossible to drag myself away. To strip -my pretty bedroom of its pictures and books and ornaments, many of them -my mother’s gifts, and my mother’s work; to send off my harp to be sold; -and make over to my brother my private possessions of ponies and -carriage,—(luckily my dear dog was dead,)—and take leave of all the dear -old servants and village people, formed a whole series of pangs. I -remember feeling a distinct regret and smiling at myself for doing so, -when I locked for the last time the big, old-fashioned tea-chest out of -which I had made the family breakfast for twenty years. Then came the -last morning and as I drove out of the gates of Newbridge I felt I was -leaving behind me all and everything in the world which I had loved and -cherished. - -I was going also, it must be said, not only from a family circle to -entire solitude, but also from comparative wealth to poverty. -Considering the interests of my eldest brother as paramount, and the -seriousness of his charge of keeping up the house and estate, my father -left me but a very small patrimony; amounting, at the rate of interest -then obtainable, to a trifle over £200 a year. For a woman who had -always had every possible service rendered to her by a regiment of -well-trained servants, and had had £130 a year pocket-money since she -left school, it must be confessed that this was a narrow provision. My -father intended me to continue to live at Newbridge with my brother and -sister-in-law; but such a plan was entirely contrary to my view of what -my life should thenceforth become, and I accepted my poverty cheerfully -enough, with the help of a little ready money wherewith to start on my -travels. I cut off half my hair, being totally unable to grapple with -the whole without a maid, and faced the future with the advantage of the -great calm which follows any immediate concern with Death. While that -Shadow hangs over our heads we perceive but dimly the thorns and pebbles -on our road. - -A week after leaving Ireland I spent one night with Harriet St. Leger in -lodgings which she and her friend, Miss Dorothy Wilson, occupied on the -Marina at St. Leonard’s. - -When I had gone to my room rather late that evening, I opened my window -and looked out for the last time before my exile, on an English scene. -There was the line of friendly lamps close by, but beyond it the sea, -dark as pitch on that December night, was only revealed by the sound of -the slow waves breaking sullenly on the beach beneath. It was like a -black wall before me; the sea and sky undistinguishable. I thought: -“To-morrow I shall go out into that darkness! How like to death is -this!” - - - - - CHAPTER - IX. - _LONG JOURNEY._ - - -The journey which I undertook when my home duties ended at the death of -my father, would be considered a very moderate excursion in these latter -days, but in 1857 it was still accounted somewhat of an enterprise for a -“lone woman.” When I told my friends that I was going to Egypt and -Jerusalem, they said: “Ah, you will get as far as Rome and Naples, and -that will be very interesting; but you will find too many difficulties -in the way of going any further,” “When I say” (I replied) “that I am -going to Egypt and Jerusalem, I mean that to Egypt and Jerusalem I shall -go.” And so, as it proved, a wilful woman had her way; and I came back -after a year with the ever-delightful privilege of observing: “I told -you so.” - -I shall not dream of dragging the reader again over the well-worn ground -at the slow pace of a writer of “_Impressions de Voyage_.” The best of -my reminiscences were given to the world, in _Fraser’s_ Magazine, and -reprinted in my _Cities of the Past_, before there was yet a prospect of -a railway to Jerusalem except in Martin’s picture of the “End of the -World”; or of a “_Service d’omnibus_” over the wild solitudes of -Lebanon, where I struggled ‘mid snows and torrents which nearly whelmed -me and my horse in destruction. I rejoice to think that I saw those holy -and wonderful lands of Palestine and Egypt while Cook’s tourists were -yet unborn, and Cairo had only one small English hotel and one solitary -wheel carriage; and the solemn gaze of the Sphinx encountered no -Golf-games on the desert sands. - -My proceedings were very much like those of certain birds of the -farmyard (associated particularly with Michaelmas), who very rarely are -seen to rise on the wing but when they are once incited to do so, are -wont to take a very wide circle in their flight before they come back to -the barn door! - -Paris, Marseilles, Rome, Naples, Messina, Malta, Alexandria, Cairo, -Jaffa, Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Hebron, Dead Sea, Jordan, Beyrout, Lebanon, -Baalbec, Cyprus, Rhodes, Smyrna, Athens, Constantinople, Cape Matapan, -Corfu, Trieste, Adelsberg, Venice, Florence, Milan, Lucerne, Geneva, -Wiesbaden, Antwerp, London—such was my “swoop,” accomplished in 11 -months and at a cost of only £400. To say that I brought home a crop of -new ideas would be a small way of indicating the whole harvest of them -wherewith I returned laden. There were (I think I may summarise), as the -results of such a journey, the following great additions to my mental -stock. - -First. A totally fresh conception of the glory and beauty of Nature. -When crossing the Channel I fell into talk with a charming old lady and -told her how I was looking forward to seeing the great pictures and -buildings of Italy. “Ah,” she said, “but there is Italian _Nature_ to be -seen also. Do not miss it, looking only at works of art. _I_ go to Italy -to see it much more than the galleries and churches.” I was very much -astonished at this remark, but I came home after some months spent in a -villa on Bellosguardo entirely converted to her view. Travellers there -are who weary their feet and strain their eyes till they can no longer -see or receive impressions from the miles of painted canvas, the -regiments of statues, and the streets of palaces and churches wherewith -Italy abounds; yet have never spent a day riding over the desolate -Campagna with the far off Apennines closing the horizon, or enjoyed -nights of paradise, sitting amid the cypresses and the garlanded vines, -with the stars overhead, the nightingales singing, and the fireflies -darting around among the _Rose de Maggio_. Such travellers may come back -to England proud of having verified every line of _Murray_ on the spot, -yet they have failed to “see Italy” altogether. Never shall I forget the -revelation of loveliness of the Ægean and Ionian seas, of the lower -slopes of Lebanon, and of the Acropolis of Athens, seen, as I saw it -first, at sunrise. But when my heaviest journeys were done and I paused -and rested in Villa Niccolini, with Florence below and the Val d’ Arno -before me, I felt as if the beauty of the world, as I then and there saw -it, were joy enough for a lifetime. The old lines (I know not whose they -are) kept ringing in my ears.— - - “And they shall summer high in bliss - Upon the hills of God.” - -I shall quote here some verses which I wrote at that time, as they -described the scene in which I lived and revelled. - - THE FESTA OF THE WORLD. - - A Princess came to a southern strand, - Over a summer sea; - And the sky smiled down on the laughing land, - For that land was Italy. - - The fruit trees bent their laden boughs - O’er the fields with harvest gold, - And the rich vines wreathed from tree to tree, - Like garlands in temples old. - - And over all fell the glad sunlight, - So warm, so bright, so clear! - The earth shone out like an emerald set - In the diamond atmosphere. - - Then down to greet that lady sweet - Came the Duke from his palace hall: - “I thank thee, gentle Sire,” she cried, - “For thy princely festival.” - - “For honoured guests have towns ere now - Been decked right royally; - But thy whole land is garlanded - One bower of bloom for me!” - - Then smiled the Duke at the lady’s thought, - And the thanks he had lightly won; - For Nature’s eternal Festa-day - She deemed for her alone! - - A Poet stood by the Princess’s side; - “O lady raise thine eye, - The Giver of this great Festival, - He dwelleth in yon blue sky. - - “Thy kinsman Prince hath welcomed thee, - But God hath His world arrayed - Not more for thee than yon beggar old - Who sleeps ‘neath the ilex shade. - - “His sun doth shine on the peasant’s fields, - His rain on his vineyard pour, - His flowers bloom by the worn wayside - And creep o’er the cottage door. - - “For each, for all is a welcome given - And spread the world’s great feast; - And the King of Kings is the loving Host - And each child of man a guest.”[13] - -The beauty of Switzerland has at no time touched me as that of Italy has -always done. There is something in the sharp, hard atmosphere of -Switzerland (and I may add in the sharp, hard characters of the Swiss) -which disenchants me in the grandest scenes. - -The second thing one learns in a journey like mine is, of course, the -wondrous achievements of human Art,—Temples and Churches, fountains and -obelisks, pyramids and statues and pictures without end. But on this -head I need say nothing. Enough has been said and to spare by those far -more competent than I to write of it. - -Lastly, there is a thing which I, at all events, learned by knocking -about the world. It is the enormous amount of pure _human good nature_ -which is to be found almost everywhere. I should weary the reader to -tell all the little kindnesses done to me by fellow-passengers in the -railways and steamers, and by the Captains of the vessels in which I -sailed; and of the trouble which strangers took to help me out of my -small difficulties. Of course men do not meet—because they do not -want,—such services; and women, who travel with men, or even two or -three together, seldom invite them. But for viewing human nature _en -beau_, commend me to a long journey by a woman of middle age, of no -beauty, and travelling as cheaply as possible, alone. - -I believe the Psychical Society has started a theory that when places -where crimes have been committed are ever after “haunted” the -apparitions are not exactly good, old-fashioned _real_ ghosts, if I may -use such an expression, but some sort of atmospheric photographs (the -term is my own) left by the parties concerned, or sent telepathically -from their present _habitat_ (wherever that may be) to the scene of -their earthly suffering or wickedness. The hypothesis, of course, -relieves us from the very unpleasant surmise that the actual soul of the -victims of assassination and robbery may have nothing better to do in a -future life than to stand guard perpetually at the dark and dank -corners, cellars, and bottoms of stone staircases, where they were -cruelly done to death fifty or a hundred years before; or to loaf like -detectives about the spots where their jewelry and cash-boxes (_so_ -useful and important to a disembodied spirit!) lie concealed. But the -atmospheric photograph or magic-lantern theory, whatever truth it may -hold, exactly answers to a sense which I should think all my readers -must have experienced, as I have done, in certain houses and cities; a -sense as if the crimes which had been committed therein have left an -indescribable miasma, a lurid, impalpable shadow, like that of the ashes -of the Polynesian volcano which darkened the sun for a year; or shall we -say, like the unrecognised effluvium which probably caused Mrs. Sleeman, -in her tent, to dream she was surrounded by naked murdered men, while 14 -corpses were actually lying beneath her bed and were next day -disinterred?[14] Walking once through Holyrood with Dr. John Brown (who -had not visited the place for many years), I was quite overcome by this -sense of ancient crime, perpetuated as it seemed, almost like a physical -phenomenon in those gloomy chambers; and on describing my sensations, -Dr. Brown avowed that he experienced a very similar impression. It would -almost seem as if moral facts of a certain intensity, begin to throw a -cloudy shadow of Evil, as Romist saints were said to exhale an odour of -sanctity. - -If there be a city in the world where this sense is most vivid, I think -it is Rome. I have felt it also in Paris, but Rome is worst. The air -(not of the Campagna with all its fevers, but of the city itself) seems -foul with the blood and corruption of a thousand years. On the finest -spring day, in the grand open spaces of the Piazza del Popolo, San -Pietro, and the Forum, it is the same as in the darkest and narrowest -streets. No person sensitive to this impression can be genuinely -light-hearted and gay in Rome, as we often are even in our own gloomy -London. Perhaps this is sheer fancifulness on my part, but I have been -many times in Rome, twice for an entire winter, and the same impression -never failed to overcome me. On my last visit I nearly died there and it -was not to be described how earnestly I longed to emerge, as if out of -one of Dante’s _Giri_, “anywhere, anywhere out of” this Rome! - -On the occasion of my first journey at Christmas, 1857, I stopped only -three weeks in the Eternal City and then went on by sea to Naples. I was -ill from the fatigues and anxieties of the previous weeks, and after a -few half-dazed visits to the Colosseum, the Vatican, and Shelley’s -grave, I found myself unable to leave my solitary fourth-floor room in -the _Europa_. A card was brought to me one day while thus imprisoned, -bearing names (unknown to me) of “Mr. and Mrs. Robert Apthorp,” and with -the singular message: “Was I the Miss Cobbe who had corresponded with -Theodore Parker in America?” My first impression was one of alarm. -“What! more trouble about my heresies still?” It was, however, quite a -different matter. My visitors were a gentleman (a _real_ American -gentleman) and his wife, with two ladies who were all among Parker’s -intimate friends in America, and to whom he had showed my letters. They -came to hold out to me the right hands of fellowship; and friends indeed -we became, in such thorough sort that, after seven-and-thirty years I am -corresponding with dear Mrs. Apthorp still. She and her sister nursed me -through my illness; and thus my solitude in Rome came to an end. - -Naples struck me on my first visit, as it has done again and again, as -presenting the proof that the Beautiful is not by itself, a root out of -which the Good spontaneously grows. If we want to cultivate Purity, -Honesty, Veracity, Unselfishness or any other virtue, it is vain to -think we shall achieve our end by giving the masses pretty -pleasure-grounds and “Palaces of Delight,” or even æsthetic cottages -with the best reproductions of Botticelli adorning the walls. Do what we -may we can never hope to surround our working men with such beauty as -that of the Bay of Naples, nor to show them Art to equal the treasures -of the Museo Borbonico. And what has come of all this familiar revelling -in Beauty for centuries and millenniums to the people of Naples? Only -that they resemble more closely in ignorance, in squalor and in -degradation the most wretched Irish who dwell in mud cabins amid the -bogs, than any other people in Europe. - -I had intended remaining for some time to recuperate at Naples and took -a cheery little room in a certain Pension Schiassi (now abolished) on -the Chiajia. In this Pension I met a number of kindly and interesting -people of various nationalities; the most pleasant and cultivated of all -being Finns from Helsingfors. It was a great experience to me to enter -into some sort of society again, far removed from all my antecedents; no -longer the mistress of a large house and dispenser of its hospitality, -but a wandering tourist, known to nobody and dressed as plainly as might -be. I find I wrote to my old friend, Miss St. Leger, on the subject -under date January 21st, 1858, as follows: “I am really cheerful now. -Those days in the country (at Cumæ and Capo di Monte) cheered me very -much, and I am beginning altogether to look at the future differently. -There is one thing I feel really happy about. I see now my actual -position towards people, divested of the social advantages I have -hitherto held; and I find it a very pleasant one. I don’t think I -deceive myself in imagining that people easily like me, and get -interested in my ideas, while I find abundance to like and esteem in a -large proportion of those I meet.” (Optimism, once more! the reader will -say!) - -It was not, however, “all beer and skittles” for me at the Schiassi -pension. I had, as I have mentioned, taken a pretty little room looking -out on the Villa Reale and the Bay and Vesuvius, and had put up the -photographs and miniatures I carried with me and my little knick-knacks -on the writing-table, and fondly flattered myself I should sit and write -there peacefully. But I reckoned without my neighbours! It was Sunday -when I arrived and settled myself so complacently. On Monday morning, -soon after day-break, I was rudely awakened by a dreadful four-handed -strumming on a piano, apparently in my very room! On rousing myself, I -perceived that a locked door close to my bed obviously opened into an -adjoining chamber, and being (after the manner of Italian doors) at -least two inches short of the uncarpeted floor, I was to all acoustic -intents and purposes actually in the room with this atrocious jangling -piano and the two thumping performers! The practising went on for two -hours, and when it stopped a masculine voice arose to read the Bible -aloud in family devotions. Then, after a brief interval for breakfast, -burst out again the intolerable strumming. I fled, and remained out of -doors for hours, but when I came back they were at it again! I appealed -to the mistress of the house, in vain. Sir Andrew——and his daughters (I -will call them the Misses Shocking-strum, their real name concerns -nobody now) had been there before me and would no doubt stop long after -me, and could not be prevented from playing from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. every -day of the week. I took a large card and wrote on it this pathetic -appeal:— - - “Pity the sorrows of a poor old maid, - Whose hapless lot has made her lodge next door, - Who fain would wish those morning airs delayed; - O practise less! And she will bless you more!” - -I thrust this under the ill-fitting door well into the music-room, and -waited anxiously for some measure of mercy to be meted to me in -consequence. But no! the hateful thumping and crashing went on as -before. Then I girded up my loins and went down to the packet office and -took a berth in the next steamer for Alexandria. - -After landing at Messina (lovely region!) and at Malta, I embarked in a -French screw-steamer, which began to roll before we were well under -weigh, and which, when a real Levanter came on three days later, played -pitch and toss with us passengers, insomuch that we often needed to lie -on mattresses on the floor and hold something to prevent our heads from -being knocked to pieces. One day, being fortunately a very good sailor, -I scrambled up on deck and beheld a glorious scene. Euroclydon was -playing with towering waves of lapis-lazulæ all flecked and veined like -a horse’s neck with white foam, and the African sun was shining down -cloudless over the turmoil. - -There were some French Nuns on board going to a convent in Cairo, where -they were to be charitably engaged taking care of girls. The monastic -mind is always an interesting study. It brings us back to the days of -Bede, and times when miracles (if it be not a bull to say so) were the -rule and the ordinary course of nature the exception. People are then -constantly seen where they are not, and not seen where they are; and the -dead are as “prominent citizens” of this world (as an American would -say) as the living. Meanwhile the actual geography and history of the -modern world and all that is going on in politics, society, art and -literature, is as dark to the good Sister or Brother as if she or he had -really (as in Hans Andersen’s story) “walked back into the eleventh -century.” My nice French nuns were very kind and instructive to me. They -told me of the Virgin’s Tree which we should see at Heliopolis (though -they knew nothing of the obelisk there), and they informed me that if -anyone looked out on Trinity Sunday exactly at sunrise, he would see -“_toutes les trois personnes de la sainte Trinité_.” - -I could not help asking: “Madame les aura vues?” - -“Pas précisément, Madame. Madame sait qu’à cette saison le soleil se -lêve bien tôt.” - -“Mais, Madame, pour voir _loutes_ les trois personnes?” - -It was no use. The good soul persisted in believing what she liked to -believe and took care never to get up and look out on Trinity Sunday -morning,—just as ten thousand Englishmen and women, who think themselves -much wiser than the poor Nun, carefully avoid looking straight at facts -concerning which they do not wish to be set right. St. Thomas’ kind of -faith which dares to look and _see_, and, if it may be to _touch_, is a -much more real faith after all than that which will not venture to open -its eyes. - -Landing at Alexandria (after being blown off the Egyptian coast nearly -as far as Crete) was an epoch in my life. No book, no gallery of -pictures, can ever be more interesting or instructive than the first -drive through an Eastern city; even such a hybrid one as Alexandria. But -all the world knows this now, and I need not dwell on so familiar a -topic. The only matter I care to record here is a visit I paid to a -subterranean church which had just been opened, and of which I was -fortunate enough to hear at the moment. I have never been able to learn -anything further concerning it than appears in the following extract -from one of my note-books, and I fear the church must long ago have been -destroyed, and the frescoes, of course, effaced: - - - “In certain excavations now making in one of the hills of the Old - City—within a few hundred yards of the Mahmoudié Canal—the workmen - have come upon a small subterranean church; for whose very high - antiquity many arguments may be adduced. The frescoes with which it is - adorned are still in tolerable preservation, and appear to belong to - the same period of art as those rescued from Pompeii. Though - altogether inferior to the better specimens in the Museo Borbonico, - there is yet the same simplicity of attitude and drapery; the same - breadth of outline and effect produced by few touches. It is - impossible to confound them for a moment with the stiff and - meretricious style of Byzantine painting. - - “The form of the church is very peculiar, and I conceive antique. If - we suppose a shaft to have been cut into the hill, its base may be - considered to form the centre of a cross. To the west, in lieu of - nave, are two staircases; one ascending, the other descending to - various parts of the hillside. To the east is a small chancel, with - depressed elliptical arch and recesses at the back and sides, of the - same form. The north transept is a mere apse, supported by rather - elegant Ionic pilasters, and having a fan-shaped roof. Opposite this, - and in the place of a south transept, is the largest apartment of the - whole grotto: a chamber, presenting a singular transition between a - modern funeral-vault and an ancient columbarium. The walls are pierced - on all sides by deep holes, of the size and shape of coffins placed - endwise. There are in all thirty-two of these holes; in which, - however, I could find no evidence that they had ever been applied to - the purpose of interment. In the corner, between this chamber and the - chancel-arch, there is a deep stone cistern sunk in the ground; I - presume a font. The frescoes at the end of the chancel are small, and - much effaced. In the eastern apse there is a group representing the - Miracle of the Loaves and Fishes. In the front walls of the - chancel-arch are two life-size figures; one representing an angel, the - other having the name of Christ inscribed over it in Greek letters. - This last struck me as peculiarly interesting; from the circumstance - that the face bears no resemblance whatever to the one conventionally - received among us, in modern times. The eyes, in the Alexandrian - fresco, are dark and widely opened; the eyebrows straight and strongly - marked; the hair nearly black and gathered in short, thick masses over - the ears. I was the more attracted by these peculiarities, as my - attention had shortly before been arrested very forcibly by the - splendid bronze bust from Herculaneum, in the Museo Borbonico. This - grand and beautiful head, which Murray calls ‘Speucippus’ and the - custodi, ‘Plato in the character of the Indian Bacchus,’ resembles so - perfectly the common representations of Christ, that I should be at a - loss to define any difference, unless it be that it has, perhaps, more - intellectual power than our paintings and sculptures usually convey, - and a more massive neck. If this Alexandrian fresco really represent - the tradition of the 3rd or 4th century, it becomes a question of some - curiosity: _whence_ do we derive our modern idea of Christ’s face?” - - -Cairo was a great delight to me. I could not afford to stop at -Shepheard’s Hotel but took up my abode with some kind Americans I had -met in the steamer, in a sort of Pension kept by an Italian named Ronch; -in old Cairo, actually on the bank of the Nile; so literally so, that I -might have dropped a stone from our balcony into the river, just -opposite the Isle of Rhoda. From this place I made two excursions to the -Pyramids and had a somewhat appalling experience in the “King’s Chamber” -in the vault of Cheops. I had gone rather recklessly to Ghiza without -either friend or Dragoman; and allowed the wretched Scheik at the door -to send five Arabs into the pyramid with me as guides. They had only two -miserable dip candles altogether, and the darkness, dust, heat and noise -of the Arabs chanting “Vera goot lady! Backsheeh! Backsheeh! Vera goot -lady,” and so on _da capo_, all in the narrow, steeply-slanting -passages, together with the intolerable sense of weight as of a mountain -of stone over me, proved trying to my nerves. Then, when we had reached -the central vault and I had glanced at the empty sarcophagus, which is -all it contains, the five men suddenly stopped their chanting, placed -themselves with their backs to the wall in rows, with crossed arms in -the attitude of the Osiride pilasters; and one of them in a businesslike -tone, demanded: “Backsheesh”! I instantly perceived into what a trap I -had fallen, and what a fool I had been to come there alone. The idea -that they might march out and leave me alone in that awful place, in the -darkness, very nearly made me quail. But I knew it was no time to betray -alarm, so I replied that I “Intended to pay them outside, but if they -wished it I would do so at once.” I took out my purse and gave them -three shillings to be divided between the five. They took the money and -then returned to their posture against the wall. - -“We want Backsheesh!” - -I took my courage _à deux mains_, and said, “If you give me any more -trouble the English Consul shall hear of it, and you will get the -stick.” - -“We want Backsheesh!” - -“I’ll have no more of this,” I cried in a very sharp voice, and, turning -to the ringleader, who held a candle, I said, “Here, you fellow! Take -that candle on in front and let me out. Go!” _He went!_—and I blessed my -stars, and all the stars, when I emerged out of that endless passage at -last, and stood safe under the bright Egyptian sun. - -I am glad to remember Ghiza as it was in those days before hotels, or -even tents, were visible near it; when the solemn Sphinx,—so strangely -and affectingly human! stood gazing over the desert sands, and beside it -were only the ancient temple, the rifled tombs, and the three great -Pyramids. To me in those days it seemed the most impressive Field of -Death in the world. - -The old Arab Mosques in Cairo also delighted me greatly both for their -beauty and as studies of the original early English architecture. -Needless to say I was enchanted with the streets and bazaars, and all -the dim, strange, lovely pictures they afforded, and the Eastern odours -which pervaded them in that bright, light air, wherein my chest grew -sound and strong after having been for years oppressed with bronchial -troubles. One day in my plenitude of enjoyment of health and vigour, I -walked alone a long way down the splendid Shoubra avenue of Acacia -Lebbex trees with the moving crowd of Arab men and women in all their -varied costumes, and trains of camels and asses laden with green -trefoil, glittering in the alternate sun and shade with never a cart or -carriage to disturb the even currents to and fro. At last I came in -sight of the Nile, and in the extreme excitement of the view, hastily -concluded that the yellow bank which sloped down beyond the grass must -be sand, and that I could actually plunge my hands in the River of -Egypt. I ran down the slope some little distance from the avenue, and -took a few steps on the supposed yellow sand. It proved to be merely -mud, like the banks of the Avon at low tide at Clifton, though of -different colour, and in a moment I felt myself sinking indefinitely. -Already it was nearly up to my knees, and in a few minutes I should have -been (quietly and unperceived by anybody) entombed for the investigation -of Egyptologers of future generations. It was a ludicrous position, and -even in the peril of it I believe I laughed outright. Any way I happily -remembered that I had read years before in a bad French novel, how -people saved themselves in quicksands in the Landes by throwing -themselves down and so dividing their weight over a much larger surface -than the soles of the feet. Instantly I turned back towards the bank, -and cast myself along forward, and then by dint of enormous efforts -withdrew my feet and struggled back to _terra firma_, much, I should -think, after the mode of locomotion of an Ichthyosaurus or other “dragon -of the prime.” Arrived at a place of safety I had next to reflect how I -was to walk home into the town in the pickle to which I had reduced -myself! Luckily the hot sun of Egypt dried the mud on my homely clothes -and enabled me to brush it off as dust in an incredibly quick time. -Before it had done so, however, a frog of exceptional ugliness mistook -me for part of the bank and jumped on my lap. He looked such an ill-made -creature that I constructed at once the (non-scientific) hypothesis that -he must have been descended from some of the frogs which Pharaoh’s -magicians are said to have made in rivalry to Moses; forerunners of -those modern pathologists who are just clever enough to _give us_ all -sorts of Plagues, but always stop short of _curing_ them. - -I was very anxious, of course, to ascend the Nile to Philæ, or at the -very least to Thebes; but I was too poor by far to hire a dahabieh for -myself alone, and, in those days, excursion steamers were non-existent, -or very rare. I did hear of a gentleman who wanted to make up a party -and take a boat, but he coolly proposed that I should pay half of the -expenses of five people, and I did not view that arrangement in a -favourable light. Eventually I turned sorrowfully and disappointed back -to Alexandria with a pleasant party of English and American ladies and -gentlemen; and after a short passage to Jaffa, we rode up all together -in two days to Jerusalem. I had given up riding many years before and -taken to driving instead, but there was infinite exhilaration on finding -myself again on horseback, on one of the active little, half Arab, -Syrian steeds. That wonderful ride through the Jaffa orange groves and -the Plain of Sharon with all its flowers, to Lydda and Ramleh, and then, -next day, to Jerusalem, was beyond all words interesting. I think no one -who has been brought up as we English are, on the double literature of -Palestine and England, can visit the Holy Land with other than almost -breathless curiosity mingled with a thousand tender associations. What -England is to a cultivated American traveller of Washington Irving’s or -Lowell’s stamp, _that_ is Palestine to us all. As for me, my religious -views made it, I think, rather more than less congenial and interesting -to me than to many others. I find I wrote of it to my friend from -Jerusalem (March 6th, 1858): - - - “I feel very happy to be here. The land seems worthy to be that in - which from earliest history the human soul has highest and oftenest - soared up to God. One wants no miraculous story to make such a country - a ‘Holy Land;’ nor can such story make it less holy to me, as it does, - I think, to some who equally disbelieve it. It seems to me as if - Christians must be, and in fact are, overwhelmed and confounded to - find themselves in the scene of such events. To me it is all pleasure. - I believe that if Christ can see us now like other departed spirits, - it is those who revere him as I do, and not those who give to him his - Father’s place, whom he can regard most complacently. If I did not - feel this it would pain me to be here.” - - -When I went first into the church of the Holy Sepulchre it happened, on -account of some function going on elsewhere, to be unusually free from -the crowds of pilgrims. It seemed to me to be a real parable in stone. -All the different churches, Greek, Latin, Armenian Maronite, _opened -into_ the central Temple; as if to show that every creed has a Door -leading to the true Holy Place. - -I loved also the little narrow marble shrine in the midst with its -small, low door, and the mere plain altar-tomb, with room to kneel -beside it and pray,—if we will,—to him who is believed to have rested -there for the mystic three days after his crucifixion; or if we will -(and as I did), to “his Father and our Father”; in a spot hallowed by -the associations of a hundred worshipping generations, and the memory of -the holiest of men. - -Another day I was able to walk alone nearly all round outside the walls -of Jerusalem, beginning at the Jaffa gate and passing round through what -was then a desert, but is now, I am told, a populous suburb. I came -successively to Siloam and to the Valley of Hinnom, and of Jehoshaphat; -to the Tombs of the Prophets, and at last to Gethsemane. At the time of -my visit, this sacred spot, containing the ruins of an “oil press” -(whence its supposed identification), was a small walled garden kept by -monks who did their best to spoil its associations. Above it I sat for a -long time beside the path up to St. Stephen’s Gate, where tradition -places the scene of the great first Christian Martyrdom. The ground is -all strewed still, with large stones and boulders, making it easy to -conjure up the terrific picture of the kneeling saint and savage crowd, -and of Saul standing by watching the scene. - -Leaving Jerusalem after a week with the same pleasant English and -American companions, and with a due provision of guards and tents and -baggage mules, I rode to Bethlehem and Hebron, visiting on the way -Abraham’s oak at Mamre, which is a magnificent old terebinth, and the -vineyard of Esh-kol, then in a very poor condition of culture. We -stopped the first night close to Solomon’s Pools, and I was profane -enough to bring my sponges at earliest dawn into Jacob’s Well at the -head of the waters, and enjoy a delicious bath. Ere we turned in on the -previous evening, a clergyman of our party read to us, sitting under the -walls of the old Saracenic castle, the pages in Stanley’s Palestine -which describe, with all his vivid truthfulness and historic sentiment, -the scene which lay before us; the three great ponds, “built by Solomon, -repaired by Pontius Pilate,” which have supplied Jerusalem with water -for 3,000 years. - -I am much surprised that the problem offered by the contents of the -vault beneath the Mosque of Hebron has not long ago excited the -intensest curiosity among both Jews and Christians. Here, within small -and definite limits, must lie evidence of incalculable weight in favour -of or against the veracity of the Mosaic record. If the account in Gen. -L. be correct, the bones of Jacob were brought out of Egypt and -deposited here by Joseph; embalmed in the finest and most durable -manner. We are expressly told (Gen. L., 2 and 3) that Joseph ordered the -physicians to embalm his father, that “forty days were fulfilled for -him, for so are fulfilled the days of those which are embalmed;” and -that Joseph went up to Canaan with “all the servants of Pharaoh and the -elders of his house, and all the elders of the land of Egypt,” (a rather -amazing exodus!) and “chariots and horsemen, a very great company.” They -finally buried Jacob (v. 13) “in the Cave of the field of Machpelah -which Abraham bought.” It was unquestionably, then, a first-class Mummy, -covered with wrappers and inscriptions, and enclosed, of course, in a -splendidly-painted Mummy-coffin, which was deposited in that unique -cave; and the extraordinary sanctity which has attached to the spot as -far as tradition reaches back, affords presumption amounting almost to -guarantee that _there_, if anywhere, below the six cenotaphs in the -upper chamber, in the vault under the small hole in the floor where the -Prince of Wales and Dean Stanley were privileged to look down into the -darkness,—lie the relics which would terminate more controversies, and -throw more light on the origin of Judaism than can be done by all the -Rabbis and Bishops of Europe and Asia together! Why do not the -Rothschilds and Hirschs and Montefiores and Goldschmidts put together a -modest little subscription of a million or two and buy up Hebron, and so -settle once for all whether the Jewish Ulysses were a myth or a man; and -whether there were really an Israel of whom they are the “Children?” I -have talked to Dean Stanley on the subject, who (as he tells us in his -delightful _Jewish Church_, I., 500) shared all my curiosity, but when I -urged the query: “_Did_ he think that the relics of the Patriarchs would -be found, if we could examine the cave?” he put up his hands in a -deprecating attitude, which all who knew and loved him will remember, -and said, “Ah! that is the question, indeed!” - -Is it possible that the millionaire Jews of Germany, France and England -are, after all, like my poor friends the Nuns, who would not get up at -sunrise on Trinity Sunday to see “_toutes les trois personnes de la -sainte Trinité_,”—and that they prefer to believe that the bones of the -three Patriarchs are where they ought to be, but would rather not put -that confidence to the test? - -One of the sights which affected me most in the course of our pilgrimage -through Judæa was beheld after a night spent by the ladies of our party -in our tent pitched among the sands (and centipedes!) of the desert of -the Mar Saba. (Our gentlemen-friends were privileged to sleep in the -vast old monastery whence they brought us next morning the most -excellent _raki_.) As we rode out of the little valley of our encampment -and down by the convent of Mar Saba, we obtained a complete view of the -whole _hermit burrow_; for such it may properly be considered. Mar Saba -is the very ideal of a desert. It lies amid the wilderness of hills, not -grand enough to be sublime but only monotonous and hopelessly barren. So -white are these hills that at first they appear to be of chalk, but -further inspection shows them to be of whitish rock, with hardly a trace -of vegetation growing anywhere over it. On the hills there is sometimes -an inch of soil over the rock; in the valleys there are torrents of -stones over the inch of soil. Between our mid-day halt at Derbinerbeit -(the highest land in Judæa), and the evening rest at Mar Saba, our whole -march had been in utter solitude; not a village, a tent, a caravan, a -human being in sight. Not a tree or bush. Of living creatures hardly a -bird to break the dead silence of the world, only a large and venomous -snake crawling beside our track. Thus, far from human haunts, in the -heart of the wilderness, lies Mar Saba. Fit approach to such a shrine! -Through the arid, burning rocks a profound and sharply-cut chasm -suddenly opens and winds, forming a hideous valley, such as may exist in -the unpeopled moon, but which probably has not its equal in our world -for rugged and blasted desolation. There is no brook or stream in the -depths of the ravine. If a torrent may ever rush down it after the -thunderstorms with which the country is often visited, no traces of -water remain even in early spring. Barren, burning, glaring rocks alone -are to be seen on every side. Far up on the cliff, like a fortress, -stand the gloomy, windowless walls of the convent; but along the ravine -in an almost inaccessible gorge of the hills, are caves and holes -half-way down the precipice,—the dwellings of the hermits. Here, in a -den fit for a fox or a hyæna, one poor soul had died just before my -visit, after five-and-forty years of self-incarceration. Death had -released him, but many more remained; and we could see some of them from -the distant road as we passed, sitting at the mouth of their caverns, or -walking on the little ledges of rock which they had smoothed for -terraces. Their food (such as it is) is sent from the convent and let -down from the cliffs at needful intervals. Otherwise they live -absolutely alone,—alone in this hideous desolation of nature, with the -lurid, blasted desert for their sole share in God’s beautiful universe. -We are all, I suppose, accustomed to think of a hermit as our poets have -painted him, dwelling serene in - - “A lodge in some vast wilderness, - Some boundless continuity of shade,” - -undisturbed by all the ugly and jarring sights and sounds of our -grinding civilization; sleeping calmly on his bed of fern, feeding on -his pulse and cresses, and drinking the water from the brook. - - “He kneels at morn at noon and eve, - He hath a cushion plump, - It is the moss that wholly hides - The rotted old oak stump.” - -But the hermits of Mar Saba, how different are they from him who -assoiled the Ancient Mariner? No holy cloisters of the woods, and sound -of chanting brooks, and hymns of morning birds; only this silent, -burning waste, this “desolation deified.” It seemed as if some frightful -aberration of the religious sentiment could alone lead men to choose for -home, temple, prison, tomb, the one spot of earth where no flower -springs to tell of God’s tenderness, no soft dew or sweet sound ever -falls to preach faith and love. - -There are many such hermits still in the Greek Church. I have seen their -eyries perched where only vultures should have their nests, on the -cliffs of Caramania, and among the caverns of the Cyclades. Anthony and -Stylites have indeed left behind them a track of evil glory, along which -many a poor wretch still “crawls to heaven along the devil’s trail.” Are -not lives wasted like these to be put into the account when we come to -estimate the _Gesta Christi_? Must we not, looking on these and on the -ten thousand, thousand hearts broken in monasteries and nunneries all -over Europe, admit that historical Christianity has not only done good -work in the world, but _bad_ work also: and that, diverging widely from -the Spirit of Christ, it has been far from uniformly beneficent? - -It was while riding some hours from Mar Saba through the low hills -before coming out on the blighted flats of the Dead Sea, that one of -those pictures passed before me which are ever after hung up in the -mind’s gallery among the choicest of the spoils of Eastern travel. By -some chance I was alone, riding a few hundred yards in front of the -caravan, when, turning the corner of a hill, I met a man approaching me, -the only one I had seen for several hours since we passed a few black -tents eight or ten miles away. He was a noble-looking young shepherd, -dressed in the camel’s-hair robe, and with the lithesome, powerful limbs -and elastic step of the children of the desert. But the interest which -attached to him was the errand on which he had manifestly been engaged -on those Dead Sea plains from whence he was returning. Round his neck, -and with its little limbs held gently by his hand, lay a lamb he had -rescued and was doubtless carrying home. The little creature lay as if -perfectly contented and happy, and the man looked pleased as he strode -along lightly with his burden; and as I saluted him with the usual -gesture of pointing to heart and head and the “salaam alik!”, (Peace be -with you), he responded with a smile and a kindly glance at the lamb, to -which he saw my eyes were directed. It was actually the beautiful -parable of the gospel acted out before my sight. Every particular was -true to the story; the shepherd had doubtless left his “ninety-and-nine -in the wilderness,” round the black tents we had seen so far away, and -had sought for the lost lamb “till he found it,” where it must quickly -have perished without his help, among those blighted plains. Literally, -too, “when he had found it, he laid it on his shoulders, rejoicing.” - -After this beautiful sight which I have longed ever since for a -painter’s power to place on canvas (a better subject a thousand-fold -than the cruel “_Scape-Goat_”), we reached the Dead Sea, and I managed -to dip into it, after wading out a very long way in the shallow, bitter, -biting water which stung my lips and nostrils, and tasted like a -horrible mixture of quinine and salt. From the shore, all strewed with -the white skeletons of trees washed down by the river, we made our way -(mostly galloping) in four hours to the Ford of Jordan; and there I had -the privilege of another dip, or rather of seven dips, taken in -commemoration of Naaman and to wash off the Dead Sea brine! It is the -spot supposed to have witnessed the transit of Joshua and the baptisms -of St. John. The following night our tents were pitched among the ruins -of Jericho. The wonder is, not that the once flourishing city should be -deserted and Herod’s great amphitheatre there a ruinous heap, but that a -town was ever built in such an insanitary place. Closed in by the -mountains on every side from whence a fresh breeze could blow upon it, -and open only to the unwholesome flats of the Dead Sea, the situation is -pestilential. - -Next day we rode back to Jerusalem through the desolate mountains of the -Quarantania, where tradition places the mystic Fast and Temptation of -Christ; a dreary, lonely, burning desert. Here, also, is the supposed -scene of the parable of the Good Samaritan, and the ruins of a great -building, which may have been a Half-way House Inn beside the road, bear -out the tradition. I have often reflected that orthodox divines miss -half the point of that beautiful story when they omit to mark the fact -that the Samaritans were, in Christ’s time, boycotted by the Jews _as -heretics_; and that it was precisely one of these _heretics_ who was -made by Jesus the type for all time of genuine philanthropy,—in direct -and purposeful contrast to the representatives of Judaic orthodoxy, the -Priest and Levite. - -The sun on my head during the latter hours of the ride became -intolerable; not like English heat, however excessive, but roasting my -very brains through all the folds of linen on my hat and of a damp -handkerchief within. It was like sitting before a kitchen fire with -one’s head in the position proper for a leg of mutton! I felt it was a -matter of life and death to escape, and galloped on by myself in advance -for many miles till suddenly I came, just under Bethany at the base of -the Mount of Olives, to a magnificent ancient fountain, with the cool -water gushing out, amid the massive old masonry. In a moment I leaped -from my equally eager horse, threw off my hat and bared my neck and put -my head under the blessed stream. Of course it was a perilous -proceeding, but it saved me from a sunstroke. - -That evening in Jerusalem I wished good-bye to my pleasant -fellow-travellers, who were good enough to pass a vote of thanks to me -for my “unvarying pluck and hilarity during the fatigues and dangers of -the way!” I started next day for the two days’ ride to Jaffa, -accompanied only by a good Italian named Abengo, and a muleteer. There -was a small war going on between some of the tribes on the way, and a -certain chief named Aboo-Goosh (beneath whose robber’s castle I had been -pelted with stones on my way up to Jerusalem) was scouring the country. -We passed, in the valley of Ajalon, some wounded men borne home from a -battle, but otherwise encountered nothing alarming, and I obtained a -great deal of curious information from Abengo, who knew Palestine -intimately, and whose wife was a Christian woman of Nazareth. There is -no use in repeating now records of a state of things which has been -modified, no doubt, essentially in thirty years. - -From Jaffa I sailed to Beyrout, and there, with kind help and advice -from the Consul, I obtained the services of an old Turk as a Dragoman, -and he and I and a muleteer laden with my bed and baggage started to -cross Lebanon and make our way to Baalbec and, as I hoped, also to -Damascus. The snows were still thick on the higher slopes of Lebanon, -and after the excessive heat I had just undergone in Syria, the cold was -trying. But the beauty and grandeur of those noble mountains, fringed -below with fig and olive, and with their snowy summits rising height -beyond height above, was compensation for all hardship. By a curious -chance, Lebanon was the first mountain range worthy of the name, which I -had ever crossed. It was an introduction, of course, to a whole world of -impressions and experiences. - -I had a good many escapes in the course of my ride; there being nothing -to be called a road over much of the way, and such path as there was -being covered with snow or melting torrents. My strong little Syrian -horse walked and scrambled and stumbled up beds of streams running down -in cataracts over the rocks and boulders; and on one occasion he had to -bear me down a very steep descent, where we floundered forward, -sometimes up to his girths in the snow, in dread of descending with -irresistible impetus to the edge of a precipice which yawned at the -bottom. We did reach the verge in rather a shaky condition; but the good -beast struggled hard to save himself, and turned at the critical moment -safe along the edge. - -A sad association belongs to my sojourn among the Maronites at Zachly; a -large village on the further side of Lebanon, on the slopes of the -Haraun. I slept there on my outward way in my tent pitched in an angle -of grass outside one of the first houses, and on my return journey I -obtained the use of the principal room of the same house from my kind -hosts, as the cold outside was too considerable for tent life in -comfort. Zachly was a very humble, simple place. The houses were all of -mud, with flat roofs made of branches laid across and covered with more -mud. A stem of a living tree usually stood in the middle of the house -supporting the whole erection, which was divided into two or three -chambers. A recess in the wall held piles of mats, and of the hard -cushions made of raw cotton, which form both seats, beds, and pillows. -The rough, unplaned door, with wooden lock, the window half stuffed up, -the abundant population of cocks and hens, cats and dogs and rosy little -boys and girls, strongly reminded me of Balisk! I was welcomed most -kindly after a brief negotiation with Hassan; and the simple women and -girls clustered round me with soft words and presents of carrots and -daffodils. One old woman having kissed my hands as a beginning, -proceeded to put her arms round my neck and embrace me in a most -motherly way. To amuse the party, I showed them my travelling bag, -luncheon and writing and drawing apparatus, and made them taste my -biscuits and smell my toilet vinegar. Screams of “Taib, Taib! Katiyeh!” -(good, very good) rewarded my small efforts, and then I made them tell -me all their names, which I wrote in my note-book. They were very -pretty: Helena, Mareen, Yasmeen, Myrrhi, Maroon, Georgi, Malachee, -Yussef, and several others, the last being Salieh, the young village -priest, a tall, grand-looking young man with high cylindrical black hat, -black robe and flowing brown hair. I made him a respectful salutation at -which he seemed pleased. On my second visit to Zachly I attended the -vesper service in his little chapel as the sun went down over Lebanon. -It was a plain quadrangle of mud walls, brown without and whitewashed -within; a flat roof of branches and mortar; a post for support in the -centre; a confessional at one side; a little lectern; an altar without -crucifix and only decorated by two candlesticks; a jar of fresh -daffodils; some poor prints; a blue tea-cup for sacramental plate, and a -little cottage-window into which the setting sun was shining -softly;—such was the chapel of Zachly. A few men knelt to the left, a -few women to the right; in front of the altar was a group of children, -also kneeling, and waiting to take their part in the service. At the -lectern stood the noble figure of young Papas Salieh, leaning on one of -the crutches which in all Eastern churches are provided to relieve the -fatigue of the attendants, who, like Abraham, “worship, leaning on the -top of a staff.” Beside the Papas stood a ragged but intelligent little -acolyte, who chanted very well, and on the other side of the lectern an -aged peasant, who also took his part. The prayers were, of course, -unintelligible to me, being in Arabic; but I recognised in the Gospel -the chapter of genealogies in Luke, over whose hard names the priest -helped his friend quite unaffectedly. The reading over, Papas Salieh -took off his black and red cap, and, kneeling before the altar, -commenced another chanted prayer, while the women beside me bowed till -they kissed the ground in Eastern prostration, beating their breasts -with resounding blows. The group of children made the responses at -intervals; and then the priest blessed us, and the simple service was -over, having occupied about twenty minutes. While we were departing, the -Papas seated himself in the confessional and a man went immediately into -the penitents’ place beside him. There was something very affecting to -me in this poor little church of clay, with its humble efforts at -cleanliness and flowers and music; all built and adorned by the -worshippers’ own hands, and served by the young peasant priest, -doubtless the son and brother of some of his own flock. - -As I have said there are sad associations connected with this visit of -mine to Zachly. A very short time afterwards the Druses came down with -irresistible force,—massacred the greater number of the unhappy -Maronites and burned the village. The spot where I had been so kindly -received was left a heap of blackened ruins, and what became of sweet, -motherly Helena and her dear little children and good Papas Salieh and -the rest, I have never been able to learn. - -It took six hours of hard riding in a bitter wind to carry me from -Zachly to Baalbec; but anticipation bore me on wings, and to beguile the -way I repeated to myself as my good memory permitted, the whole of -Moore’s poem of _Paradise and the Peri_, culminating in the scene which -the Peri beheld “When o’er the vale of Baalbec winging.” In vain, -however, I cross-questioned Hassan (we talked Italian _tant bien que -mal_) about Peris. He had never heard of such beings. But of Djinns in -general he knew only too much; and notably that they had built the vast -ruins of Baalbec, which no mortal hands _could_ have raised; and that to -the present time they haunt them so constantly and in such terrific -shape, that it is very perilous for anybody to go there alone and quite -impossible to do so after nightfall. I had reason to bless this belief -in the Djinns of Baalbec for it left me the undisturbed solitary -enjoyment of the mighty enclosure within the Saracenic walls for the -best part of two days, unvexed by the inquisitive presence or -observation of the population of the Arab village outside. - -To pitch my tent among the ruins, however, was more than I could bring -Hassan to do by any cajoling, and I consented finally to sleep in a -small cabin consisting of a single chamber of which I could lock the -door inside. When I prepared for sleep on the hard cotton cushions laid -over a stone bench, and with the two unglazed windows admitting volumes -of cold air, I was frightened to find I had every symptom of approaching -fever. Into what an awful position,—I reflected,—had I put myself, with -no one but that old Turk Hassan, and the Arab from whom I had hired this -little house for the night, to take care of me should I have a real bad -fever, and be kept there between life and death for weeks! Reflecting -what I could possibly do to avert the danger, brought on, of course, by -cold and fatigue, I took from my bag the half-bottle of Raki (a very -pure spirit made from rice) which my travelling friends had brought from -the monastery at Mar Saba and had kindly shared with me; and to a large -dose of this I was able to add some hot water from a sort of coffee-pot -left, by good luck, in the yet warm brazier of charcoal in the middle of -my room. I drank my Raki-toddy to the last drop, and then slept the -sleep of the just,—to awaken quite well the next morning! And if any of -my teetotal friends think I did wrong to take it, I beg entirely to -differ from them on the subject. - -The days which I spent in and around Baalbec were more than repayment -for the fatigues and perils of the passage of “Sainted Lebanon;” whose -famous Cedars, by the way, I was unable to visit; the region where they -stand being at that season too deeply covered with snow. Here is a -description I gave of Baalbec to Harriet St. Leger just after my visit:— - - - “I had two wonderful days indeed in Baalbec. The number of the vast - solitary ruins exceeded all my anticipations, and their grandeur - impresses one as no remains less completely isolated can do. Imagine a - space about that of Newbridge garden surrounded by enormous Saracenic - walls with a sweet, bright brook running round it, and then left to - entire solitude. A few cattle browse on the short grass, and now and - then, I suppose, some one enters by one or other of the different gaps - in the wall to look after them; but in the Temple of Jupiter, shut in - by its great walls, to which the displacement of a single stone makes - now the sole entrance, no one ever enters. The fear of Djinns renders - the place even doubly alarming! Among the most awful things in Baalbec - are stupendous subterranean tunnels running in various directions - under the ruined city. I groped through several of them, they opened - out with great doorways into others which, having no light, I would - not explore, but which seemed abysses of awe! The stones of all these - works are enormous. Those 5 or 6 feet and 12 or 15 feet long are among - the smallest. In the temple were some which I could not span with five - extensions of my arms, _i.e._, something like 30 feet, but there are - still larger elsewhere among the ruins.” - - -The shafts of the columns of the two Temples,—the six left standing of -the great Temple of the Sun which - - “Stand sublime - Casting their shadows from on high - Like Dials which the wizard Time - Had raised to count his ages by”— - -and those of the hypæthral temple of Zeus of which only a few have -fallen, are alike miracles of size and perfection of moulding. The -fragments of palaces reveal magnificence unparalleled. All these -enormous edifices are wrought with such lavish luxuriance of -imagination, such perfection of detail in harmony with the luscious -Corinthian style which pervades the whole, that the idea of the Arabs -that they are the work not of men but of Genii, seemed quite natural. I -recalled what Vitruvius (who wrote about the time in which the best of -these temples was erected), says of the methods by which, in his day, -the largest stones were moved from quarries and lifted to their places, -but I failed to comprehend how the colossal work was achieved here. - -Passing out of the great ruined gateway I came to vast square and -hexagonal courts with walls forming exedræ, loaded with profusion of -ornaments; columns, entablatures, niches and seats overhung with -carvings of garlands of flowers and the wings of fanciful creatures. -Streets, gateways and palaces, hardly distinguishable in their ruin, -follow on beyond the courts and portico. I climbed up a shattered stair -to the summit of the Saracenic wall and felt a sort of shock to behold -the living world below me; the glittering brook, the almond trees in -blossom and Anti-Lebanon beyond. Here I caught sight of the well-known -exquisite little circular temple with its colonnade of six Corinthian -columns, of which the architraves are recurved inwards from column to -column. If I am not mistaken a reproduction of this lovely little -building was set up in Kew Gardens in the last century. - -Last of all I returned to the Temple of Zeus—or of Baal as it is -sometimes called—to spend there in secure solitude (except for Djinns!) -the closing hours of that long, rich day. The large walls are almost -perfect; the colonnades of enormous pillars are mostly still standing. -From the inner portal with its magnificent lintel half fallen from its -place, the view is probably the finest of any fane of the ancient world, -and was to me impressive beyond description. Even the spot where the -statue of the god has stood can easily be traced. A great stone lying -overturned on the pavement was doubtless the pedestal. I remained for -hours in this temple; sometimes feebly trying to sketch what I saw, -sometimes lost in ponderings on the faiths and worships of the past and -present. A hawk, which probably had never before found a human visitor -at eventide in that weird place, came swooping over me; then gave a wild -shriek and flew away. A little later the moon rose over the walls. The -calm and silence and beauty of that scene can never be forgotten. - -I was unable to pursue my journey to Damascus as I had designed. The -muleteer, with all my baggage, contrived to miss us on the road among -the hills in Anti-Lebanon; and, eventually, after another visit to the -ruins and to the quarries from whence the vast stones were taken, I rode -back to Zachly and thence (a two days’ ride) over Lebanon to Beyrout. - -I remained a few days at the hotel which then existed a mile from the -town, while I waited for the steamer to take me to Athens, and much -enjoyed the lovely scene of rich mulberry and almond gardens beside the -shell-strewn strand, with snowy Lebanon behind, towering over the -fir-woods into the deep blue sky. The Syrian peasant women are sweet, -courteous creatures. One day as I sat under a cactus-hedge reading -Shelley, a pretty young mother came by, and after interchanging a “Peace -be with you,” proceeded unhesitatingly, and without a word of -explanation, to deposit her baby,—Mustapha by name,—in my lap. I was -very willing to nurse Mustapha, and we made friends at once as easily as -his mother had done; and my heart was the better for the encounter! - -After I had paid off Hassan and settled my account at the hotel, I found -my financial condition exceedingly bad! I had just enough cash remaining -to carry me (omitting a few meals) by second-class passage to Athens: -which was the nearest place where I had opened a credit from my bankers, -or where I had any introductions. There was nothing for it but to take a -second-class place on board the Austrian Lloyd’s steamer -_L’Impératrice_; though it was not a pleasant arrangement, seeing that -there was no other woman passenger and no stewardess on the ship at all. -Nevertheless this was just one of the cases in which knocking about the -world brought me favourable experience of human nature. The Captain of -the _Impératrice_, an Italian gentleman, did his utmost, with extreme -delicacy and good taste, to make my position comfortable. He ordered his -own dinner to be served in the second cabin that he might preside at the -table instead of one of his subordinates; and during the day he came -often to see that I was well placed and shaded on deck, and to -interchange a little pleasant talk, without intrusion. - -It is truly one of the silliest of the many silly things in the -education of women that we are taught little or nothing about the -simplest matters of banking and stock-and-share buying and selling. I, -who had always had money in abundance given me _straight into my hand_, -knew absolutely nothing, when my father’s death left me to arrange my -affairs, how such business is done, how shares are bought and sold, how -credits are open at corresponding bankers; how, even, _to draw a -cheque_! It all seemed to me a most perilous matter, and I feared that I -might, in those remote regions, come to grief any day by the refusal of -some local banker to honour my cheques or by the neglect of my London -bankers to bespeak credit for me. My means were so narrow, and I had so -little experience of the expenses of living and travelling, that I was -greatly exercised as to my small concerns. I brought with me (generally -tied by a string round my neck and concealed) a very valuable diamond -ring to sell in case I came to real disaster; but it had been constantly -worn by my mother; and I felt at Beyrout that, sooner than sell it, I -would live on short commons for much more than a week! - -One day of our voyage I spent at Cyprus where I admired the ancient -church of San Lazzaro, half mosque, half church, and said to be the -final grave of Lazarus. I had visited his, supposed, _temporary_ one in -Bethany. Another day I landed at Rhodes and was able to see the ruined -street which bears over each house the arms of the Knight to whom it -belonged. At the upper end of the way are still visible the arch and -shattered relics of their church. Writing to Miss St. Leger March 28th, -I described my environment thus: - - - “Dearest Harriet, - - “Behold me seated _à la Turque_ close to a party of Moslem gentlemen - who alternately smoke and say their prayers all day long. We are - steaming up through the lovely “Isles of Greece,” having left Rhodes - this morning and Cos an hour ago. As we pass each wild cape and green - shore I take up a certain opera glass with ‘H. S.’ on the top of the - box, and wish very much I could see through it the dear, kind eyes - that used it once. They would be pleasanter to see than all these - scenes, glorious as they are. The sun is going down into the calm blue - sea and throwing purple lights already on the countless islands - through which the vessel winds its way. White sea-gulls follow us and - beautiful little quaint-sailed boats appear every now and then round - the islands. The peculiar beauty of this famous passage is derived, - however, from the bold and varied outline of the islands and adjoining - coast of Asia Minor. From little rocks not larger than the ship - itself, up to large provinces with extensive towns like Cos, there is - an endless variety and boldness of form. Ireland’s Eye magnified to - twice the height, is, I should say, the commonest type. In some almost - inaccessible cliffs one sees hermitages; in others convents. I shall - post this at Smyrna.” - - -As the _Impératrice_ stopped two or three days in the magnificent -harbour of Smyrna, I had good opportunity to land and make my way to the -scene of Polycarp’s Martyrdom amid the colossal cypresses which outdo -all those of Italy except the quincentenarians in the Giusti garden in -Verona. It was Easter, and a ridiculous incident occurred on the -Saturday. I was busy writing in the cabin of the _Impératrice_ at -mid-day, when, _subito!_ there were explosions in our vessel and in a -hundred other vessels in the harbour, again and again and again, as if a -battle of Trafalgar were going on all round! I rushed on deck and found -the steward standing calm and cheerful amid the terrific noise and -smoke, “For God’s sake what has happened?” I cried breathless. “Nothing, -Signora, nothing! It is the Royal Salute all the ships are firing, of 21 -guns.” - -“In honour of whom?” I asked, somewhat less alarmed. - -“Iddio, Signora! Gesù Cristo, sicuro! È il momento della Resurrezione, -si sà.” - -“O, no!” I said, “Not on Saturday. It was on Sunday, you know!” - -“Che, che! Dicono forse cosi i Protestanti! Sappiamo noi altri, che era -il Sabato.” - -I never got to the bottom of this mystery, but can testify that at -Smyrna in 1858 there were many scores of these Royal Salutes (!) on Holy -Saturday at noon in honour of the Resurrection. - - -It was one of the brightest hours of my happy life, that on which I -stood on the deck of our ship at sunrise and passed under “Sunium’s -marble steep” and knew that I was approaching Athens. As we steamed up -the gulf, the red clouds flamed over Parnes and Hymettus and lighted up -the hills of Peloponnesus. The bright blue waves were dancing under our -prow, and I could see over them far away the “rocky brow which looks -o’er sea-born Salamis,” where Xerxes sat on his silver-footed throne on -such a morn as this. Above, to our right, over the olive woods with the -rising sun behind it, like a crowned hill was the Acropolis of Athens -and the Parthenon upon it. - -Very soon I had landed at the Piræus and had engaged a carriage (there -was no railway then) to take me to Athens. The drive was enchanting, -between olive groves and vineyards, and with the Temple of Theseus and -the buildings on the Acropolis coming into view as I approached Athens, -till I was beside myself with delight and excitement. The first thing to -do was to drive to the private house of the banker to whom I was -recommended, to arouse the poor old gentleman (nothing loath apparently -to do business even at seven o’clock) to draw fifty sovereigns, and then -to go to the French Hotel, choose a room with a fine view of the -Parthenon, and to say to the master: “Send me the very best _déjeuner_ -you can provide and a bottle of Samian wine, and let this letter be -taken to Mr. Finlay.” That breakfast, with that view, was a feast of the -gods after my many abstinencies, though I nearly “dashed down the cup of -Samian wine,” not in patriotic despair for Greece, but because it was so -abominably bad that no poetry could have been made out of it by Anacreon -himself. Hardly had I finished my meal, when Mr. Finlay appeared at my -door, having hurried with infinite kindness to welcome me, and do honour -to the introduction of his cousin, my dear sister-in-law. “I put -myself,” said he, “at your orders for the day. We will go wherever you -please.” - -It would be unfair to inflict on the reader a detailed account of all I -saw at Athens under the admirable guidance of Mr. Finlay during a week -of intensest enjoyment. Mr. Finlay (it can scarcely yet be forgotten) -went out to Greece a few weeks or months before Byron and fought with -him and after him, through the War of Independence. After this, having -married a beautiful Armenian lady, he bought much land in Eubœa, built -himself a handsome house in Athens and lived there for the rest of his -life, writing his great History (in five volumes) of _Greece under -Foreign Domination_; making a magnificent collection of coins; and -acting for many years as the _Times_ correspondent at Athens. He was not -only a highly erudite archæologist, but an enthusiast for the land of -his adoption and all its triumphs of art; in short, the best of all -possible ciceroni. I was fortunately not wholly unprepared to profit by -his learned expositions and delicate observation on the architecture of -the glorious ruins, for I had made copies of prints of all at Athens and -elsewhere in Greece with ground-plans and restorations and notes of -everything I could learn about them, many years before when I was wont -to amuse myself with drawing, while my mother read to me. I found that I -knew beforehand nearly exactly what remained of the Parthenon and the -Erechtheum and the Temple of Victory, the Propylæum on the Acropolis and -the Theseium below; and it was of intensest interest to me to learn, -under Mr. Finlay’s guidance, precisely where the Elgin Marbles had -stood, and to note the extraordinary fact, on which he insisted -much,—that there is not a single straight line in the whole Parthenon. -_Everything_, down to single stones in the entablatures and friezes, is -curved, in some cases, he felt assured, _after_ they had been placed _in -situ_. The extreme entasis of the columns and the great pyramidal -inclination of the whole building, were most noticeable when attention -was once drawn to them. As we approached the majestic ruins of Adrian’s -Temple of Jupiter on the plains below, (that enormous temple which had -double rows of columns surrounding it and quadruple rows in front and -back, of ten columns each) I exclaimed “Why! there ought to be _three_ -columns standing at that far angle!” “Quite true,” said Mr. Finlay, “one -of them fell just six weeks ago.” - -Since this visit of mine to Athens a vast deal has been done to clear -away the remains of the Turkish tower and other barbaric buildings which -obstructed and desecrated the summit of the Acropolis; and the fortunate -visitor may now see the whole Propylæum and all the spaces open and -free, beside examining the very numerous statues and bas reliefs some -quaintly archaic, some of the best age and splendidly beautiful, which -have been dug out in recent years in Greece. - -I envy every visitor to Athens now, but console myself by procuring -photographs of all the _finds_ from those excellent artists, Thomaïdes, -Brothers. - -Mr. Finlay spoke much of Byron in answer to my questions, and described -him as a most singular combination of romance and astuteness. The Greeks -imagined that a man capable of such enthusiasm as to go to war for their -enfranchisement must have a rather soft head as well as warm heart; but -they were much mistaken when they tried in their simplicity to -_exploiter_ him in matters of finance. There were self-devoted and -disinterested patriots, but there were also (as was inevitable), among -the insurgents many others who had a sharp eye to their own financial -and political schemes Byron saw through these men (Mr. Finlay said), -with astounding quickness, and never allowed them to guide or get the -better of him in any negotiation. About money matters he considered he -was inclined to be “close-fisted.” This was an opinion strongly -confirmed to me some months later by Walter Savage Landor, who -repeatedly remarked that Byron’s behaviour in several occurrences, while -in Italy, was far from liberal and that, luxuriously as he chose to -live, he was by no means ready to pay freely for his luxury. Shelley on -the contrary, though he lived most simply and was always hard pressed -for money by William Godwin (who Fanny Kemble delightfully described to -me _àpropos_ of Dowden’s _Memoirs_, as “one of those greatly gifted _and -greatly borrowing_ people!”), was punctilious to the last degree in -paying his debts and even those of his friends. There was a story of a -boat purchased by both Byron and Shelley which I cannot trust my memory -to recall accurately as Mr. Landor told it to me, and which I do not -exactly recognise in the _Memoirs_, but which certainly amounted to -this,—that Byron left Shelley to pay for their joint purchase, and that -Shelley did so, though at the time he was in extreme straits for money. -All the impressions, I may here remark, which I gathered at that time in -Greece and Italy (1858), where there were yet a few alive who personally -knew both these great poets, was in favour of Shelley and against Byron. -Talking over them many years afterwards with Mazzini I was startled by -the vehemence with which he pronounced his preference for Byron, as the -one who had tried to put his sympathy with a struggling nation into -practice, and had died in the noble attempt. This was natural enough on -the part of the Italian patriot; but I think the vanity and tendency to -“pose,” which formed so large a part of Byron’s character had probably -more to do with this last _acted_ Canto of _Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage_, -than Mazzini, (who had no such foibles) was likely to understand. The -following curious glimpse of Byron at Venice before he went to Greece, -occurs in an autograph letter in my possession, by Mrs. Hemans to the -late Miss Margaret Lloyd. It seems worth quoting here. - - - “Bronwylfa, 8th April, 1819. - - “Your affection of Lord Byron will not be much increased by the - description I am going to transcribe for you of his appearance and - manners abroad. My sister, who is now at Venice, has sent me the - following sketch of the _Giaour_:—‘We were presented at the - Governor’s, after which we went to a conversazione at Madlle. - Benzoni’s, where we saw Lord Byron; and now my curiosity is gratified, - I have no wish ever to see him again. A more wretched, - depraved-looking countenance it is impossible to imagine! His hair - streaming almost down to his shoulders and his whole appearance - slovenly and even dirty. Still there is a something which impels you - to look at his face, although it inspires you with aversion, a - something entirely different from any expression on any countenance I - ever beheld before. His character, I hear, is worse than ever; - dreadful it must be, since everyone says he is the most dissipated - person in Italy, exceeding even the Italians themselves.’” - - -Shortly before my visit to Athens an article, or book, by Mr. Trelawney -had been published in England, in which that writer asserted that -Byron’s lame leg was a most portentous deformity, like the fleshless leg -of a Satyr. I mentioned this to Mr. Finlay, who laughed, and said: “That -reminds me of what Byron said of Trelawney; ‘If we could but make -Trelawney wash his hands and speak the truth, we might make a gentleman -of him!’ Of course,” continued Mr. Finlay, “I saw Byron’s legs scores of -times, for we bathed together daily whenever we were near the sea or a -river, and there was nothing wrong with the _leg_, only an ordinary and -not very bad, club-_foot_.” - -Among the interesting facts which Mr. Finlay gave me as the results of -his historical researches in Greece was that a school of philosophy -continued to be held in the Groves of the Academè (through which we were -walking at the moment), for 900 years from the time of Plato. A fine -collection of gold and silver coins which he had made, afforded, under -his guidance, a sort of running commentary on the history of the -Byzantine Empire. There were series of three and four reigns during -which the coins became visibly worse and worse, till at last there was -no silver in them at all, only base metal of some sort; and then, things -having come to the worst, there was a revolution, a new dynasty, and a -brand new and pure coinage. - -The kindness of this very able man and of his charming wife was not -limited to playing cicerone to me. Nothing could exceed their -hospitality. The first day I dined at their house a party of agreeable -and particularly fashionably dressed Greek ladies and gentlemen were -assembled. As we waited for dinner the door opened and a magnificent -figure appeared, whom I naturally took for, at least, an Albanian Chief, -and prepared myself for an interesting presentation. He wore a short -green velvet jacket covered with gold embroidery, a crimson sash, an -enormous white muslin _kilt_ (I afterwards learned it contained 60 yards -of muslin, and that the washing thereof is a function of the highest -responsibility), and leggings of green and gold to match the jacket. One -moment this splendid vision stood six feet high in the doorway; the next -he bowed profoundly and pronounced the consecrated formula:— - -“_Madame est servie!_” - -and we went to dinner, where he waited admirably. - -Some year or two later, after I had published some records of my -travels, and sent them to Mr. Finlay, I received from him the following -letter:— - - - “Athens, 26th May. - - “My dear Miss Cobbe, - - “Baron von Schmidthals sent me your letter of the 18th April with the - _Cities of the Past_ yesterday; his baggage having been detained at - Syria. This post brought me _Fraser_ with a ‘_Day at Athens_’ with due - regularity, and now accept my sincere thanks for both. I am ashamed of - my neglect in not thanking you sooner for _Fraser_, but I did not know - your address. I felt grateful for it, having been very, very often - tired of ‘Days at Athens!’ It was a treat to meet so pleasant a ‘day,’ - and have another pleasant day recalled. Others to whom I lent - _Fraser_, told me the ‘Day,’ was delightful. I had heard of your - misfortune but I hoped you had entirely recovered, and I regret to - hear that you use crutches still. I, too, am weak and can walk little, - but my complaint is old age. The _Saturday Review_ has told me that - you have poured some valuable thoughts into the river that flows - through ages. - - ‘Rè degli altri; superbo, altero fiume!’ - - Solomon tried to couch its cataracts in vain. If you lived at Athens - you would hardly believe that man can grow wiser by being made to - think. It only makes him more wicked here in Greece. But the river of - thought must be intended to fertilize the future. - - “I wish I could send you some news that would interest or amuse you, - but you may recollect that I live like a hermit and come into contact - with society chiefly in the matter of politics which I cannot expect - to render interesting to you and which is anything but an amusing - subject to me; I being one of the Greek landlords on whose head Kings - and National Assemblies practise the art of shaving. Our revolution - has done some good by clearing away old abuses, but the positive gain - has been small. England sent us a boy-king, and Denmark with him a - Count Sponneck, whom the Greeks, not inaccurately, call his ‘_alter_ - NEMO.’ Still, though we are all very much dissatisfied, I fancy - sometimes that fate has served Greece better than England, Denmark, or - the National Assembly. The evils of this country were augmented by the - devotion of the people to power and pelf, but devotion to nullity or - its _alter ego_ is a weak sentiment, and an empty treasury turns the - devotion to pelf into useful channels. - - “I was rather amused yesterday by learning that loyalty to King George - has extended the commercial relations of the Greeks with the Turks. - Greece has imported some boatloads of myrtle branches to make - triumphal arches at Syra where the King was expected yesterday. Queen - Amalia disciplined King Otho’s subjects to welcome him in this way. - The idea of Greeks being ‘green’ in anything, though it was only - loyalty, amused her in those days. I suppose she knows now that they - were not so ‘green’ as their myrtles made them look! It is odd, - however, to find that their outrageous loyalty succeeded in - exterminating myrtle plants in the islands of the Ægean, and that they - must now import their emblems of loyalty from the Sultan’s dominions. - If a new Venus rise out of the Grecian sea she will have to swim over - to the Turkish coast to hide herself in myrtles. There is a new fact - for Lord Strangford’s oriental Chaos! - - “My wife desires to be most kindly remembered to you. - - “Believe me, my dear Miss Cobbe, - “Yours sincerely, - “GEORGE FINLAY.” - - -I left Athens and my kind friends with great regret and embarked at the -Piræus for Constantinople, but not before I had managed to secure a -luxurious swim in one of the exquisite rocky coves along the coast near -the Tomb of Themistocles. - -Stamboul was rather a disappointment to me. The weather was cold and -cloudy and unfit to display the beauty of the Golden Horn; and I went -about with a _valet de place_ in rather a disheartened way to see the -Dolma Batchi Palace and a few other things accessible to me. The Scutari -Hospital across the Bosphorus where Miss Nightingale had worked only -four years before, of course, greatly attracted my interest. How much do -all women owe to that brave heart who led them on so far on the road to -their public duties, and who has paid for her marvellous achievements by -just forty years of invalidism! Those pages of Kinglake’s History in -which he pays tribute to her power, and compares her great -administrative triumph in bringing order out of chaos with the miserable -failures of the male officials who had brought about the disastrous -muddle, ought to be quoted again and again by all the friends of women, -and never suffered to drop into oblivion. - -Of course the reader will assume that I saw St. Sophia. But I did not do -so, and to the last, I fear I shall owe a little grudge to the people -whose extraordinary behaviour made me lose my sole opportunity of -enjoying that most interesting sight. I told my _valet de place_ to -learn what parties of foreigners were going to obtain the needful -firmaun for visiting the Mosque and to arrange for me in the usual way -to join one of them, paying my share of the expense, which at that time -amounted to £5. Some days were lost, and then I learned that there was -only one party, consisting of American ladies and gentlemen, who were -then intending to visit the place, and that for some reason their -courier would not consent to my joining them. I thought it was some -stupid _imbroglio_ of servants wanting fees, and having the utmost -confidence in American kindness and good manners, I called on the family -in question at their hotel and begged they would do me the favour to -allow me to pay part of the £5, and to enter the doors of St. Sophia -with them accordingly; at such time as might suit them. To my amazement -the gentleman and ladies looked at each other; and then the gentleman -spoke, “O! I leave _all that_ to my courier!” “In that case,” I said, “I -wish you good morning.” It was a great bore for me, with my great love -for architecture, to fail to see so unique a building, but I could not -think of spending £5 on a firmaun myself, and had no choice but to -relinquish the hope of entering, and merely walk round the Mosque and -peep in where it was possible to do so. I was well cursed in doing this -by the old Turks for my presumption! - -Nemesis overtook these unmannerly people ere long, for they reached -Florence a month after me and found I had naturally told my tale of -disappointment to the Brownings, (whom they particularly desired to -cultivate), the Somervilles, Trollopes and others who had become my -friends; and I believe they heard a good deal of the matter. Mrs. -Browning, I know, frankly expressed her astonishment at their behaviour; -and Mrs. Somerville would have nothing to say to them. They sent me -several messages of conciliation and apology, which of course I ignored. -They had done a rude and unkind thing to an unknown and friendless -woman. They were ready to make advances to one who had plenty of -friends. It was the only case, in all my experience of Americans, in -which I have found them wanting in either courtesy or kindness. - -I had intended to go from Constantinople _viâ_ the Black Sea and the -Danube to Vienna and thence by the railway to Adelsberg and Trieste, but -a cold, stormy March morning rendered that excursion far less tempting -than a return to the sunny waters of Greece; and, as I had nobody to -consult, I simply embarked on a different steamer from the one I had -designed to take. At Syra (I think) I changed to the most luxurious and -delightful vessel on which I have ever sailed—the Austrian Lloyd’s -_Neptune_, Captain Braun. It was splendidly equipped, even to a _camera -obscura_ on deck; and every arrangement for luxurious baths and good -food was perfect, and the old Captain’s attention and kindness to -everyone extreme. I have still the picture of the _Neptune_, which he -drew in my little sketch book for me. There were several very pleasant -passengers on board, among others the Marquis of Headfort (nephew of our -old neighbour at Newbridge, Mr. Taylor of Ardgillan) and Lady Headfort, -who had gone through awful experiences in India, when married to her -first husband, Sir William Macnaghten. It was said that when Sir William -was cut to pieces, she offered large rewards for the poor relics and -received them all, _except his head_. Months afterwards when she had -returned to Calcutta and was expecting some ordinary box of clothes, or -the like, she opened a parcel hastily, and was suddenly confronted with -a frightful spectacle of her husband’s half-preserved head! - -Whether this story be true I cannot say, but Lady Headfort made herself -a most agreeable fellow passenger, and we sat up every night till the -small hours telling ghost stories. At Corfu I paid a visit to my -father’s cousin, Lady Emily Kozzaris (_née_ Trench) whom I had known at -Newbridge and who welcomed me as a bit of Ireland, fallen on her - - “Isle under Ionian skies - Beautiful as a wreck of paradise.” - -I seemed to be _en pays de connaissance_ once more. After two days in -Trieste I went up by rail to Adelsberg through the extraordinary -district (geologically speaking) of Carniola, where the whole -superficial area of the ground is perfectly barren but honey-combed with -circular holes of varying depths and size and of the shape of inverted -truncated cones; the bottoms of each being highly fertile and cultivated -like gardens. - -The cavern of Adelsberg was to me one of the most fearsome places in the -world. I cannot give any accurate description of it for the sense of awe -which always seizes me in the darkness and foul air of caverns and -tunnels and pyramids, renders me incapable of listening to details of -heights and lengths. I wrote my recollections not long afterwards. - - - “There were long, long galleries, and chambers, and domes succeeding - one another, as it seemed, for ever. Sometimes narrow and low, - compelling the visitor to bend and climb; sometimes so wide and lofty - that the eye vainly sought to pierce the expanse. And through all the - endless labyrinth appeared vaguely in the gloom the forms taken by the - stalactites, now white as salt, now yellow and stained as if with - age,—representing to the fancy all conceivable objects of earth and - sea, piled up in this cave as if in some vast lumberhouse of creation. - It was Chaos, when yet all things slept in darkness waiting the fiat - of existence. It was the final Ruin when all things shall return to - everlasting night, and man and all his works grow into stone and lie - buried beside the mammoth and the ichthyosaur. Here were temples and - tombs, and vast dim faces, and giant forms lying prone and headless, - and huge lions sleeping in dark dens, and white ghosts with phantom - raiment flickering in the gloom. And through the caverns, amid all the - forms of awe and wonder, rolled a river black as midnight; a deep and - rapid river which broke here and there over the rocks as in mockery of - the sunny waterfalls of the woods, and gleamed for a moment, white and - ghastly, then plunged lower under the black arch into - - ‘Caverns measureless to man - Down to a sunless sea.’ - - “It is in this deadly river, which never reflects the light of day, - that live those strange fleshy lizards without eyes, and seemingly - without natural skin, hideous reptiles which have dwelt in darkness - from unknown ages, till the organs of sight are effaced.[15] - - “Over this dismal Styx the traveller passes on further and further - into the cavern, through seemingly endless corridors and vast - cathedral aisles and halls without number. One of these large spaces - is so enormous that it seemed as if St. Peter’s whole church and dome - could lie beneath it. The men who were with us scaled the walls, threw - coloured lights around and rockets up to the roof and dimly revealed - the stupendous expanse; an underground hall, where Eblis and all his - peers might hold the councils of hell. Further, on yet, through more - corridors, more chambers and aisles and domes, with the couchant lions - and the altar-tombs and the ghosts and the great white faces all - around; and then into a cavern, more lately found than the rest, where - the white and yellow marble took forms of screens and organ pipes and - richest Gothic tracery of windows,—the region where the Genius of the - Cavern had made his royal Oratory. It was all a great, dim, uneasy - dream. Things were, and were not. As in dreams we picture places and - identify them with those of waking life in some strange unreal - identity, while in every particular they vary from the actual place; - and as also in dreams we think we have beheld the same objects over - and over again, while we only dream we see them, and go on wandering - further and further, seeking for some unknown thing, and finding, not - that which we seek, but every other thing in existence, and pass - through all manner of narrow doors and impenetrable screens, and men - speak to us and we cannot hear them, and show us open graves holding - dead corpses whose features we cannot discern, and all the world is - dim and dark and full of doubt and dread—even so is the Cavern of - Adelsberg.” - - -Returning to Trieste I passed on to Venice, the beauty of which I -_learned_ (rather slowly perhaps), to feel by degrees as I rowed in my -gondola from church to church and from gallery to palace. The Austrians -were then masters of the city, and it was no doubt German music which I -heard for the first time at the church of the Scalzi, very finely -performed. It was not seldom in the usual English style of sacred music; -(I dare say it was not strictly _sacred_ music at all, perhaps quite a -profane opera!) but, in the mood I was in, it seemed to me to have a -great sanctity of its own; to be a _Week-day Song of Heaven_. This was -one of the rare occasions in my life in which music has reached the -deeper springs in me, and it affected me very much. I suppose as the -daffodils did Wordsworth. - -Naturally being again in a town and at a good hotel, I resumed better -clothes than I had worn in my rough rides, and they were, of course that -year, deep mourning with much crape on them. I imagine it must have been -this English mourning apparel which provoked among the colour-loving -Venetians a strange display of _Heteropathy_,—that deep-seated animal -instinct of hatred and anger against grief and suffering, the exact -reverse of _sympathy_, which causes brutes and birds to gore and peck -and slay their diseased and dying companions and brutal men to trample -on their weeping, starving wives. I was walking alone rather sadly, bent -down over the shells on the beach of the Lido, comparing them in my mind -to the old venuses and pectens and beautiful pholases which I used to -collect on my father’s long stretch of sandy shore in Ireland,—when -suddenly I found myself assailed with a shower of stones. Looking up, I -saw a little crowd of women and boys jeering at me and pelting me with -whatever they could pick up. Of course they could not really hurt me, -but after an effort or two at remonstrance, I was fain to give up my -walk and return to my gondola and to Venice. Years afterwards, speaking -of this incident to Gibson, he told me he had seen at Venice a much -worse scene, for the victim was a poor helpless dog which had somehow -got into a position from whence it could not escape, and the miserable, -hooting, laughing crowd deliberately _stoned it to death_. The dog -looked from one to another of its persecutors as if appealing for mercy -and saying, “What have I done to deserve this?” But there was no mercy -in those hard hearts. - -Ever since I sat on the spot where St. Stephen was stoned, I have felt -that that particular form of death must have been one of the most -_morally_ trying and dreadful to the sufferer, and the most utterly -destructive of the finer instincts in those who inflicted it. If Jews -be, as alleged, more prone to cruelty than other nations, the fact seems -to me almost explained by the “set of the brains” of a race accustomed -to account it a duty to join in stoning an offender to death and -watching pitilessly his agonies when mangled, blinded, deafened and -bleeding he lies crushed on the ground. - -From Venice I travelled very pleasantly in a returning vettura which I -was fortunate enough to engage, by Padua and Ferrara over the Apennines -to Florence. One day I walked a long way in front during my vetturino’s -dinner-hour, and made friends with some poor peasants who welcomed me to -their house and to a share of their meal of Polenta and wine. The -Polenta was much inferior to Irish oatmeal stirabout or Scotch porridge; -and the black wine was like the coarsest vinegar. I tried in vain, out -of good manners to drink it. The lives of these poor _contadini_ are -obviously in all ways cruelly hard. - -Spending one night in a desolate “ramshackle” inn on the road high up on -the Apennines, I sat up late writing a description of the place (as -“creepy” as I could make it!) to amuse my mother’s dear old servant -“Joney,” who possessed a volume of Washington Irving’s stories wherein -that of the “_Inn at Terracina_” had served constantly to excite -delightful awe in her breast and in my own as a child. I took my letter -next day with me to post in Florence, but alas! found there waiting for -me one from my brother announcing that our dear old servant was dead. -She had never held up her head after I had left Newbridge, and had cease -to drop into her cottage for tea. - -At Florence I remained many months (or rather on the hill of -Bellosguardo above the city) and made some of the most precious -friendships of my life; Mrs. Somerville’s first of all, I also had the -privilege to know at that time both Mr. and Mrs. Browning, Adolphus -Trollope, Walter Savage Landor, Isa Blagden, Miss White (now Madame -Villari), and many other very interesting men and women. I shall, -however, write a separate chapter combining this and my subsequent -visits to Italy. - -Late in the summer I travelled with a party through Milan over St. -Gothard to Lucerne, and thence to the Pays de Vaud, where I joined a -very pleasant couple,—Rev. W. and Mrs. Biedermann,—in taking the -_Château du Grand Clos_, in the Valley of the Rhone; a curious miniature -French country house, built some years before by the man who called -himself Louis XVII., or Duc de Normandie; and who had collected (as we -found) a considerable library of books, all relating to the French -Revolution. - -From Switzerland I travelled back to England viâ the Rhine with my dear -American friends, the Apthorps, who had joined me at Montreux. The -perils and fatigues of my eleven months of solitary wanderings were -over. I was stronger and more active in body than I had ever been, and -so enriched in mind and heart by the things I had seen and the people I -had known, that I could afford to smile at the depression and loneliness -of my departure. - -As we approached the Black Forest I had a fancy to quit my kind -companions for a few days; and leaving them to explore Strasburg, and -some other places, I went on to Heidelberg and thence made my way into -the beautiful woods. The following lines were written there, September -23rd, 1858:— - - ALONE IN THE SCHWARZWALD. - - Lord of the Forest Sanctuary! Thou - By the grey fathers of the world in these - Thine own self-fashioned shrines dimly adored, - “All-Father Odin,” “Mover” of the spheres; - Zeus! Brahm! Ormusd! Lord of Light Divine! - GOD, blessed God! the Good One! Best of names, - By noblest Saxon race found Thee at last,— - O Father! when the slow revolving years - Bring forth the day when men shall see Thy face - Unveiled from superstition’s web of errors old, - Shall they not seek Thee here amid the woods, - Rather than in the pillared aisle, or dome - By loftiest genius reared? - - Six months have rolled - Since I stood solitary in the fane - Of desolate Baalbec. The huge walls closed - Round me sublime as when millenniums past - Lost nations worshipped there. I sate beside - The altar stone o’erthrown. For hours I sate - Until the homeward-winging hawk at even - Shrieked when he saw me there, a human form - Where human feet tread once perchance a year, - Then the moon slowly rose above the walls - And then I knelt. It was a glorious fane - All, all my own. - - But not that grand Baalbec, - Nor Parthenon, nor Rome’s stupendous pile, - Nor lovelier Milan, nor the Sepulchre - So dark and solemn where the Christ was laid, - Nor even yet that dreadful field of death - At Ghizeh where the eternal Pyramids - Have, from a world of graves, pointed to Heav’n - For fifty ages past,—not all these shrines - Are holy to my soul as are the woods. - Lo! how God Himself has planned this place - So that all sweet and calm and solemn thoughts - Should have their nests amid the shadowy trees! - How the rude work-day world is all closed out - By the thick curtained foliage, and the sky - Alone revealed, a deep zenith heaven, - Fitly beheld through clasped and upraised arms - Of prayer-like trees. There is no sound more loud - Than the low insect hum, the chirp of birds, - The rustling murmur of embracing boughs, - The gentle dropping of the autumn leaves. - The wood’s sweet breath is incense. From the pines - And larch and chestnut come rich odours pure; - All things are pure and sweet and holy here. - - I lie down underneath the firs. The moss - Makes richest cushion for my weary limbs! - Long I gaze upward while the dark green boughs - Moveless project against the azure sky, - Fringed with their russet cones. My satiate eyes - Sink down at length. I turn my cheek to earth. - What may this be, this sense of youth restored, - My happy childhood with its sunbright hours, - Returning once again as in a dream? - ’Tis but the odour of the mossy ground, - The “field-smells known in infancy,” when yet, - Our childish sports were near to mother Earth, - Our child-like hearts near to the God in Heaven. - - - - - CHAPTER - X. - _BRISTOL._ - _REFORMATORIES AND RAGGED SCHOOLS._ - - -After I had spent two or three weeks once again at my old home after my -long journey to visit my eldest brother and his wife, and also had seen -my two other dear brothers, then married and settled in England with -their children; the time came for me to begin my independent life as I -had long planned it. I had taken my year’s pilgrimage as a sort of -conclusion to my self-education, and also because, at the beginning of -it, I was in no state of health or spirits to throw myself into new work -of any kind. Now I was well and strong, and full of hope of being of -some little use in the world. I was at a very good age for making a -fresh start; just 36; and I had my little independence of £200 a year -which, though small, was enough to allow me to work how and where I -pleased without need to earn anything. I may boast that I never got into -debt in my life; never borrowed money from anybody; never even asked my -brother for the advance of a week on the interest on my patrimony. - -It had been somewhat of a difficulty to me after my home duties ended at -my father’s death, to decide where, with my heretical opinions, I could -find a field for any kind of usefulness to my fellow-creatures, but I -fortunately heard through Harriet St. Leger and Lady Byron, that Miss -Carpenter, of Bristol, was seeking for some lady to help in her -Reformatory and Ragged School work. Miss Bathurst, who had joined her -for the purpose, had died the previous year. The arrangement was, that -we paid Miss Carpenter a moderate sum (30s.) a week for board and -lodging in her house adjoining Red Lodge, and she provided us all day -long with abundant occupation. I had by mere chance read her “_Juvenile -Delinquents_,” and had admired the spirit of the book; but my special -attraction to Miss Carpenter was the belief that I should find in her at -once a very religious woman, and one so completely outside the pale of -orthodoxy that I should be sure to meet from her the sympathy I had -never yet been privileged to enjoy; and at all events be able to assist -her labours with freedom of conscience. - -My first interview with Miss Carpenter (in November, 1858) was in the -doorway of my bedroom after my arrival at Red Lodge House; a small house -in the same street as Red Lodge. She had been absent from home on -business, and hastened upstairs to welcome me. It was rather a critical -moment, for I had been asking myself anxiously—“What manner of woman -shall I behold?” I knew I should see an able and an excellent person; -but it is quite possible for able and excellent women to be far from -agreeable companions for a _tête-à-tête_ of years; and nothing short of -this had I in contemplation. The first glimpse in that doorway set my -fears at rest! The plain and careworn face, the figure which, Dr. -Martineau says, had been “columnar” in youth, but which at fifty-two was -angular and stooping, were yet all alive with feeling and power. Her -large, light blue eyes, with their peculiar trick of showing the white -beneath the iris, had an extraordinary faculty of taking possession of -the person on whom they were fixed, like those of an amiable _Ancient -Mariner_ who only wanted to talk philanthropy, and not to tell stories -of weird voyages and murdered albatrosses. There was humour, also, in -every line of her face, and a readiness to catch the first gleam of a -joke. But the prevailing characteristic of Mary Carpenter, as I came -subsequently more perfectly to recognise, was a high and strong -Resolution, which made her whole path much like that of a plough in a -well-drawn furrow, which goes straight on in its own beneficent way, and -gently pushes aside into little ridges all intervening people and -things. - -Long after this first interview, Miss Elliot showed Miss Carpenter’s -photograph to the Master of Balliol, without telling him whom it -represented. After looking at it carefully, he remarked, “This is the -portrait of a person who lives _under high moral excitement_.” There -could not be a truer summary of her habitual state. - -Our days were very much alike, and “Sunday shone no Sabbath-day” for us. -Our little household consisted of one honest girl (a certain excellent -Marianne, who I often see now in her respectable widowhood and who well -deserves commemoration) and two little convicted thieves from the Red -Lodge. We assembled for prayers very early in the morning; and -breakfast, during the winter months, was got over before daylight; Miss -Carpenter always remarking brightly as she sat down, “How cheerful!” was -the gas. After this there were classes at the different schools, endless -arrangements and organisations, the looking-up of little truants from -the Ragged Schools, and a good deal of business in the way of writing -reports and so on. Altogether, nearly every hour of the day and week was -pretty well mapped out, leaving only space for the brief dinner and tea; -and at nine or ten o’clock at night, when we met at last, Miss Carpenter -was often so exhausted that I have seen her fall asleep with the spoon -half-way between her mouth and the cup of gruel which she ate for -supper. Her habits were all of the simplest and most self-denying kind. -Both by temperament and on principle she was essentially a Stoic. She -had no sympathy at all with Asceticism (which is a very different thing, -and implies a vivid sense of the attractiveness of luxury), and she -strongly condemned fasting, and all such practices on the Zoroastrian -principle, that they involve a culpable weakening of powers which are -intrusted to us for good use. But she was an ingrained Stoic, to whom -all the minor comforts of life are simply indifferent, and who can -scarcely even recognise the fact that other people take heed of them. -She once, with great simplicity, made to me the grave observation that -at a country house where she had just passed two or three days, “the -ladies and gentlemen all came down dressed for dinner, and evidently -thought the meal rather a pleasant part of the day!” For herself (as I -often told her) she had no idea of any Feast except that of the -Passover, and always ate with her loins girded and her umbrella at hand, -ready to rush off to the Red Lodge, if not to the Red Sea. In vain I -remonstrated on the unwholesomeness of the practice, and entreated on my -own behalf to be allowed time to swallow my food, and also some food (in -the shape of vegetables) to swallow, as well as the perpetual, too -easily ordered, salt beef and ham. Next day after an appeal of this kind -(made serious on my part by threats of gout), good Miss Carpenter -greeted me with a complacent smile on my entry into our little -dining-room. “You see I have not forgotten your wish for a dish of -vegetables!” There, surely enough, on a cheeseplate, stood six little -round radishes! Her special chair was a horsehair one with wooden arms, -and on the seat she had placed a small square cushion, as hard as a -board, likewise covered with horsehair. I took this up one day, and -taunted her with the _Sybaritism_ it betrayed; but she replied, with -infinite simplicity, “Yes, indeed! I am sorry to say that since my -illness I have been obliged to have recourse to these indulgencies (!). -I used to try, like St. Paul, to ‘endure hardness.’” - -Her standard of conscientious rigour was even, it would appear, -applicable to animals. I never saw a more ludicrous little scene than -when she one day found my poor dog Hajjin, a splendid grey Pomeranian, -lying on the broad of her very broad back, luxuriating on the rug before -a good fire. After gravely inspecting her for some moments, Miss -Carpenter turned solemnly away, observing, in a tone of deep moral -disapprobation, “Self-indulgent dog!” - -Much of our work lay in a certain Ragged School in a filthy lane named -St. James’ Back, now happily swept from the face of the earth. The long -line of Lewin’s Mead beyond the chapel was bad enough, especially at -nine or ten o’clock of a winter’s night, when half the gas lamps were -extinguished, and groups of drunken men and miserable women were to be -found shouting, screaming and fighting before the dens of drink and -infamy of which the street consisted. Miss Carpenter told me that a -short time previously some Bow Street constables had been sent down to -this place to ferret out a crime which had been committed there, and -that they reported there was not in all London such a nest of wickedness -as they had explored. The ordinary Bristol policemen were never to be -seen at night in Lewin’s Mead, and it was said they were afraid to show -themselves in the place. But St. James’ Back was a shade, I think, lower -than Lewin’s Mead; at all events it was further from the upper air of -decent life; and in these horrid slums that dauntless woman had bought -some tumble-down old buildings and turned them into schools—day-schools -for girls and night-schools for boys, all the very sweepings of those -wretched streets. - -It was a wonderful spectacle to see Mary Carpenter sitting patiently -before the large school-gallery in this place, teaching, singing, and -praying with the wild street boys, in spite of endless interruptions -caused by such proceedings as shooting marbles into hats on the table -behind her, whistling, stamping, fighting, shrieking out “Amen” in the -middle of the prayer, and sometimes rising _en masse_ and tearing, like -a troop of bisons in hob-nailed shoes, down from the gallery, round the -great schoolroom and down the stairs, out into the street. These -irrepressible outbreaks she bore with infinite good humour and, what -seemed to me more marvellous still, she heeded, apparently, not at all -the indescribable abomination of the odours of a tripe-and-trotter shop -next door, wherein operations were frequently carried on which, together -with the _bouquet du peuple_ of the poor little unkempt scholars, -rendered the school of a hot summer’s evening little better than the -ill-smelling _giro_ of Dante’s “Inferno.” These trifles, however, -scarcely even attracted Mary Carpenter’s attention, fixed as it was on -the possibility of “taking hold” (as she used to say) of one little -urchin or another, on whom, for the moment her hopes were fixed. - -The droll things which daily occurred in these schools, and the -wonderful replies received from the scholars to questions testing their -information, amused her intensely, and the more unruly were the young -scamps, the more, I think, in her secret heart, she liked them, and -gloried in taming them. She used to say, “Only to get them to use the -_school comb_ is something!” There was the boy who defined Conscience to -me as “a thing a gen’elman hasn’t got, who, when a boy finds his purse -and gives it back to him, doesn’t give the boy sixpence.” There was the -boy who, sharing in my Sunday evening lecture on “Thankfulness,”—wherein -I had pointed out the grass and blossoming trees on the Downs as -subjects for praise,—was interrogated as to which pleasure he enjoyed -most in the course of the year? replied candidly, “Cock-fightin’, ma’am. -There’s a pit up by the ‘Black Boy’ as is worth anythink in Brissel!” - -The clergy troubled us little. One day an impressive young curate -entered and sat silent, sternly critical to note what heresies were -being instilled into the minds of his flock. “I am giving a lesson on -Palestine,” I said; “I have just been at Jerusalem.” “_In what sense?_” -said the awful young man, darkly discerning some mysticism (of the -Swedenborgian kind, perhaps) beneath the simple statement. The boys who -were dismissed from the school for obstreperous behaviour were a great -difficulty to us, usually employing themselves in shouting and hammering -at the door. One winter’s night when it was raining heavily, as I was -passing through Lewin’s Mead, I was greeted by a chorus of voices, -“Cob-web, Cob-web!” emanating from the depths of a black archway. -Standing still under my umbrella, and looking down the cavern, I -remarked, “Don’t you think I must be a little tougher than a cobweb to -come out such a night as this to teach such little scamps as you?” - -“Indeed you is, Mum; that’s true! And stouter too!” - -“Well, don’t you think you would be more comfortable in that nice warm -schoolroom than in this dark, cold place?” - -“Yes, ’m, we would.” - -“You’ll have to promise to be tremendously good, I can tell you, if I -bring you in again. Will you promise?” - -Vows of everlasting order and obedience were tendered; and, to Miss -Carpenter’s intense amusement, I came into St. James’ Back, followed by -a whole troop of little outlaws reduced to temporary subjection. At all -events they never shouted “Cob-web” again. Indeed, at all times the -events of the day’s work, if they bordered on the ludicrous (as was -often the case), provoked her laughter till the tears ran down her -cheeks. One night she sat grieving over a piece of ingratitude on the -part of one of her teachers, and told me she had given him some -invitation for the purpose of conciliating him and “heaping coals of -fire on his head.” “It will take another scuttle, my dear friend,” I -remarked; and thereupon her tears stopped, and she burst into a hearty -fit of laughter. Next evening she said to me dolorously, “I tried that -other scuttle, but it was no go!” - -Of course, like every mortal, Mary Carpenter had _les défauts de ses -qualités_. Her absorption in her work always blinded her to the fact -that other people might possibly be bored by hearing of it incessantly. - -In India, I have been told that a Governor of Madras observed, after her -visit, “It is very astonishing; I listened to all Miss Carpenter had to -tell me, but when I began to tell her what _I_ knew of this country, she -dropped asleep.” Indeed, the poor wearied and over-worked brain, when it -had made its effort, generally collapsed, and in two or three minutes, -after “holding you with her eye” through a long philanthropic history, -Miss Carpenter might be seen to be, to all intents and purposes, asleep. - -On one occasion, that most loveable old man, Samuel J. May, of Syracuse, -came to pass two or three days at Red Lodge House, and Miss Carpenter -was naturally delighted to take him about and show him her schools and -explain everything to him. Mr. May listened with great interest for a -time, but at last his attention flagged and two or three times he turned -to me; “When can we have our talk, which Theodore Parker promised me?” -“Oh, by and by,” Miss Carpenter always interposed; till one day, after -we had visited St. James’ Back, we arrived all three at the foot of the -tremendous stairs, almost like those of the Trinità, which then existed -in Bristol, and were called the Christmas Steps. “_Now_, Mr. May and -Miss Cobbe” (said Mary Carpenter, cheerfully), “you can have your talk.” -And so we had—till we got to the top, when she resumed the guidance of -the conversation. Good jokes were often made of this little weakness, -but it had its pathetic side. Never was there a word of real egotism in -her eager talk, or the evidence of the slightest wish to magnify her own -doings, or to impress her hearers with her immense share in the public -benefits she described. It was her deep conviction that to turn one of -these poor sinners from the errors of its ways, to reach to the roots of -the misery and corruption of the “perishing and dangerous classes,” was -the most important work which could possibly be undertaken; and she, -very naturally, in consequence made it the most prominent, indeed, -almost the sole, subject of discourse. I was once in her company at -Aubrey House in London, when there happened to be present half-a-dozen -people, each one devoted to some special political, religious or moral -agitation. Miss Carpenter remarked in a pause in the conversation; “It -is a thousand pities that everybody will not join and give the whole of -their minds to the great cause of the age, because, if they would, we -should carry it undoubtedly.” “What _is_ the great cause of the age?” we -simultaneously exclaimed. “Parliamentary Reform?” said our host, Mr. -Peter Taylor; “the Abolition of Slavery?” said Miss Remond, a Negress, -Mrs. Taylor’s companion; “Teetotalism?” said another; “Woman’s -Suffrage?” said another; “The conversion of the world to Theism?” said -I. In the midst of the clamour, Miss Carpenter looked serenely round, -“Why! the Industrial Schools Bill _of course_!” Nobody enjoyed the joke, -when we all began to laugh, more than the reformer herself. - -It was, above all, in the Red Lodge Reformatory that Mary Carpenter’s -work was at its highest. The spiritual interest she took in the poor -little girls was, beyond words, admirable. When one of them whom she had -hoped was really reformed fell back into thievish or other evil ways, -her grief was a real _vicarious repentance_ for the little sinner; a -Christ-like sentiment infinitely sacred. Nor was she at all blind to the -children’s defects, or easily deceived by the usual sham reformations of -such institutions. In one of her letters to me she wrote these wise -words (July 9th, 1859):— - -“I have pointed out in one of my reports why I have more trouble than -others (_e.g._, especially, Catholics). A system of steady repression -and order would make them sooner good scholars; but then I should not -have the least confidence in the real change of their characters. Even -with my free system in the Lodge, remember how little we knew of Hill’s -and Hawkins’ real characters, until they were in the house? (Her own -private house). I do not object to nature being kept under curbs of rule -and order for a time, until some principles are sufficiently rooted to -be appealed to. But _then_ it must have play, or we cannot possibly tell -what amount of reformation has taken place. The Catholics have an -enormous artificial help in their religion and priests; but I place no -confidence in the slavish obedience they produce and the hypocrisy which -I have generally found inseparable from Catholic influence. I would far -rather have M. A. M’Intyre coolly say, ‘I know it was wrong’” (a barring -and bolting out) “and Anne Crooks in the cell for outrageous conduct, -acknowledge the same—‘I know it was wrong, but I am _not_ sorry,’ than -any hypocritical and heartless acknowledgments.” - -Indeed nobody had a keener eye to detect cant of any kind, or a greater -hatred of it. She told me one day of her visit to a celebrated -institution, said to be supported semi-miraculously by answers to prayer -in the specific shape of cheques. Miss Carpenter said that she asked the -matron (or some other official) whether it was supported by voluntary -subscriptions? “Oh, dear no! madam,” the woman replied; “Do you not know -it is entirely supported by Prayer?” “Oh, indeed,” replied Miss -Carpenter. “I dare say, however, when friends have once been moved to -send you money, they continue to do so regularly?” “Yes, certainly they -do.” “And they mostly send it at the beginning of the year?” “Yes, yes, -very regularly.” “Ah, well,” said Miss Carpenter, “when people send me -money for Red Lodge under those circumstances, I enter them in my -Reports as _Annual Subscribers_!” - -When our poor children at last left the Reformatory, Mary Carpenter -always watched their subsequent career with deep interest, gloried in -receiving intelligence that they were behaving honestly and steadily, or -deplored their backslidings in the contrary event. In short, her -interest was truly _in the children themselves_, in their very souls; -and not (as such philanthropy too often becomes) an interest in _her -Institution_. Those who know most of such work will best understand how -wide is the distinction. - -But Mary Carpenter was not only the guardian and teacher of the poor -young waifs and strays of Bristol when she had caught them in her -charity-traps. She was also their unwearied advocate with one Government -after another, and with every public man and magistrate whom she could -reasonably or unreasonably attack on their behalf. Never was there such -a case of the Widow and the Unjust Judge; till at last most English -statesmen came to recognise her wisdom, and to yield readily to her -pressure, and she was a “power in the State.” As she wrote to me about -her Industrial School, so was it in everything else:— - -“The magistrates have been lapsing into their usual apathy; so I have -got a piece of artillery to help me in the shape of Mr. M. D. Hill.... -They have found by painful experience that I cannot be made to rest -while justice is not done to these poor children.” (July 6th, 1859.) - -And again, some years later, when I had told her I had sat at dinner -beside a gentleman who had opposed many of her good projects:— - -“I am very sorry you did not see through Mr. ——, and annihilate him! Of -course, I shall never rest in this world till the children have their -birthrights in this so-called Christian country; but my next mode of -attack I have not decided on yet!” (February 13th, 1867.) - -At last my residence under Mary Carpenter’s roof came to a close. My -health had broken down two or three times in succession under a _régime_ -for which neither habit nor constitution had fitted me, and my kind -friend, Dr. Symonds’, peremptory orders necessitated arrangements of -meals which Miss Carpenter thought would occasion too much irregularity -in her little household, which (it must be remembered) was also a branch -of the Reformatory work. I also sadly perceived that I could be of no -real comfort or service as an inmate of her house, though I could still -help her, and perhaps more effectually, by attending her schools while -living alone in the neighbourhood. Her overwrought and nervous -temperament could ill bear the strain of a perpetual companionship, or -even the idea that any one in her house might expect companionship from -her; and if, while I was yet a stranger, she had found some fresh -interest in my society, it doubtless ceased when I had been a -twelvemonth under her roof, and knew everything which she could tell me -about her work and plans. As I often told her (more in earnest than she -supposed), I knew she would have been more interested in me had I been -either more of a sinner or more of a saint! - -And so, a few weeks later, the separation was made in all friendliness, -and I went to live alone at Belgrave House, Durdham Down, where I took -lodgings, still working pretty regularly at the Red Lodge and Ragged -Schools, but gradually engaging more in Workhouse visiting and looking -after friendless girls, so that my intercourse with Miss Carpenter -became less and less frequent, though always cordial and pleasant. - -Years afterwards when I had ceased to reside in the neighbourhood of -Bristol, I enjoyed several times the pleasure of receiving visits from -Miss Carpenter at my home in London, and hearing her accounts of her -Indian travels and other interests. In 1877, I went to Clifton to attend -an Anti-vivisection meeting, and also one for Woman Suffrage; and at the -latter of these I found myself with great pleasure on the same platform -with Mary Carpenter. (She was also an Anti-vivisectionist and always -signed our Memorials.) Her biographer and nephew, Professor Estlin -Carpenter, while fully stating her recognition of the rightfulness of -the demand for votes for women and also doing us the great service of -printing Mr. Mill’s most admirable letter to her on the subject (_Life_, -p. 493) seems unaware that she ever publicly advocated the cause of -political rights for women. But on this occasion, as I have said, she -took her place on the platform of the West of England Branch of the -Association, at its meeting in the Victoria Rooms; and, in my hearing, -either proposed or seconded one of the resolutions demanding the -franchise, adding a few words of cordial approval. - -Before I returned to London on this occasion I called on Miss Carpenter, -bringing with me a young niece. I found her at Red Lodge; and she -insisted on my going with her over all our old haunts, and noting what -changes and improvements she had made. I was tenderly touched by her -great kindness to my young companion and to myself; and by the added -softness and gentleness which years had brought to her. She expressed -herself as very happy in every way; and, in truth, she seemed to me like -one who had reached the Land of Beulah, and for whom there would be -henceforth only peace within and around. - -A few weeks later I was told that her servant had gone into her bedroom -one morning and found her weeping for her brother, Philip Carpenter, of -whose death she had just heard. The next morning the woman entered again -at the same hour, but Mary Carpenter was lying quite still, in the -posture in which she had lain in sleep. Her “six days’ work” was done. -She had “gone home,” and I doubt not “ta’en her wages.” Here is the last -letter she wrote to me:— - - - “Red Lodge House, Bristol, - “March 27th, 1877. - - “Dear Miss Cobbe, - - “There are some things of which the most clear and unanswerable - reasoning could not convince me! One of these is, that a wise, all - powerful and loving Father can create an immortal spirit for eternal - misery. Perhaps you are wiser than I and more accessible to arguments - (though I doubt this), and I send you the enclosed, which _I do not - want back_. Gógurth’s answer to such people is the best I ever - heard—‘If _you_ are child of Devil—_good_; but _I_ am child of God!’ - - “I was very glad to get a glimpse of you; I do not trouble you with my - doings, knowing that you have enough of your own. You may like to see - an abstract of my experience. - - “Yours affectionately, - “M. C.” - - -And here is a Poem which she gave me in MS. the day she wrote it. I do -not think it has seen the light. - - CHRISTMAS DAY PRAYER. - Dec. 25th, 1858. - - Onward and upward, Heavenly Father, bear me, - Onward and upward bear me to my home;— - Onward and upward, be Thou ever near me, - While my beloved Father beckons me to come. - - With Thy Holy Spirit, O do Thou renew me! - Cleanse me from all that turneth me from Thee! - Guide me and guard me, lead me and subdue me - Till I love not aught that centres not in Thee! - - Thou hast filled my soul with brightness and with beauty - Thou hast made me feel the sweetness of Thy love. - Purify my heart, devote me all to duty, - Sanctify me _wholly_ for Thy realms above. - - Holy, heavenly Parent of this earthborn spirit, - Onward and upward bear it to its home, - With Thy Firstborn Son eternal joys to inherit, - Where my blessed Father beckons me to come.— - December 25th, 1858. - M. C. - -The teaching work in the Red Lodge and the Ragged Schools, which I -continued for a long time after leaving Miss Carpenter’s house, was not, -I have thought on calm reflection in after years, very well done by me. -I have always lacked imagination enough to realize what are the mental -limitations of children of the poorer classes; and in my eagerness to -interest them and convey my thoughts, I know I often spoke over their -heads, with too rapid utterance and using too many words not included in -their small vocabularies. I think my lessons amused and even sometimes -delighted them; I was always told they loved them; but they enjoyed them -rather I fear like fireworks than instruction! In the Red Lodge there -were fifty poor little girls from 10 to 15 years of age who constituted -our _prisoners_. They were regularly committed to the Lodge as to jail, -and when Miss Carpenter was absent I had to keep the great door key. -They used to sit on their benches in rows opposite to me in the -beautiful black oak-panelled room of the Lodge, and read their dreary -books, and rejoice (I have no doubt) when I broke in with explanations -and illustrations. Their poor faces, often scarred by disease, and -ill-shaped heads, were then lifted up with cheerful looks to me, and I -ploughed away as best I could, trying to get _any_ ideas into their -minds; in accordance with Mary Carpenter’s often repeated assurance that -_anything whatever_ which could pass from my thoughts to theirs would be -a benefit, as supplying other _pabulum_ than their past familiarity with -all things evil. When we had got through one school reading book in this -way I begged Miss Carpenter to find me another to afford a few fresh -themes for observations, but no; she preferred that I should go over the -same again. Some of the children had singular histories. There was one -little creature named Kitty, towards whom I confess my heart warmed -especially, for her leonine disposition! Whenever there was some -mischief discovered and the question asked Who was in fault? invariably -Kitty’s hand went up: “I did it, ma’am;” and the penalty, even of -incarceration in a certain dreaded “cell,” was heroically endured. Kitty -had been duly convicted at Sessions at the mature age of ten. Of what -high crime and misdemeanour does the reader suppose? Pilfering, perhaps, -a pocket handkerchief, or a penny? Not at all! Of nothing less than -_Horse-stealing_! She and her brother, a mite two years younger than -herself, were dispatched by their vagabond parents to journey by one -road, while they themselves travelled by another, and on the way the -children, who were, of course, directed to pick and steal all they could -lay hands on, observed an old grey mare feeding in a field near the road -and reflecting that a ride on horseback would be preferable to their -pilgrimage on foot, they scrambled on the mare’s back and by some means -guided her down the road and went off in triumph. The aggrieved farmer -to whom the mare belonged, brought the delinquents to justice, and after -being tried with all the solemn forms of British law (their heads -scarcely visible over the dock), the children were sent respectively to -a Boy’s Reformatory, and to Red Lodge. We kept Kitty, of course, till -her full term expired when she was 15, and I am afraid Miss Carpenter -strained the law a little in detaining her still longer to allow her to -gain more discretion before returning to those dreadful tramps, her -parents. She herself, indeed, felt the danger as she grew older, and -attached herself much to us both. A teacher whom I had imported from -Ireland (one of my own village pupils from Donabate) told me that Kitty -spoke of us with tears, and that she had seen her one day, when given a -stocking of mine whereupon to practise darning, furtively kissing it -when she thought no one was observing her. She once said, “God bless -Exeter jail! I should never have been here but for that.” But at last, -like George Eliot’s _Gipsy_, the claims of race over-mastered all her -other feelings. Kitty left us to rejoin her mother, who had perpetually -called to see her; and a month or two later the poor child died of -fever, caught in the wretched haunts of her family. - -[Illustration: - - _Door in Oak Room, Red Lodge, - Mary Carpenter, Kitty, etc._ -] - -In a visit which I made to Red Lodge two years ago, I was struck by the -improved physical aspect of the poor girls in the charge of our -successors. The depressed, almost flattened form of head which the -experienced eye of Sir Walter Crofton had caught (as I did), as a -terrible “Note” of hereditary crime, was no longer visible; nor was the -miserable blear-eyed, scrofulous appearance of the faces of many of my -old pupils to be seen any more. Thirty years have, I hope and believe, -raised even the very lowest stratum of the population of England. - -Miss Carpenter’s work in founding the first Reformatory for -girl-criminals with the munificent aid of that generous woman Lady -Byron, has beyond question, contributed in no mean degree to thinning -the ranks of female crime during the last quarter of a century. Issuing -from the Red Lodge at the end of their four or five years’ term of -confinement and instruction, the girls rarely returned, like poor Kitty, -to their parents, but passed first through a probation as Miss -Carpenter’s own servants in her private house, under good Marianne and -her successors, and then into that humbler sort of domestic service -which is best for girls of their class; I mean that wherein the mistress -works and takes her meals with the servant. The pride and joy of these -girls when they settled into steady usefulness was often a pleasure to -witness. Miss Carpenter used to say, “When I hear one of them talk of -‘_My_ Kitchen,’ I know it is all right!” Of course many of them -eventually married respectably. On the whole I do not think that more -than five, or at the outside ten per cent. fell into either crime or -vice after leaving Red Lodge, and if we suppose that there have been -something like 500 girls in the Reformatory since Lady Byron bought the -Red Lodge and dedicated it to that benevolent use, we may fairly -estimate, that Mary Carpenter _deflected_ towards goodness the lives of -at least four hundred and fifty women, who, if she had not stirred in -their interest, would almost inevitably have spent their days in crime -or vice, and ended them either in jail or in the “Black Ward” of the -workhouse. - -There is an epitaph on a good clergyman in one of the old churches of -Bristol which I have always thought remarkably fine. It runs thus as far -as I remember:— - - “Marble may moulder, monuments decay, - Time sweeps memorials from the earth away; - But lasting records are to Brydges given, - The date Eternity, the archives Heaven; - _There_ living tablets with his worth engraved - Stand forth for ever in the souls he saved.” - -We do not, in our day (unless we happen to belong to the Salvation Army) -talk much about “saving souls” in the old Evangelical sense; and I, at -least, hold very strongly, and have even preached to the purpose, that -every human soul is “_Doomed to be Saved_,” destined by irrevocable -Divine love and mercy to be sooner or later, in this world or far off -worlds to come, brought like the Prodigal to the Father’s feet. But -there is a very real sense in which a true philanthropist “saves” his -fellow-men from moral evil—the sense in which Plutarch uses the word, -and which every theology must accept, and in this sense I unhesitatingly -affirm, that Mary Carpenter SAVED four hundred human souls. - -It must be borne in mind also that it was not only in her own special -Reformatory that her work was carried on. By advocating in her books and -by her active public pleading the modification of the laws touching -juvenile crime, she practically originated—in concert with Recorder -Hill—the immense improvement which has taken place in the whole -treatment of young criminals who, before her time, were simply sent to -jail, and there too often stamped with the hallmark of crime for life. - -As regards the other part of Miss Carpenter’s work which she permitted -me to share,—the Ragged Schools and Streetboys’ Sunday School in St. -James’s Back,—I laboured, of course, under the same disadvantage as in -the Red Lodge of never clearly foreseeing how much would be understood -of my words or ideas; and what would be most decidedly “caviar to the -general.” A ludicrous example of this occurred on one occasion. I always -anxiously desired to instil into the minds of the children admiration -for brave and noble deeds, and therefore told them stories of heroism -whenever my subject afforded an opening for one. Having to give a lesson -on France, and some boy asking a question about the Guillotine, I -narrated, as vivaciously and dramatically as I knew how, the beautiful -tale of the Nuns who chanted the _Te Deum_ on the scaffold, till one -voice after another was silenced for ever, and the brave Abbess still -continued to sing the grand old hymn of Ambrose, till her turn came for -death. I fondly hoped that some of my own feelings in describing the -scene were communicated to my audience. But such hopes were dashed when, -a day or two later, Miss Carpenter came home from her lesson at the -school, and said: “My dear friend, what in the name of heaven can you -have been teaching those boys? They were all excited about some lesson -you had given them. They said you described cutting off a lot of heads; -and it was ‘chop! and a head fell into the basket; and chop! another -head in the basket! They said it was such a nice lesson!’ But _whose_ -heads were cut off, or why, none of them remembered,—only chop! and a -head fell in the basket!” - -I consoled myself, however, for this and many another defeat by the -belief that if my lessons did not much instruct their wild pates, their -hearts were benefitted in some small measure by being brought under my -friendly influence. Miss Carpenter always made the schoolmaster of the -Day School attend at our Sunday Night-School, fearing some wild outbreak -of the 100 and odd boys and hobbledehoys who formed our congregation. -The first Sunday, however, on which the school was given into my charge, -I told the schoolmaster he might leave me and go home; and I then -stopped alone (we had no assistants) with the little herd. My lessons, I -am quite sure, were all the more impressive; and though Miss Carpenter -was quite alarmed when she heard what I had done, she consented to my -following my own system of confidence, and I never had reason to repent -the adoption of it. - -In my humble judgment (and I know it was also that of one much better -able to judge, Lord Shaftesbury) these elastic and irregular Ragged -Schools were far better institutions for the class for whom they were -designed than the cast-iron Board Schools of our time. They were -specially designed to _civilize_ the children: to _tame_ them enough to -induce them, for example, to sit reasonably still on a bench for -half-an-hour at a time; to wash their hands and faces; to comb their -hair; to forbear from shouting, singing, “turning wheels,” throwing -marbles, making faces, or similarly disporting themselves, while in -school; after which preliminaries they began to acquire the art of -learning lessons. It was not exactly Education in the literary sense, -but it was a Training, without which as a substructure the “Three R’s” -are of little avail,—if we may believe in William of Wykeham’s axiom -that “Manners makyth Manne.” - -Another, and, as I think, great merit of the Ragged School system was, -that decent and self-respecting parents who strove to keep their -children from the contamination of the gutter and were willing to pay -their penny a week to send them to school, were not obliged, as now, to -suffer their boys and girls to associate in the Board Schools with the -very lowest and roughest of children fresh from the streets. Nothing has -made me more indignant than a report I read some time ago in one of the -newspapers of a poor widow who had “seen better days,” being summoned -and fined for engaging a non-certified poor governess to teach her -little girl, rather than allow the child to attend the Board School and -associate with the girls she would meet there. As if all the learning of -a person, if he could pour it into a child’s brain, would counterbalance -in a young girl’s mind the foul words and ideas familiar to the hapless -children of the “perishing and dangerous classes!” - -People talk seriously of the _physical_ infection which may be conveyed -where many young children are gathered in close contiguity. They would, -if they knew more, much more anxiously deprecate the _moral_ contagion -which may be introduced into a school by a single girl who has been -initiated into the mysteries of a vicious home. On two separate -occasions Miss Carpenter and I were startled by what I can only describe -as a portentous wave of evil which passed over the entire community of -50 girls in the Red Lodge. In each case it was undeniably traceable to -the arrival of new comers who had been sent by mistake of magistrates to -our Reformatory when they ought to have gone to a Penitentiary. It was -impossible for us to guess how, with all the watchful guardianship of -the teachers, these unhappy girls had any opportunity for corrupting -their companions, but that they did so (temporarily only, as they were -immediately discovered and banished) I saw with my own eyes beyond -possibility of mistake. - -It came to me as part of my work with Miss Carpenter to visit the homes -of all the children who attended our Ragged Schools—either Day Schools -or Night Schools; nominally to see whether they belonged to the class -which should properly benefit by gratuitous education, but also to find -out whether I could do anything to amend their condition. Many were the -lessons I learned respecting the “short” but by no means “simple” annals -of the poor, when I made those visits all over the slums of Bristol. - -The shoemakers were a very numerous and a very miserable class among the -parents of our pupils. When anything interfered with trade they were at -once thrown into complete idleness and destitution. Over and over again -I tried to get the poor fellows, when they sat listless and lamenting, -to turn to any other kind of labour in their own line; to endeavour, -_e.g._, to make slippers for me, no matter how roughly, or to mend my -boots; promising similar orders from friends. Not one would, or could, -do anything but sew upper or under leathers, as the case might be! The -men sat all day long when there was work, sewing in their stuffy rooms -with their wives busy washing or attending to the children, and the -whole place in a muddle; but they would converse eagerly and -intelligently with me about politics or about other towns and countries, -whereas the poor over-worked women would never join in our talk. When I -addressed them they at once called my attention to Jenny’s torn frock -and Tom’s want of a new cap. One of these shoemakers, in whom I felt -rather special interest, turned to me one day, looked me straight in the -face, and said: “I want to ask you a question. Why does a lady like you -come and sit and talk to me?” I thought it a true token of confidence, -and was glad I could answer honestly that I had come first to see about -his children, but now came because I liked him. - -Other cases which came to my knowledge in these rounds were dreadfully -sad. In one poor room I found a woman who had been confined only a few -days, sitting up in bed doing shopwork, her three or four _little_ -children all endeavouring to work likewise for the miserable pay. Her -husband was out looking vainly for work. She showed me a sheaf of -pawntickets for a large quantity of table and house linen and plated -goods. Her husband and she had formerly kept a flourishing inn, but the -railway had ruined it, and they had been obliged to give it up and come -to live in Bristol, and get such work as they could do—at starvation -wages. She was a gentle, delicate, fair woman, who had been lady’s maid -in a wealthy family known to me by name. I asked her did she not go out -and bring the children to the Downs on a Sunday? “Ah! we tried it once -or twice,” she said, “but it was too terrible coming back to this room; -we never go now.” - -Another case of extreme poverty was less tragic. There was a woman with -three children whose husband was a soldier in India, to whom she -longingly hoped to be eventually sent out by the military authorities. -Meanwhile she was in extreme poverty in Bristol, and so was her friend, -a fine young Irish woman. Their sole resource was a neighbour who -possessed a pair of good sheets, and was willing to lend them to them -_by day_, provided they were restored for her own use every night! This -did not appear a very promising source of income, but the two friends -contrived to make it one. They took the sheets of a morning to a -pawnbroker who allowed them,—I think it was two shillings, upon them. -With this they stocked a basket with oranges, apples, gooseberries, pins -and needles, match boxes, lace,—anything which could be had for such a -price, according to the season. Then one or other of the friends arrayed -herself in the solitary bonnet and shawl which they possessed between -them, and sallied out for the day to dispose of her wares, while the -other remained in their single room to take care of the children. The -evening meal was bought and brought home by the outgoing friend with the -proceeds of her day’s sales, and then the sheets were redeemed from pawn -at the price of a half-penny each day and gratefully restored to the -proprietor. This ingenious mode of filling five mouths went on, with a -little help, when I came to know of it, in the way of a fresh-filled -basket—for a whole winter. I thought it so curious that I described it -to dear Harriet St. Leger one day when she was passing through Bristol -and spent some hours with me. She was affected almost to tears and -pushed into my hand, at the last moment at the Station, all the silver -in her purse, to give to the friends. The money amounted to 7s. 6d., and -when Harriet was gone I hastened to give it to the poor souls. It proved -to be one of the numerous occasions in life in which I have experienced -a sort of fatality, as if the chance of doing a bit of good to somebody -were offered to us by Providence to take or leave and, if we postpone -taking it, the chance is lost. I was tired, and the room inhabited by -the poor women was, as it happened, at the other end of Bristol, and I -could not indulge myself with a fly, but I reflected that the money now -really belonged to them, and I was bound to take it to them without -delay. When I reached their room I found I was in the very nick of time. -An order had come for the soldier’s wife to present herself at some -military office next day with her children, and with a certain “kit” of -clothes and utensils for the voyage, and if all were right she would be -sent to join her husband’s regiment in India by a vessel to sail -immediately. Without the proper outfit she would not have been taken; -and of course the poor soul had no kit and was in an agony of anxiety. -Harriet’s gift, with some trifling addition, happily supplied all that -was wanted. - -I did not see so much of drunkenness in Bristol as the prominence given -to the subject by many philanthropists led me to expect. Of course I -came across terrible cases of it now and then, as for example a little -boy of ten at our Ragged School who begged Miss Carpenter to let him go -home at mid-day, and on enquiry, it proved that he wanted to _release -his mother_, whom he had locked in, dead-drunk, at nine in the morning. -I also had a frightful experience of the case of the drunken wife of a -poor man dying of agonizing cancer. The doctor who attended him told me -that a little brandy was the only thing to help him, and I brought small -quantities to him frequently, till, when I was leaving home for three -weeks, I thought it best to give a whole bottle to his wife under -injunctions to administer it by proper degrees. Happening to pass by the -door of the wretched couple a day later, before I started, I saw a small -crowd, and asked what had happened? “Mrs. Whale had been drinking and -had fallen down stairs and broken her neck and was dead.” Horror-struck -I mounted the almost perpendicular stair and found it was so; the poor -hapless husband was still alive, and my empty brandy bottle was on the -table. - -The other great form of vice however was thrust much more often on my -notice—the ghastly ruin of the wretched girls who fell into it and the -nameless damnation of the hags and Jews who traded on their souls and -bodies. The cruelty of the fate of some of the young women was often -piteous. Thankful I am that the law for assaults has been made since -those days far more stringent and is oftener put in force. There were -stories which came to my personal knowledge which would draw tears from -many eyes were I to tell them, but the more cruel the wrong done, the -more difficult it generally proved to induce anybody to undertake to -receive the victims into their houses on any terms. - -A gentleman whom I met in Italy, who knew Bristol well, told me he had -watched a poor young sailor’s destruction under the influence of some of -the eighteen hundred miserable women then infesting the city. He had -just been paid off and had received £73 for a long service at sea. Mr. -Empson first saw him in the fangs of two of the wretched creatures, and -next, six weeks later, he found him dying in the Infirmary, having spent -every shilling of his money in drink and debauchery. He told Mr. Empson -that, after the first week, he had never taken any food at all, but -lived only on stimulants. - - - - - CHAPTER - XI. - _BRISTOL._ - _THE SICK IN WORKHOUSES._ - - -My new life on Durdham Down, though solitary, was a very happy one. I -had two nice rooms in Belgrave House (then the last house on the road -opening on the beautiful Downs from the Redland side), wherein a bright, -excellent, pretty widow, Mrs. Stone, kept several suites of lodgings. It -is not often, alas! that the relations of lodger and landlady are -altogether pleasant, but in my case they were eminently so, and resulted -in cordial and permanent mutual regard. My little bedroom opened by a -French window on a balcony leading to a small garden, and beyond it I -had an immense view of Bristol and the surrounding country, over the -smoke of which the rising sun often made Turneresque pictures. My -sitting room had a front and a corner view of the delightful Downs as -far as “Cook’s Folly” and the Nightingale Valley; and often, over the -“Sea Wall,” the setting sun went down in great glory. I walked down -every week-day into Bristol (of course I needed more than ever to -economise, and even the omnibus fare had to be considered), and went -about my various avocations in the schools and workhouse till I could do -no more, when I made my way home as cheaply as I could contrive, to -dinner. I had my dear dog Hajjin, a lovely mouse-coloured Pomeranian, -for companion at all times, and on Sundays we generally treated -ourselves to a good ramble over the Downs and beyond them, perhaps as -far as Kings’-Weston. The whole district is dear to me still. - -The return to fresh air and to something like country life was -delightful. It had been, I must avow, an immense strain on my resolution -to live in Bristol among all the sordid surroundings of Miss Carpenter’s -house; and when once in a way in those days I left them and caught a -glimpse of the country, the effort to force myself back was a hard one. -One soft spring day, I remember, I had gone across the Downs and sat for -half an hour under a certain horse-chestnut tree, which was that day in -all the exquisite beauty of its young green leaves. I felt _this_ was -all I wanted to be happy—merely to live in the beauty and peace of -Nature, as of old at Newbridge; and I reflected that, of course, I -_could_ do it, at once, by breaking off with Miss Carpenter and giving -up my work in hideous Bristol. But, _per contra_, I had concluded that -this work was wanted to be done and that I could do it; and had -seriously given myself to it, believing that so I could best do God’s -will. Thus there went on in my mind for a little while a very stiff -fight, one of those which leave us either stronger or weaker ever after. -_Now_ at last, without any effort on my part, the bond which held me to -live in Red Lodge House, was loosened, and I was able both to go on with -my work in Bristol and also to breathe the fresh air in the morning and -to see the sun rise and set, and often to enjoy a healthful run over -those beautiful Downs. By degrees, also, I made several friendships in -the neighbourhood, some most dear and faithful ones which have lasted -ever since; and many people were very kind to me and helped me in -various ways in my work. I shall speak of these friends in another -chapter. - -One of my superstitions has long been that if any particular task seems -to us at the first outlook specially against the grain, it will -continually happen that in the order of things it comes knocking at our -door and practically saying to our consciences: “Are you going to get up -and do what is wanted, or sit still and please yourself with something -else?” In this guise of disagreeability, workhouse visiting first -presented itself to me. Miss Carpenter frequently mentioned the -workhouse as a place which ought to be looked after; and which she -believed sadly wanted voluntary inspection; but the very name conveyed -to me such an impression of dreary hopelessness that I shrank from the -thought. When St. Paul coupled _Hope_ with Faith and Charity he might -have said “these three are one,” for without the Hope of achieving some -good (or at least of stopping some evil) it is hard to gird ourselves to -any practical exertion for our fellow-creatures. To lift up the criminal -and perishing classes of the community and cut off the root of crime and -vice by training children in morality and religion, this was a -soul-inspiring idea. But to bring a small modicum of cheer to the aged -and miserable paupers, who may be supposed generally to be undergoing -the inevitable penalties of idle or drunken lives, was far from equally -uplifting! However, my first chance-visit to St. Peter’s in Bristol with -Miss Elliot, showed me so much to be done, so many claims to sympathy -and pity, and the sore lack of somebody, unconnected officially with the -place, to meet them, that I at once felt that here I must put in my oar. - -The condition of the English workhouses generally at that period (1859) -was very different from what it is now. I visited many of them in the -following year or two in London and the provincial towns, and _this_ is -what I saw. The sick lay on wretched beds, fit only for able-bodied -tramps, and were nursed mostly by old pauper women of the very lowest -class. The infirm wards were very frequently placed in the worst -possible positions. I remember one (in London) which resounded all day -long with din from an iron-foundry just beneath, so that one could not -hear oneself speak; and another, of which the windows could not be -opened in the hottest weather, because carpets were taken to be beaten -in the court below. The treatment of the pauper children was no less -deplorable. They were joyless, spiritless little creatures, without -“mothering” (as blessed Mrs. Senior said a few years later), without -toys, without the chance of learning anything practical for use in after -life, even to the lighting of a fire or cooking a potato. Their poor -faces were often scarred by disease and half blinded by ophthalmia. The -girls wore the hideous workhouse cotton frocks, not half warm enough to -keep them healthy in those bare, draughty wards, and heavy hob-nailed -shoes which acted like galley-slaves’ bullets on their feet when they -were turned to “play” in a high-walled, sunless yard, which was -sometimes, as I have seen, six inches deep in coarse gravel. As to the -infants, if they happened to have a good motherly matron it was so far -well, though even she (mostly busy elsewhere) could do but little to -make the crabbed old pauper nurses kind and patient. But how often, we -might ask, were the workhouse matrons of those days really kind-hearted -and motherly? Of course they were selected by the gentlemen guardians -(there were no ladies then on the Boards) for quite other merits; and as -Miss Carpenter once remarked to me from the depth of her experience:— - -“_There never yet was man so clever but the Matron of an Institution -could bamboozle him about every department of her business!_” - -I have sat in the Infants’ ward when an entire Board of about two dozen -gentlemen tramped through it, for what they considered to be -“inspection”; and anything more helpless and absurd than those masculine -“authorities” appeared as they glanced at the little cots (never daring -to open one of them) while the awakened babies screamed at them in -chorus, it has seldom been my lot to witness. - -On one occasion I visited an enormous workhouse in a provincial town -where there were nearly 500 sick and infirm patients. The Matron told me -she had but lately been appointed to her post. I said, “It is a -tremendously heavy charge for you, especially with only these pauper -nurses. No doubt you have gone through a course of Hospital training, -and know how to direct everything?” - -“O, dear. No! Madam!” replied the lady with a toss of her cap-strings; -“I never nursed anybody I can assure you, except my ’usband, before I -came here. It was misfortune brought me to this!” - -How many other Masters and Matrons throughout the country received their -appointments with as little fitness for them and simply as favours from -influential or easy-going guardians, who may guess? - -I had at this time become acquainted with the friend whose -comradeship—cemented in the dreary wards of Bristol Workhouse more than -30 years ago—has been ever since one of the great pleasures of my life. -All those who know Miss Elliot, daughter of the late Dean of Bristol, -will admit that it would be very superfluous, not to say impertinent, to -enlarge on the privileges of friendship with her. Miss Elliot was at -that time living at the old Deanery close to Bristol Cathedral, and -taking part in every good work which was going on in the city and -neighbourhood. Among other things she had been teaching regularly for -years in Miss Carpenter’s Reformatory, regardless of the prejudice -against her unitarianism; and one day she called at Miss Carpenter’s -house to ask her what was to be done with Kitty, who had been very -naughty. Miss Carpenter asked her to see the lady who had come to work -with her; and we met for the first time. Miss Elliot begged me to return -her visit, and though nothing was further from my mind at that time than -to enter into anything like society, I was tempted by the great -attractions of my brilliant young friend and her sister and of the witty -and wide-minded Dean, and before long (especially after I went to live -alone) I enjoyed much intercourse with the delightful household. - -Miss Elliot had been in the habit of visiting a poor old woman named -Mrs. Buckley, who had formerly lived close to the Deanery and had been -removed to the workhouse; and one day she asked me to accompany her on -her errand. This being over, I wandered off to the various wards where -other poor women, and also the old and invalid men, spent their dreary -days, and soon perceived how large a field was open for usefulness in -the place. - -The first matter which occupied us was the condition of the sick and -infirm paupers; first of the women only; later of both men and women. -The good Master and Matron admitted us quite freely to the wards, and we -saw and knew everything which was going on. St. Peter’s was an -exceptional workhouse in many respects. The house was evidently at one -time (about A.D. 1600, like Red Lodge) the mansion of some merchant -prince of Bristol, erected in the midst of the city. The outer walls are -still splendid specimens of old English wood and stonework; and, within, -the Board-room exhibits still a magnificent chimney-piece. The larger -part of the building, however, has been pulled about and fashioned into -large wards, with oak-beamed rafters on the upper floor, and intricate -stairs and passages in all directions. Able-bodied paupers and casuals -were lodged elsewhere (at Stapleton Workhouse) and were not admitted -here. There were only the sick, the aged, the infirm, the insane and -epileptic patients and lying-in women. - -Here are some notes of the inmates of this place by Miss Elliot:— - - - “1. An old woman of nearly 80, and as I thought beyond power of - understanding me. Once however when I was saying ‘good-bye’ before an - absence of some months, I was attracted by her feeble efforts to catch - my attention. She took my hand and gasped out ‘God bless you; you wont - find me when you come back. Thank you for coming.’ I said most truly - that I had never been any good to her, and how sorry I was I had never - spoken to her. ‘Oh, but I see your face; it is always a great pleasure - and seems bright. I was praying for you last night. I don’t sleep much - of a night. I thank you for coming.’... 2. A woman between fifty and - sixty dying of liver disease. She had been early left a widow, had - struggled bravely, and reared her son so well that he became foreman - at one of the first printing establishments in the city. His master - gave us an excellent character of him. The poor mother unhappily had - some illness which long confined her in another hospital, and when she - left it her son was dead; dead without her care in his last hours. The - worn-out and broken-down mother, too weak and hopeless to work any - longer, came to her last place of refuge in the workhouse. There, day - by day, we found her sitting on the side of her bed, reading and - trying to talk cheerfully, but always breaking down utterly when she - came to speak of her son. 3. Opposite to her an old woman of ninety - lies, too weak to sit up. One day, not thinking her asleep, I went to - her bedside. I shall never forget the start of joy, the eager hand, - ‘Oh, Mary, Mary, you are come! Is it you at last?’ ‘Ah, poor dear,’ - said the women round her, ‘she most always dreams of Mary. ’Tis her - daughter, ladies, in London; she has written to her often, but don’t - get any answer.’ The poor old woman made profuse apologies for her - mistake, and laid her head wearily on the pillow where she had rested - and dreamed, literally for years, of Mary. - - “4. Further on is a girl of sixteen, paralyzed hopelessly for life. - She had been maid-of-all-work in a family of twelve, and under her - fearful drudgery had broken down thus early. ‘Oh, ma’am,’ she said - with bursts of agony, ‘I did work; I was always willing to work, if - God would let me; I did work while I could, but I shall never get - well; Never!’ Alas, she may live as long as the poor cripple who died - here last summer, after lying forty-six years in the same bed, gazing - on the same blank, white wall. 5. The most cheerful woman in the ward - is one who can never rise from her bed; but she is a good needlewoman, - and is constantly employed in making _shrouds_. It would seem as if - the dismal work gave her an interest in something outside the ward, - and she is quite eager when the demand for her manufacture is - especially great! - - “In the Surgical Ward are some eight or ten patients; all in painful - diseases. One is a young girl dying of consumption, complicated with - the most awful wounds on her poor limbs. ‘But they don’t hurt so bad,’ - she says, ‘as any one would think who looked at them; and it will soon - be all over. I was just thinking it was four years to-day since I was - brought into the Penitentiary,’ (it was after an attempt to drown - herself after a sad life at Aldershot); ‘and now I have been here - three years. God has been very good to me, and brought me safe when I - didn’t deserve it.’ Over her head stands a print of the Lost Sheep, - and she likes to have that parable read to her. Very soon that sweet, - fair young face, as innocent as I have ever seen in the world, will - bear no more marks of pain. Life’s whole tragedy will have been ended, - and she is only just nineteen!” - - [A few weeks later, on Easter Sunday morning when the rising sun was - shining into the curtainless ward, the few patients who were awake saw - this poor girl, who had not been able to raise herself or sit upright - for many weeks, suddenly start forward, sitting straight up in bed - with her arms lifted and an expression of ecstacy on her face, and - something like a cry of joy on her lips. Then she fell back, and all - was over. The incident, which was in every way striking and affecting, - helped me to recall the conviction (set forth in my _Peak in Darien_), - that the dying do, sometimes, catch a glimpse of blessed friends - waiting for them on the threshold.] - - “A little way off lies a woman dying in severest sufferings which have - lasted long, and may yet last for weeks. Such part of her poor face as - may be seen expresses almost angelic patience and submission, and the - little she can say is all of gratitude to God and man. On the box - beside her bed there stands usually a cup with a few flowers, or even - leaves or weeds—something to which, in the midst of that sickening - disease, she can look for beauty. When we bring her flowers her - pleasure is almost too affecting to witness. She says she remembers - when she used to climb the hedge rows to gather them in the ‘beautiful - country.’” - - -Among the few ways open to us of relieving the miseries of these sick -wards and of the parallel ones on the other side occupied by male -sufferers, were the following:—The introduction of a few easy chairs -with cushions for those who could sit by the fire in winter, and whose -thinly-clothed frames could not bear the benches. Also bed-rests,—long -knitted ones, fastened to the lower posts of the bed and passed behind -the patient’s back, so as to form a kind of sitting hammock,—very great -comforts where there is only one small bolster or pillow and the patient -wants to sit up in bed. Occasionally we gave little packets of good tea; -workhouse tea at that time being almost too nauseous to drink. We also -brought pictures to hang on the walls. These we bought coloured and -cheaply framed or varnished. Their effect upon the old women, especially -pictures of children, was startling. One poor soul who had been lying -opposite the same blank wall for twenty years, when I laid one of the -coloured engravings on her bed preparatory to hanging it before her, -actually _kissed_ the face of the little child in the picture, and burst -into tears. - -Further, we brought a canary in a cage to hang in the window. This seems -an odd gift, but it was so successful that I believe the good visitors -who came after us have maintained a series of canaries ever since our -time. The common interest excited by the bird brought friendliness and -cheerfulness among the poor old souls, some of whom had kept up “a -coolness” for years while living next to one another on their beds! The -sleepless ones gloried in the summer-morning-song of Dicky, and every -poor visitor, daughter or granddaughter, was sure to bring a handful of -groundsel to the general rejoicing of Dicky’s friends. Of course, we -also brought flowers whenever we could contrive it; or a little summer -fruit or winter apples. - -Lastly, Books, magazines, and simple papers of various kinds; such as -_Household Words_, _Chambers’ Magazine_, &c. These were eagerly borrowed -and exchanged, especially among the men. Nothing could be more dreary -than the lives of those who were not actually suffering from any acute -malady but were paralysed or otherwise disabled from work. I remember a -ship-steward who had been struck with hemiplegia, and had spent the -savings of his life time—no less than £800,—in futile efforts at cure. -Another was a once-smart groom whom my friend exhorted to patience and -thankfulness. “Yes, Ma’am,” he replied promptly, “I will be _very_ -thankful,—when I get out!” - -As an example of the kind of way in which every sort of wretchedness -drains into a workhouse and of what need there is for someone to watch -for it there, I may record how we one day perceived at the far end of a -very large ward a figure not at all of the normal workhouse stamp,—an -unmistakeable gentleman,—sitting on the side of his bed. With some -diffidence we offered him the most recent and least childish of our -literature. He accepted the papers graciously, and we learnt from the -Master that the poor man had been found on the Downs a few days before -with his throat cut; happily not irreparably. He had come from Australia -to Europe to dispute some considerable property, and had lost both his -lawsuit and the friendship of all his English relatives, and was -starving, and totally unable to pay his passage back to his wife and -children at the Antipodes. We got up a little subscription, and the good -Freemasons, finding him to be a Brother, did the rest, and sent him home -across the seas, rejoicing, and with his throat mended! - -But the cases of the _incurable_ poor weighed heavily on us, and as we -studied it more, we came to see how exceedingly piteous is their -destiny. We found that it is not an accidental misfortune, but a regular -descent down the well-worn channels of Poverty, Disease and Death, for -men and women to go to one or other of the 270 hospitals for _curable_ -patients which then existed in England (there must be many more now), -and after a longer or shorter sojourn, to be pronounced “incurable,” -destined perhaps to linger for a year or several years, but to die -inevitably from Consumption, Cancer or some other of the dreadful -maladies which afflict human nature. What then becomes of them? Their -homes, if they had any before going into the hospital, are almost sure -to be too crowded to receive them back, or too poor to supply them with -both support and nursing for months of helplessness. There is no -resource for them but the workhouse, and there they sink down, hopeless -and miserable; the hospital comforts of good beds and furniture and -carefully prepared food and skilled nurses all lost, and only the hard -workhouse bed to lie, and _die_ upon. The burst of agony with which many -a poor creature has told me: “I am sent here because I am incurable,” -remains one of the saddest of my memories. - -Miss Elliot’s keen and practical mind turned over the problem of how -this misery could be in some degree alleviated. There was no use in -trying to get sufficient Hospitals for Incurables opened to meet the -want. There were only two at that time in England, and they received (as -they do now) a rather different class from those with whom we are -concerned; namely, the deformed and permanently diseased. At the lowest -rate of £30 a year it would have needed £900,000 a year to house the -30,000 patients whom we should have wished to take from the workhouses. -The only possible plan was to improve their condition _in_ the -workhouses; and this we fondly hoped might be done (without burdening -the ratepayers) by our plan, which was as follows:— - -That the incurables in workhouses should be avowedly distinguished from -other paupers, and separate wards be allowed to them. That into those -wards private charity be freely admitted and permitted to introduce, -with the sanction of the medical officer, such comforts as would -alleviate the sufferings of the inmates, _e.g._, good spring beds, or -air beds; easy-chairs, air-cushions, small refreshments such as good tea -and lemons and oranges (often an immense boon to the sick); also snuff, -cough lozenges, spectacles, flowers in the window, books and papers; -and, above all, kindly visitors. - -The plan was approved by a great many experienced men and women; and, as -it would not have added a shilling anywhere to the rates, we were very -hopeful that it might be generally adopted. Several pamphlets which we -wrote, “_The Workhouse as a Hospital_,” “_Destitute Incurables_,” and -the “_Sick in Workhouses_,” and “_Remarks on Incurables_,” were widely -circulated. The newspapers were very kind, and leaders or letters giving -us a helping hand were inserted in nearly all, except the _Saturday -Review_, which refused even one of its own regular contributors’ -requests to introduce the subject. I wrote an article called _Workhouse -Sketches_ for Macmillan’s Magazine, dealing with the whole subject, and -begged that it might be inserted gratuitously. To my delight the editor, -Mr. Masson, wrote to me the following kind letter which I have kept -among my pleasant souvenirs:— - - - “23, Henrietta Street, - “Covent Garden, - “February 18th, 1861. - - “Dear Madam, - - “As soon as possible in this part of the month, when there is much to - do with the forthcoming number, I have read your paper. Having an - almost countless number of MSS. in hand, I greatly feared I might, - though very reluctantly, be compelled to return it, but the reading of - it has so convinced me of the great importance of arousing interest in - the subject, and the paper itself is so touching, that I think I - ought, with whatever difficulty, to find a place for it.... - - “In any case accept my best thanks for the opportunity of reading so - admirable and powerful an experience; and allow me to express my - regret that I had not the pleasure of meeting you at Mrs. Reid’s. - - “I am, dear Madam, - “Yours very truly, - “DAVID MASSON. - - “Miss Frances Power Cobbe. - - - “Should you object to your name appearing in connexion with this - paper? It is our usual practice.” - - -The paper appeared and soon after, to my equal astonishment and delight, -came a cheque for £14. It was the first money I had ever earned and when -I had cashed the cheque I held the sovereigns in my hand and tossed them -with a sense of pride and satisfaction which the gold of the Indies, if -gained by inheritance, would not have given me! Naturally I went down -straight to St. Peter’s and gave the poor old souls such a tea as had -not been known before in the memory of the “oldest inhabitant.” - -We also printed, and ourselves directed and posted circulars to the 666 -Unions which then existed in England. We received a great many friendly -letters in reply, and promises of help from Guardians in carrying out -our plan. A certain number of Unions, I think 15, actually adopted it -and set it going. We also induced the Social Science people, then very -active and influential, to take it up, and papers on it were read at the -Congresses in Glasgow and Dublin; the latter by myself. The Hon. Sec. -(then the young poetess Isa Craig) wrote to me as follows: - - - “National Association - “For the Promotion of Social Science, - “3, Waterloo Place, Pall Mall, - “28th December, 1860. - - “Dear Miss Cobbe, - - “The case of the poor ‘incurables’ is truly heartrending. I cried over - the proof of your paper—a queer proceeding on the part of the - Sub-editor of the Social Science Transactions, but I hope an earnest - of the sympathy your noble appeal shall meet with wherever our volume - goes, setting in action the roused sense of humanity and _justice_ to - remedy such bitter wrong and misery. - - “Yours sincerely, - “ISA CRAIG.” - - -A weightier testimony was that of the late Master of Balliol. The -following letters from him on the subject are, I think, very -characteristic and charming:— - - - “Coll. de Ball., Oxon. - “Hawhead, near Selkirk, - “Sept. 24th. - - “Dear Miss Cobbe, - - “I am very much obliged to you for sending me the extract from the - newspaper which contains the plan for Destitute Incurables. I entirely - agree in the object and greatly like the touching and simple manner in - which you have described it. - - “The only thing that occurs to me in passing is whether the system of - outdoor relief to incurables should not also be extended? Many would - still require to be received into the house (I do not wish in any - degree to take away from the poor the obligation to support their - Incurables outdoors, and it is, perhaps, better to trust to the - natural human pity of a cottage than to the better attendance, warmth, - &c., of a workhouse). But I daresay you are right in sticking to a - simple point. - - “All the world seems to be divided into Political Economists, Poor Law - Commissioners, Guardians, Policemen, and Philanthropists, Enthusiasts, - and Christian Socialists. Is there not a large intermediate ground - which anyone who can write might occupy, and who could combine a real - knowledge of the problems to be solved with the enthusiasm which - impels a person to devote their life to solving them? - - “The way would be to hide the philanthropy altogether as a weakness of - the flesh; and sensible people would then be willing to listen. - - “I entirely like the plan and wish it success.... - - “I am afraid that I am not likely to have an opportunity of making the - scheme known. But if you have any other objects in which I can help - you I shall think it a great pleasure to do so. - - “Remember me most kindly to the Dean and his daughters. I thought they - were not going to banish themselves to Cannes. Wherever they are I - cannot easily forget them. - - “I hope you enjoy Garibaldi’s success. It is one of the very few - public events that seem to make life happier. - - “Believe me, with sincere respect, - “Yours truly, - “B. JOWETT.” - - - “Coll. de Ball., Oxon. - - “Dear Miss Cobbe, - - “I write a line to thank you for the little pamphlet you have sent me - which I read and like very much. - - “There is no end of good that you may do by writing in that simple and - touching style upon social questions. - - “But don’t go to war with Political Economy. 1st. Because the P. E.’s - are a powerful and dangerous class. 2nd. Because it is impossible for - ladies and gentlemen to fill up the interstices of legislation if they - run counter to the common motives of self-interest. 3rd. (You won’t - agree to this) Because the P. E.’s have really done more for the - labouring classes by their advocacy of free trade, &c., than all the - Philanthropists put together. - - “I wish that it were possible as a matter of taste to get rid of all - philanthropic expressions, ‘missions, &c.,’ which are distasteful to - the educated. But I suppose they are necessary for the Collection of - Money. And no doubt as a matter of taste there is a good deal that - might be corrected in the Political Economists. - - “The light of the feelings never teaches the best way of dealing with - the world _en masse_ and the dry light never finds its way to the - heart either of man or beast. - - “You see I want all the humanities combined with Political Economy. - Perhaps, it may be replied that such a combination is not possible in - human nature. - - “Excuse my speculations and believe me in haste, - - “Yours very truly, - “B. JOWETT.” - - -About the same time that we began to visit the Bristol work house, Miss -Louisa Twining bravely undertook a systematic reform of the whole system -throughout the country. It was an enormous task, but she had great -energy, and a fund of good sense; and with the support of Lord -Mount-Temple (then Hon. William Cowper-Temple), Mrs. Tait, and several -other excellent and influential persons, she carried out a grand -reformation through the length and breadth of the land. Her _Workhouse -Visiting Society_, and the monthly _Journal_ she edited as its organ, -brought by degrees good sense and good feeling quietly and -unostentatiously to bear on the Boards of Guardians and their officials -all over the country, and one abuse after another was disclosed, -discussed, condemned, and finally, in most cases abolished. I went up -for a short visit to London at one time on purpose to learn all I could -from _General_ Twining (as I used to call her), and then returned to -Bristol. I have been gratified to read in her charming _Recollections_ -published last year (1893), that in her well-qualified judgment Miss -Elliot’s work and mine was really the beginning of much that has -subsequently been done for the sick and for workhouse girls. She says: - - - “In 1861[16] began the consideration of ‘Destitute Incurables,’ which - was in its results to bring forth such a complete reform in the care - of the sick in Workhouses, or at least I am surely justified in - considering it one of the good seeds sown, which brought forth fruit - in due season. One of the first to press the claims of these helpless - ones on the notice of the public, who were, almost universally, - utterly ignorant of their existence and their needs, was Frances Power - Cobbe, who was then introduced to me; she lived near Bristol, and with - her friend Miss Elliot, also of that place, had long visited the - workhouse, and become acquainted with the inmates, helping more - especially the school children, and befriending the girls after they - went to service. This may be said to be one of the first beginnings of - all those efforts now so largely developed by more than one society - expressly for this object. - - “I accompanied Miss Cobbe to the St. Giles’s Schools and to the - Strand, West London, and Holborn Unions, and to the Hospital for - Incurables at Putney, in aid of her plans.”—_Recollections_, p. 170. - - -While our plan for the Incurables was still in progress, I was obliged -to spend a winter in Italy for my health, and on my way I went over the -Hotel Dieu and the Salpêtrière in Paris, and several hospitals in Italy, -to learn how best to treat this class of sufferers. I did not gain much. -There were no arrangements that I noticed as better or more humane than -our own, and in many cases they seemed to be worse. In particular the -proximity of infectious with other cases in the Hotel Dieu was a great -evil. I was examining the bed of a poor victim of rheumatism when, on -looking a few feet across the floor, I beheld the most awful case of -small-pox which could be conceived. Both in Paris, Florence and the -great San-Spirito Hospital in Rome, the nurses, who in those days all -were Sisters of Charity, seemed to me very heartless; proud of their -tidy cupboards full of lint and bandages, but very indifferent to their -patients. Walking a little in advance of one of them in Florence, I came -into a ward where a poor woman was lying in a bed behind the door, in -the last “agony.” A label at the foot of her bed bore the inscription -“_Olio Santo_,” showing that her condition had been observed—yet there -was no friendly breast on which the poor creature’s head could rest, no -hand to wipe the deathsweats from her face. I called hastily to the Nun -for help, but she replied with great coolness, “_Ci vuole del cotone!_” -and seemed astonished when I used my own handkerchief. In San-Spirito -the doctor who conducted me, and who was personally known to me, told me -he would rather have our English pauper nurses than the Sisters. This, -however, may have been a choice grounded on other reasons beside -humanity to the patients. At the terrible hospital “degli Incurabili,” -in the via de’ Greci, Rome, I saw fearful cases of disease (cancer, -&c.), receiving so little comfort in the way of diet that the wretched -creatures rose all down the wards, literally _screaming_ to me for money -to buy food, coffee, and so on. I asked the Sister, “Had they no lady -visitors?” “O yes: there was the Princess So and so, and the Countess So -and so, saintly ladies, who came once a week or once a month.” “Then do -they not provide the things these poor souls want?” “No, Signora, they -don’t do that.” “Then, in Heaven’s name, what do they come to do for -them?” It was some moments before I could be made to understand, “_Per -pettinarle, Signora!_”—To comb their hair! The task was so disgusting -that the great ladies came on purpose to perform it as a work of merit; -for the good of their _own_ souls! - -The saddest sight which I ever beheld, however, I think was not in these -Italian hospitals but in the Salpêtrière in Paris. As I was going round -the wards with a Sister, I noticed on a bed opposite us a very handsome -woman lying with her head a little raised and her marble neck somewhat -exposed, while her arms lay rigidly on each side out of the bed-clothes. -“What is the matter with that patient?” I asked. Before the Nun could -tell me that, (except in her head,) she was completely paralyzed, there -came in response to me an unearthly, inarticulate cry like that of an -animal in agony; and I understood that the hapless creature was trying -to call me. I went and stood over her and her eyes burnt into mine with -the hungry eagerness of a woman famishing for sympathy and comfort in -her awful affliction. She was a _living statue_; unable even to speak, -much less to move hand or foot; yet still young; not over thirty I -should think, and likely to live for years on that bed! The horror of -her fate and the piteousness of the appeal in her eyes, and her -inarticulate moans and cries, completely broke me down. I poured out all -I could think of to say to comfort her, of prayer and patience and -eternal hope; and at last was releasing her hand which I had been -holding, and on which my tears had been falling fast,—when I felt a -thrill run down her poor stiffened arm. It was the uttermost efforts she -could make, striving with all her might to return my pressure. - -In recent years I have heard of “scientific experiments” conducted by -the late Dr. Charcot and a coterie of medical men, upon the patients of -the Salpêtrière. When I have read of these, I have thought of that -paralyzed woman with dread lest she might be yet alive to suffer; and -with indignation against the Science which counts cases like these of -uttermost human affliction, “interesting” subjects for investigation! - -Some years after this time, hearing of the great Asylum designed by Mr. -Holloway, I made an effort to bring influence from many quarters to bear -on him to induce him to change its destination at that early stage, and -make it the much-needed Home for Incurables. Many ladies and gentlemen -whose names I hoped would carry weight with him, were kindly willing to -write to him on the subject. Among them was the Hon. Mrs. Monsell, then -Lady Superior of Clewer. Her letter to me on the subject was so wise -that I have preserved it. Mr. Holloway, however, was inexorable. Would -to Heaven that some other millionaire, instead of spending tens of -thousands on Palaces of Delight and places of public amusement, would -take to heart the case of those most wretched of human beings, the -Destitute Incurables, who are still sent every year by thousands to die -in the workhouses of England and Ireland with scarcely one of the -comforts which their miserable condition demands. - - - “House of Mercy, - “Clewer, - “Windsor. - - “Madam, - - “I have read your letter with much interest, and have at once - forwarded it to Mrs. Wellesley, asking her to show it to Princess - Christian, and also to speak to Mrs. Gladstone. - - “I have no doubt that a large sum of money would be better expended on - an _Incurable_ than on a _Convalescent_ Hospital. It would be wiser - not to congregate so many Convalescents. For _Incurables_, under good - management and liberal Christian teaching, it would not signify how - many were gathered together, provided the space were large enough for - the work. - - “By ‘liberal Christian teaching’ I mean, that, while I presume Mr. - Holloway would make it a Church of England Institution, Roman - Catholics ought to have the comfort of free access from their own - teachers. - - “An Incurable Hospital without the religious element fairly - represented, and the blessing which Religion brings to each - individually, would be a miserable desolation. But there should be the - most entire freedom of conscience allowed to each, in what, if that - great sum were expended, must become a National Institution. - - “I earnestly hope Mr. Holloway will take the subject of the needs of - Incurables into consideration. In our own Hospital, at St. Andrew’s, - and St. Raphael’s, Torquay, we shrink from turning out our dying - cases, and yet it does not do to let them die in the wards with - convalescent patients. Few can estimate the misery of the incurable - cases; and the expense connected with the nursing is so great, it is - not easy for private benevolence to provide Incurable Hospitals on a - small scale. Besides, they need room for classification. The truth is, - an Incurable Hospital is a far more difficult machine to work than a - Convalescent; and so the work, if well done, would be far nobler. - - “Believe me, Madam, - “Yours faithfully, - “H. MONSELL. - - “June 23rd, 1874.” - - -In concluding these observations generally on the _Sick in Workhouses_ I -should like to offer to humane visitors one definite result of my own -experience. “Do not imagine that what will best cheer the poor souls -will be _your_ conversation, however well designed to entertain or -instruct them. That which will really brighten their dreary lives is, to -be _made to talk themselves_, and to enjoy the privilege of a good -listener. Draw them out about their old homes in ‘the beautiful -country,’ as they always call it; or in whatever town sheltered them in -childhood. Ask about their fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters, -everything connected with their early lives, and tell them if possible -any late news about the place and people connected therewith by ever so -slight a thread. But before all things make THEM talk; and show yourself -interested in what they say.” - - - - - CHAPTER - XII. - _BRISTOL._ - _WORKHOUSE GIRLS._ - - -Beside the poor sick and aged people in the Workhouse, the attention of -Miss Elliot and myself was much drawn to the girls who were sent out -from thence to service on attaining (about) their sixteenth year. On all -hands, and notably from Miss Twining and from some excellent Irish -philanthropists, we heard the most deplorable reports of the -incompetence of the poor children to perform the simplest duties of -domestic life, and their consequent dismissal from one place after -another till they ended in ruin. It was stated at the time (1862), on -good authority, that, on tracing the subsequent history of 80 girls who -had been brought up in a single London Workhouse, _every one_ was found -to be on the streets! In short these hapless “children of the State,” as -my friend Miss Florence Davenport Hill most properly named them, seemed -at that time as if they were being trained on purpose to fall into a -life of sin; having nothing to keep them out of it,—no friends, no -affections, no homes, no training for any kind of useful labour, no -habits of self-control or self-guidance. - -It was never realized by the _men_ (who, in those days, alone managed -our pauper system) that girls cannot be trained _en masse_ to be general -servants, nurses, cooks, or anything else. The strict routine, the vast -half-furnished wards, the huge utensils and furnaces of a large -workhouse, have too little in common with the ways of family life and -the furniture of a common kitchen, to furnish any sort of practising -ground for household service. The Report of the Royal Commission on -Education, issued about that time, concluded that Workhouse Schools -leave the pauper taint on the children, _but_ “that District and -separate schools give an education to the children contained in them -which effectually tends to emancipate them from pauperism.” Accordingly, -the vast District schools, containing each the children from many -Unions, was then in full blast, and the girls were taught extremely well -to read, write and cipher; but were neither taught to cook for any -ordinary household, or to scour, or sweep, or nurse, or serve the -humblest table. What was far more deplorable, they were not, and could -not be, taught to love or trust any human being, since no one loved or -cared for them; or to exercise even so much self-control as should help -them to forbear from stealing lumps of sugar out of the first bowl left -in their way. “But,” we may be told, “they received excellent religious -instruction!” Let any one try to realize the idea of God which any child -can possibly reach _who has never been loved_; and he will then perhaps -rightly estimate the value of such “religious instruction” in a dreary -pauper school. I have never quite seen the force of the argument “If a -man love not his neighbour whom he hath seen, how shall he love God whom -he hath not seen?” But the converse is very clear. “If a man _hath not -been beloved_ by his neighbour or his parents, how shall he believe in -the Love of the invisible God?” Religion is a plant which grows and -flourishes in an atmosphere of a certain degree of warmth and softness, -but not in the Frozen Zone of lovelessness, wherein is no sweetness, no -beauty, no tenderness. - -How to prevent the girls who left Bristol workhouse from falling into -the same gulf as the unhappy ones in London, occupied very much the -thoughts of Miss Elliot and her sister (afterwards Mrs. Montague -Blackett) and myself, in 1851 and 1860–61. Our friend, Miss Sarah -Stephen (daughter of Sergeant Stephen, niece of Sir James), then -residing in Clifton, had for some time been working successfully a -Preventive Mission for the poorer class of girls in Bristol; with a good -motherly old woman as her agent to look after them. This naturally -helped us to an idea which developed itself into the following plan— - -Miss Elliot and her sister, as I have said, resided at that time with -their father at the old Bristol Deanery, close to the Cathedral in -College Green. This house was known to every one in the city, which was -a great advantage at starting. A Sunday afternoon School for workhouse -girls only, was opened by the two kind and wise sisters; and soon -frequented by a happy little class. The first step in each case (which -eventually fell chiefly to my share of the business) was to receive -notice from the Workhouse of the address of every girl when sent out to -her first service, and thereupon to go at once and call on her new -mistress, and ask her permission for the little servant’s attendance at -the Deanery Class. As Miss Eliott wrote most truly, in speaking of the -need of haste in this preliminary visit— - - - “There are few times in a girl’s life when kindness is more valued by - her, or more necessary to her, than when she is taken from the shelter - and routine of school life and plunged suddenly and alone into a new - struggling world full of temptations and trials. That this is the - turning point in the life of many I feel confident, and I think delay - in beginning friendly intercourse most dangerous; they, like other - human beings, will seek friends of some kind. We found them very ready - to take good ones if the chance were offered, and, as it seemed, - grateful for such chance. But good friends failing them, they will - most assuredly find bad ones.”—(_Workhouse Girls. Notes by M. Elliot_, - p. 7.) - - -As a rule the mistresses, who were all of the humbler sort and of course -persons of good reputation, seemed to welcome my rather intrusive visit -and questions, which were, of course, made with every possible courtesy. -A little by-play about the insufficient outfit given by the Workhouse, -and an offer of small additional adornments for Sundays, was generally -well received; and the happy fact of having such an ostensibly and -unmistakeably respectable address for the Sunday school, secured many -assents which might otherwise have been denied. The mistresses were -generally in a state of chronic vexation at their little servants’ -stupidity and incompetence; and on this head I could produce great -effect by inveighing against the useless Workhouse education. There was -often difficulty in getting leave of absence for the girls on Sunday -afternoon, but with the patience and good humour of the teachers (who -gave their lessons to as many or as few as came to them), there was -always something of a class, and the poor girls themselves were most -eager to lose no chance of attending. - -A little reading of _Pilgrim’s Progress_ and other good books: more -explanations and talk; much hymn singing and repeating of hymns learned -during the week; and a penny banking account,—such were some of the -devices of the kind teachers to reach the hearts of their little pupils. -And very effectually they did so, as the 30 letters which they wrote -between them to Miss Elliot when she, or they, left Bristol, amply -testified. Here is one of these epistles; surely a model of prudence and -candour on the occasion of the approaching marriage of the writer! The -back-handed compliment to the looks of her betrothed is specially -delightful. - - - “You pointed out one thing in your kind letter, that to be sure that - the young man was steady. I have been with him now two years, and I - hope I know his failings; and I can say I have never known any one so - steady and trustworthy as he is. I might have bettered myself as - regards the outside looks; but, dear Madam, I think of the future, and - what my home would be then; and perhaps if I married a gay man, I - should always be unhappy. But John has a kind heart, and all he thinks - of is to make others happy; and I hope I shall never have a cause to - regret my choice, and I will try and do my best to do my duty, so that - one day you may see me comfortable. Dear Madam, I cannot thank you - enough for your kindness to me.” - - -The whole experiment was marvellously successful. Nearly all the poor -children seemed to have been improved in various ways as well as -certainly made happier by their Sundays at the Deanery, and not one of -them, I believe, turned out ill afterwards or fell into any serious -trouble. Many of them married respectably. In short it proved to be a -good plan, which we have had no hesitation in recommending ever since. -Eventually it was taken up by humane ladies in London, and there it -slowly developed into the now imposing society with the long name -(commonly abbreviated into M.A.B.Y.S.) the _Metropolitan Association for -Befriending Young Servants_. Two or three years ago when I attended and -spoke at the annual meeting of this large body, with the Lord Mayor of -London in the chair and a Bishop to address us, it seemed very -astonishing and delightful to Miss Elliot and me that our small -beginnings of thirty years before should have swelled to such an -assembly! - -My experience of the wrongs and perils of young servant girls, acquired -during my work as _Whipper-in_ to the Deanery class, remains a painful -memory, and supplies strong arguments in favour of extending some such -protection to such girls generally. Some cases of oppression and -injustice on the part of mistresses (themselves, no doubt, poor and -over-strained, and not unnaturally exasperated by their poor little -slave’s incompetence) were very cruel. I heard of one case which had -occurred just before we began our work, wherein the girl had been left -in charge of a small shop. A man came in out of the street, and seeing -only this helpless child of fifteen behind the counter, laid hands on -something (worth sixpence as it proved) and walked off with it without -payment. When the mistress returned the girl told her what had happened, -whereupon she and her husband stormed and scolded; and eventually -_turned the girl out of the house_! This was at nine o’clock at night, -in one of the lowest parts of Bristol, and the unhappy girl had not a -shilling in her possession. A murder would scarcely have been more -wicked. - -Sometimes the mistresses sent their servants away without paying them -any wages at all, making up their accounts in a style like this: “I owe -you five and sixpence; but you broke my teapot, which was worth three -shillings; and you burnt a tablecover worth two, and broke two plates -and a saucer, and lost a spoon, and I gave you an old pair of boots, -worth at least eighteen-pence, so _you owe me_ half-a-crown; and if you -don’t go away quietly I’ll call the police and give you in charge!” The -mere name of the police would inevitably terrify the poor little drudge -into submission to her oppressor. That the law could ever _defend_ and -not punish her would be quite outside her comprehension. - -The wretched holes under stairs, or in cellars, or garrets, where these -girls were made to sleep, were often most unhealthy; and their exposure -to cold, with only the thin workhouse cotton frock, leaving arms and -neck bare, was cruel in winter. One day I had an example of this, not -easily to be forgotten. I had just received notice that a girl of -sixteen had been sent from the workhouse (Bristol or Clifton, I forget -which) to a place in St. Philip’s, at the far end of Bristol. It was a -snowy day but I walked to the place with the same odd conviction over me -of which I have spoken, that I was bound to go at _once_. When I reached -the house, I found it was one a little above the usual class for -workhouse-girl servants and had an area. The snow was falling fast, and -as I knocked I looked down into the area and saw a girl in her cotton -dress standing out at a wash-tub;—head, neck and arms all bare, and the -snow falling on them with the bitter wind eddying through the area. -Presently the door was opened and there stood the girl, in such a -condition of bronchitis as I hardly ever saw in my life. When the -mistress appeared I told her civilly that I was very sorry, but that the -girl was in mortal danger of inflammation of the lungs and _must_ be put -to bed immediately. “O, that was entirely out of the question.” “But it -_must_ be done,” I said. Eventually after much angry altercation, the -woman consented to my fetching a fly, putting the girl into it, driving -with her to the Infirmary (for which I had always tickets) and leaving -her there in charge of a friendly doctor. Next day when I called to -enquire, he told me she could scarcely have lived after another hour of -exposure, and that she could recover only by the most stringent and -immediate treatment. It was another instance of the verification of my -superstition. - -Of course we tried to draw attention generally to the need for some -supervision of the poor Workhouse girls throughout the country. I wrote -and read at a Social Science Congress a paper on “_Friendless Girls and -How to Help them_,” giving a full account of Miss Stephen’s admirable -_Preventive Mission_; and this I had reason to hope, aroused some -interest. Several years later Miss Elliot wrote a charming little book -with full details about her girls and their letters; “_Workhouse Girls; -Notes of an attempt to help them_,” published by Nisbet. Also we managed -to get numerous articles and letters into newspapers touching on -Workhouse abuses and needs generally. Miss Elliot having many -influential friends was able to do a great deal in the way of getting -our ideas put before the public. I used to write my papers after coming -home in the evening and often late into the night. Sometimes, when I was -very anxious that something should go off by the early morning mail, I -got out of the side window of my sitting-room at two or three o’clock -and walked the half-mile to the solitary post-office near the _Black -Boy_ (Pillar posts were undreamed of in those days), and then climbed in -at the window again, to sleep soundly! - -Some years afterwards I wrote in _Fraser’s Magazine_ and later again -republished in my _Studies: Ethical and Social_, a somewhat elaborate -article on the _Philosophy of the Poor Laws_ as I had come to understand -it after my experience at Bristol. This paper was so fortunate as to -fall in the way of an Australian philanthropic gentleman, President of a -Royal Commission to enquire into the question of Pauper legislation in -New South Wales. He, (Mr. Windeyer,) approved of several of my -suggestions and recommended them in the Report of his Commission, and -eventually procured their embodiment in the laws of the Colony. - -The following is one of several letters which I received from him on the -subject. - - - “Chambers, - “Sydney, - “June 6th, 1874. - - “My Dear Madam, - - “Though personally unknown to you I take the liberty as a warm admirer - of your writings, to which I owe so much both of intellectual - entertainment and profoundest spiritual comfort, to send you herewith - a copy of a Report upon the Public Charities of New South Wales, - brought up by a Royal Commission of which I was the President. I may - add that the document was written by me; and that my brother - Commissioners did me the honour of adopting it without any alteration. - As the views to which I have endeavoured to give expression have been - so eloquently advocated by you, I have ventured to hope that my - attempt to give practical expression to them in this Colony may not be - without interest to you, as the first effort made in this young - country to promulgate sounder and more philosophic views as to the - training of pauper children. - - “In your large heart the feeling _Homo sum_ will, I think, make room - for some kindly sympathy with those who, far off, in a small - provincial way, try to rouse the attention and direct the energies of - men for the benefit of their kind, and if any good comes of this bit - of work, I should like you to know how much I have been sustained - amidst much of the opposition which all new ideas encounter, by the - convictions which you have so materially aided in building up and - confirming. If you care to look further into our inquiry I shall be - sending a copy of the evidence to the Misses Hill, whose acquaintance - I had the great pleasure of making on their visit to this country, and - they doubtless would show it to you if caring to see it, but I have - not presumed to bore you with anything further than the Report. - - “Believe me, your faithful servant, - “WILL. C. WINDEYER.” - - -I have since learned with great pleasure from an official Report sent -from Australia to a Congress held during the World’s Fair of 1893 at -Chicago, that the arrangement has been found perfectly successful, and -has been permanently adopted in the Colony. - -While earnestly advocating some such friendly care and guardianship of -these Workhouse Girls as I have described, I would nevertheless enter -here my serious protest against the excessive lengths to which one -Society in particular—devoted to the welfare of the humbler class of -girls generally—has gone of late years in the matter of incessant -pleasure-parties for them. I do not think that encouragement to (what is -to them) dissipation, conduces to their real welfare or happiness. It is -always only too easy for all of us to remove the centre of our interest -from the _Business_ of life to its _Pleasures_. The moment this is done, -whether in the case of poor persons or rich, Duty becomes a weariness. -Success in our proper work is no longer an object of ambition, and the -hours necessarily occupied by it are grudged and curtailed. Amusement -usurps the foreground, instead of being kept in the background, of -thought. This is the kind of moral _dislocation_ which is even now -destroying, in the higher ranks, much of the duty-loving character -bequeathed to our Anglo-Saxon race by our Puritan fathers. Ladies and -gentlemen do not indeed now “live to eat” like the old epicures, but -they live to shoot, to hunt, to play tennis or golf; to give and attend -parties of one sort or another; and the result, I think, is to a great -degree traceable in the prevailing Pessimism. But bad as excessive -Pleasure-seeking and Duty-neglecting is for those who are not compelled -to earn their bread, it is absolutely fatal to those who must needs do -so. The temptations which lie in the way of a young servant who has -acquired a distaste for honest work and a passion for pleasure, require -no words of mine to set forth in their terrible colours. Even too much -and too exciting _reading_, and endless letter-writing may render -wholesome toil obnoxious. A good maid I once possessed simply observed -to me (on hearing that a friend’s servant had read twenty volumes in a -fortnight and neglected meanwhile to mend her mistress’s clothes), “I -never knew anyone who was so fond of books who did not _hate her work_!” -It is surely no kindness to train people to hate the means by which they -can honourably support themselves, and which might, in itself, be -interesting and pleasant to them. But incessant tea-parties and concerts -and excursions are much more calculated to distract and dissipate the -minds of girls than even the most exciting story books, and the good -folks who would be shocked to supply them with an unintermittent series -of novels, do not see the mischief of encouraging the perpetual -entertainments now in vogue all over the country. Let us make the girls, -first _safe_; then as _happy_ as we can. But it is an error to imagine -that overindulgence in dissipation,—even in the shape of the most -respectable tea-parties and excursions,—is the way to make them either -safe or happy. - -The following is an account which Miss Florence D. Hill has kindly -written for me, of the details of her own work on behalf of pauper -children which dovetailed with ours for Workhouse girls:— - - - “March 27th, 1894. - - “I well remember the deep interest with which I learnt from your own - lips the simple but effective plan by which you and Miss Elliot and - her sister befriended the elder girls from Bristol Workhouse, and - heard you read your paper, ‘_Friendless Girls, and How to Help Them_,’ - at the meeting of the British Association in Dublin in 1861. Gradually - another benevolent scheme was coming into effect, which not only - bestows friends but a home and family affections on the forlorn pauper - child, taking it in hand from infancy. The reference in your - ‘_Philosophy of the Poor Laws_’ to Mr. Greig’s Report on Boarding-out - as pursued for many years at Edinburgh, caused my cousin, Miss Clark, - to make the experiment in South Australia, which has developed into a - noble system for dealing under natural conditions with all destitute - and erring children in the great Colonies of the South Seas. - Meanwhile, at home the evidence of success attained by Mrs. Archer in - Wiltshire and her disciples elsewhere, and by other independent - workers, in placing orphan and deserted children in the care of foster - parents, enabled the late Dr. Goodeve, _ex-officio_ Guardian for - Clifton, to obtain the adoption of the plan by his Board; his wife - becoming President of one of the very first Committees formed to find - suitable homes and supervise the children. - - -After my efforts above detailed on behalf of the little Girl-thieves, -the Ragged street boys, the Incurables and other Sick in Workhouses, and -finally for Befriending young Servants, there was another undertaking in -which both Miss Elliot and I took great interest for some years after we -had ceased to live at Bristol. This was the Housing of the poor in large -Cities. - -Among the many excellent citizens who then and always have done honour -to Bristol, there was a Town Councillor, Mr. T. Territ Taylor, a -jeweller, carrying on his business in College Green. At a time when a -bad fever seemed to have become endemic in the district of St. Jude’s, -this gentleman told us that in his opinion it would never be banished -till some fresh legislation were obtained for the _compulsory_ -destruction of insanitary dwellings, such as abounded in that quarter. -We wondered whether it would be possible to interest some influential -M.P.’s among our acquaintances in Mr. Taylor’s views, and after many -delays and much consultation with them, I wrote an article in _Fraser’s -Magazine_ for February, 1866, in which I was able to print a full sketch -by Mr. Taylor of his matured project, and to give the reasons which -appeared to us to make such legislation as he advocated exceedingly -desirable. I said:— - - - “The supply of lodgings for the indigent classes in the great towns - has long failed to equal the demand. Each year the case becomes worse, - as population increases, and no tendency arises for capital to be - invested in meeting the want.... - - “But, it is asked, why does not capital come in here, as everywhere - else, and supply a want as soon as it exists? The reason is simple. - Property in our poor lodgings is very undesirable for large - capitalists. It can be made to pay a high interest only on three - conditions:—1st, That the labour of collecting the rents (which is - always excessive) shall not be deducted from the returns by agents; - 2nd, That very little mercy shall be shown to tenants in distress; - 3rd, That small expense be incurred in attempting to keep in repair, - paint, or otherwise refresh the houses, which, being inhabited by the - roughest of the community, require double outlay to preserve in - anything better than a squalid and rack-rent condition. - - “Convinced long ago of this fact, philanthropists have for years - attempted to mitigate the evil by building, in London and other great - towns, model lodging-houses for the Working Classes, and after long - remaining a doubtful experiment, a success has been achieved in the - case of Mr. Peabody’s, Alderman Waterlow’s, and perhaps some others. - But as regards the two great objects we are considering,—the elevation - of the Indigent, and the prevention of pestilence,—these schemes only - point the way to an enterprise too large for any private funds. All - the existing model lodging-houses not only fix their rents above the - means of the Indigent class, but actually make it a rule not to admit - the persons of whom the class chiefly consists—namely, those who get - their living upon the streets. Thus, for the elevation of the Indigent - and the purifying of those cesspools of wretchedness, wherein cholera - and fever have their source, these model lodging-houses are even - professedly unavailing.”—Reprinted in _Hours of Work and Play_, pp. - 46, 47. - - -Mr. Thomas Hare had, shortly before, set forth in the _Times_ a -startlingly magnificent scheme whereby a great Board should raise money, -partly from the Rates, to build splendid rows of workmen’s -lodging-houses, of which the workmen would eventually, in this ingenious -plan become freeholders. Mr. Taylor’s plan was much more modest, and -involved in fact only one principal point, the grant of compulsory -powers to purchase, indispensable where the refusal of one landlord -might invalidate, for sanitary purposes, the purification of a district; -and the greed of the class would inevitably render the proposed -renovation preposterously costly. Mr. Taylor’s Scheme, as drawn up by -himself and placed in our hands, was briefly as follows:— - - - “An Act of Parliament must be obtained to enable Town Councils and - Local Boards of Health (or other Boards, as may hereafter be thought - best) to purchase, under compulsory powers, the property in - overcrowded and pestilential districts within their jurisdiction, and - build thereon suitable dwellings for the labouring classes. - - “The usual powers must be given to borrow money of the Government at a - low rate of interest, on condition of repayment within a specified - time, say from 15 to 20 years, as in the case of the County Lunatic - Asylums.” - - -Miss Elliot and I having shown this sketch to our friends, a Bill was -drawn up embodying it with some additions; “_For the improvement of the -Dwellings of the Working Classes_,” and was presented to Parliament by -Mr. McCullagh Torrens and my cousin John Locke, in 1867. But though both -the Governments of Lord Derby and of Lord Russell the latter of whom -Miss Elliot had interested personally in the matter were favourable to -the Bill, it was not passed till the following Session; when it became -law (with considerable modifications); as 31, 32 Vict., Cap. cxxx., “_An -Act to provide better dwellings for Artisans and Labourers_,” 31st July, -1868. - - - - - CHAPTER - XIII. - _BRISTOL._ - _FRIENDS._ - - -_What is Chance?_ How often does that question recur in the course of -every history, small or great? My whole course of life was deflected by -the mishap of stepping a little awry out of a train at Bath, and -miscalculating the height of the platform, which is there unusually low. -I had gone to spend a day with a friend, and on my way back to Bristol I -thus sprained my ankle. I was at that time forty years of age (a date I -now alas! regard as quite the prime of life!), and in splendid health -and spirits, fully intending to continue for the rest of my days -labouring on the same lines as prospects of usefulness might open. I -remember feeling the delight of walking over the springy sward of the -Downs and laughing as I said to myself “I do believe I could walk down -anybody and perhaps _talk_ down anybody too!” The next week I was a poor -cripple on crutches, never to take a step without them for four long -years, during which period I grew practically into an old woman, and -(unhappily for me) into a very large and heavy one for want of the -exercise to which I had been accustomed. The morning after my mishap, -finding my ankle much swollen and being in a great hurry to go on with -my work, I sent for one of the principal surgeons in Bristol, who bound -the limb so tightly that the circulation (always rather feeble) was -impeded, and every sort of distressful condition supervened. Of course -the surgeon threw the blame on me for attempting to use the leg; but it -was very little I _could_ do in this way even if I had tried, without -excessive pain; and, after a few weeks, I went to London in the full -confidence that I had only to bespeak “the best advice” to be speedily -cured. I did get what all the world would still consider the “best -advice;” but bad was that best. Guineas I could ill spare ran away like -water while the great surgeon came and went, doing me no good at all; -the evil conditions growing worse daily. I returned back from London and -spent some wretched months at Clifton. An artery, I believe, was -stopped, and there was danger of inflammation of the joint. At last with -infinite regret I gave up the hope of ever recovering such activity as -would permit me to carry on my work either in the schools or workhouse. -No one who has not known the miseries of lameness, the perpetual -contention with ignoble difficulties which it involves, can judge how -hard a trial it is to an active mind to become a cripple. - -Still believing in my simplicity that great surgeons might remedy every -evil, I went again to London to consult the most eminent, and by the -mistake of a friend, it chanced that I summoned two very great -personages on the same day, though, fortunately, at different hours. The -case was, of course, of the simplest; but the two gentlemen gave me -precisely opposite advice. _One_ sent me abroad to certain baths, which -proved to be the wrong ones for my trouble, and gave me a letter to his -friend there, a certain Baron. The moment the Baron-Doctor saw my foot -he exclaimed that it ought never to have been allowed to get into the -state of swollen veins and arrested circulation in which he found it; -astringents and all sorts of measures ought to have been applied. In -truth I was in a most miserable condition, for I could not drop the limb -for two minutes without the blood running into it till it became like an -ink-bottle, when, if I held it up, it became as white as if dead. And -all this had been getting worse and worse while I was consulting ten -doctors in succession, and chiefly the most eminent in England! The -Baron-Doctor first told me that the waters _would_ bring out the gout, -and then, when I objected, assured me they should _not_ bring it out; -after which I relinquished the privilege of his visits and he charged me -for an entire course of treatment. - -The _second_ great London surgeon told me _not_ to go abroad, but to -have a gutta-percha boot made for my leg to keep it stiff. I had the -boot made, (with much distress and expense), took it abroad in my trunk, -and asked the successor of the Baron-Doctor (who could make the waters -give the gout or not as he pleased), “Whether he advised me to wear the -wonderful machine?” The good old Frenchman, who was also Mayor of his -town, and who did me more good than anybody else, replied cautiously, -“If you wish, Madame, to be lame for life you will wear that boot. A -great many English come to us here to be unstiffened after having had -their joints stiffened by English surgeons’ devices of this sort, but we -can do nothing for them. A joint once thoroughly stiff can never be -restored.” It may be guessed that the expensive boot was quietly -deposited on the nearest heap of rubbish. - -After that experience I tried the baths in Savoy and others in Italy. -But my lameness seemed permanent. A great Italian Doctor could think of -nothing better than to put a few walnut-leaves on my ankle—a process -which might perhaps have effected something in fifty years! Only the -good and great Nélaton, whom I consulted in Paris, told me he believed I -should recover some time; but he could not tell me anything to do to -hasten the event. Returned to London I sent for Sir William Fergusson, -and that honest man on hearing my story said simply: “And if you had -gone to nobody and not bandaged your ankle, but merely bathed it, you -would have been well in three weeks.” Thus I learned from the best -authority, that I had paid for the folly of consulting an eminent -surgeon for a common sprain, by four years of miserable helplessness and -by the breaking up of my whole plan of life. - -I must conclude this dismal record by one last trait of medical -character. I had determined, after seeing Fergusson, to consult no other -doctor; indeed I could ill afford to do so. But a friend conveyed to me -a message from a London surgeon of repute (since dead) that he would -like to be allowed to treat me gratuitously; having felt much interest -in my books. I was simple enough to fall into the trap and to feel -grateful for his offer: and I paid him several visits, during which he -chatted pleasantly, and once did some trifling thing to relieve my foot. -One day I wrote and asked him kindly to advise me by letter about some -directions he had given me; whereupon he answered tartly that he “could -not correspond; and that I must always attend at his house.” The -suspicion dawned on me, and soon reached conviction, that what he wanted -was not so much to cure _me_, as to swell the scanty show of patients in -his waiting-room! Of course after this, I speedily retreated; offering -many thanks and some small, and as I hoped, acceptable _souvenir_ with -inscription to lie on his table. But when I thought this had concluded -my relations with Mr. ——, I found I had reckoned without my—_doctor_! -One after another he wrote to me three or four peremptory notes -requesting me to send him introductions for himself or his family, to -influential friends of mine rather out of his sphere. I would rather -have paid him fifty fees than have felt bound to give these -introductions. - -Finally I ceased to do anything whatever to my unfortunate ankle, except -what most of my advisers had forbidden, namely, to walk upon it,—and a -year or two afterwards I climbed Cader Idris; walking quietly with my -friend to the summit. Sitting there, on the Giants’ Chair we passed an -unanimous resolution. It was: “_Hang the Doctors!_” - -I must now set down a few recollections of the many friends and -interesting acquaintances whom I met at Bristol. In the first place I -may say briefly that all Miss Carpenter’s friends (mostly Unitarians) -were very kind to me, and that though I did not go out to any sort of -entertainment while I lived with her, it was not for lack of hospitable -invitations. - -The family next to that of the Dean with which I became closely -acquainted and to which I owed most, was that of Matthew Davenport Hill, -the Recorder of Birmingham, whose labours (summed up in his own -_Repression of Crime_ and in his _Biography_ by his daughters) did more, -I believe, than those of any other philanthropist beside Mary Carpenter, -to improve the treatment of both adult and juvenile crime in England. I -am not competent to offer judgment on the many questions of -jurisprudence with which he dealt, but I can well testify to the -exceeding goodness of his large heart, the massiveness of his grasp of -his subjects, and (never-to-be-forgotten) his most delightful humour. He -was a man who from unlucky chances never attained a position -commensurate with his abilities and his worth, but who was beloved and -admired in no ordinary degree by all who came near him. His family of -sons and daughters formed a centre of usefulness in the neighbourhood of -Bristol as they have since done in London, where Miss Hill is, I -believe, now the senior member of the School Board, while her sister, -Miss Florence Davenport Hill, has been equally active as a Poor Law -Guardian, and most especially as the promoter of the great and -farreaching reform in the management of pauper orphans, known as the -system of Boarding-out, of which I have spoken in the last chapter. I -must not indulge myself by writing at too great length of such friends, -but will insert here a few notes I made of Recorder Hill’s wonderfully -interesting conversation during a Christmas visit I paid to him at Heath -House. - - - “Dec. 26th. I spent yesterday and last night with my kind friends the - Hills at Heath House. In the evening I drew out the Recorder to speak - of questions of evidence, and he told me many remarkable anecdotes in - his own practice at the Bar, of doubtful identity, &c. On one occasion - a case was tried three times; and he observed how the _certainty_ of - the witnesses, the clearness of details, and unhesitating asseveration - of facts which at first had been doubtfully stated, _grew_ in each - trial. He said ‘the most dangerous of all witnesses are those who - _honestly_ give _false_ witness—a most numerous class.’ - - “To-day he invited me to walk with him on his terrace and up and down - the approach. The snow lay thick on the grass, but the sun shone - bright, and I walked for more than an hour and a-half beside the dear - old man. He told me how he had by degrees learned to distrust all - ideas of Retribution, and to believe in the ‘aggressive power of love - and kindness,’ (a phrase Lady Byron had liked); and how at last it - struck him that all this was in the new Testament; and that few, - except religious Christians, ever aided the great causes of - philanthropy. I said, it was quite true, Christ had revealed that - religion of love; and that there were unhappily very few who, having - intellectually doubted the Christian creed, pressed on further to any - clear or fervent religion beyond; but that without religion, _i.e._, - love of God, I hardly believed it possible to work for man. He said he - had known nearly all the eminent men of his time in every line, and - had somehow got close to them, and had never found one of them really - believe Christianity. I said, ‘No; no strong intellect of our day - could do so, altogether; but that I thought it was faithless in us to - doubt that if we pushed bravely on to whatever seemed _truth_ we - should there find all the more reason to love God and man, and never - lose any _real_ good of Christianity.’ He agreed, but said, ‘You are a - watchmaker, I am a weaver; this is your work, I have a different - one,—and I cannot afford to part with the Evangelicals, who are my - best helpers. Thus though I wholly disagree with them about Sunday I - never publish my difference.’ I said I felt the great danger of - pushing uneducated people beyond the bounds of an authoritative creed, - and for my own part would think it safest that Jowett’s views should - prevail for a generation, preparatory to Theism. - - “Then we spoke of Immortality, and he expressed himself nobly on the - thought that all our differences of rich and poor, wise or ignorant, - are lost in comparison of that one fact of our common Immortality. As - he said, he felt that waiting a moment jostled in a crowd at a railway - station, was a larger point in comparison of his whole life than this - life is, to the future. We joined in condemning Emerson and George - Eliot’s ideas of the ‘little value’ of ordinary souls. His burst of - indignation at her phrase ‘_Guano races of men_’ was very fine. He - said, talking of Reformatories, ‘A century hence,—in 1960,—some people - will walk this terrace and talk of the great improvement of the new - asylums where hopeless criminals and vicious persons will be - permanently consigned. They will not be formally condemned for life, - but we shall all know that they will never fulfil the conditions of - their release. They will not be made unhappy, but forced to work and - kept under strong control; the happiest state for them.’” - - -Here is a very flattering letter from Mr. Hill written a few years -later, on receipt of a copy of my _Italics_:— - - - “The Hawthorns, - “Edgbaston, Birmingham, - “25th Oct., 1864. - - “My dear Miss Cobbe, - - “Although I am kept out of court to-day at the instance of my - physician, who threatens me with bronchitis if I do not keep house, - yet it has been a day not devoid of much enjoyment. Your charming book - which, alas, I have nearly finished, is carrying me through it only - too rapidly. What a harvest of observation, thought, reading, and - discourse have you brought home from Italy! But I am too much - overwhelmed with it to talk much about it, especially in the - obfuscated state of my intellect to which I am just now reduced. But I - must just tell you how I am amused in midst of my admiration, with - your humility as regards your sex; said humility being a cloak which, - opening a little at one page, discloses a rich garment of pride - underneath (_vide_ page 438 towards the bottom). I say no more, only - as I don’t mean to give up the follies of youth for the next eight - years, that is until I am eighty, I don’t choose to be called - ‘venerable.’ One might as well consent to become an Archdeacon at - once! - - “Your portraits are delightful, some of the originals I know, and the - likeness is good, but alas, idealized! - - “To call your book a ‘trifling’ work is just as absurd as to call me - ‘venerable.’ It deals nobly, fearlessly, and I will add in many parts - _profoundly_, with the greatest questions that can employ human - intellect or touch the human heart, and although I do not always agree - with you, I always respect your opinions and learn from the arguments - by which they are supported. But certainly in the vast majority of - instances I do agree with you, and more than agree, which is a cold, - unimpressive term. - - “Most truly yours, - “M. D. HILL.” - - - “Heath House, Stapleton, Bristol, - “17th August, 1871. - - “My dear Miss Cobbe, - - “That is to say falsest of woman-kind! You have cruelly jilted me. - Florry wrote to say you were coming here as you ought to have done - long ago. Well, as your countryman, Ossian, or his double, Macpherson, - says, ‘Age is dark and unlovely,’ and therefore the rival of the - American Giantess turns a broad back upon me. I must submit to my - fall.... - - “Though I take in the _Echo_, I have not lately seen any article which - I could confidently attribute to your pen. - - “I have, however, been much gratified with your article on _The - Devil_, the only writing I ever read on the origin of evil which did - not appear to me absolutely contemptible. Talking of these matters, - Coleridge said to Thelwall (_ex relatione_ Thelwall), ‘God has all the - power that _is_, but there is no power over a contradiction expressed - or implied.’ Your suggestion that the existence of evil is due to - contradiction, is, I have no doubt, very just, but my stupid head is - this morning quite unable to put on paper what is foggily floating in - my mind, and so I leave it. - - “I spent a good part of yesterday morning in reading the _Westminster - Review_ of Walt Whitman’s works, which quite laid hold of me. - - “Most truly yours, - “M. D. HILL.” - - -Another interesting person whom I first came to know at Bristol, (where -he visited at the Deanery and at Dr. Symonds’ house,) was the late -Master of Balliol. I have already cited some kind letters from him -referring to our plans for Incurables and Workhouse Girls. I will be -vain enough to quote here, with the permission of the friend to whom -they were addressed, some of his remarks about my _Intuitive Morals_ and -_Broken Lights_; and also his opinion of Theodore Parker, which will -interest many readers:— - - - “From Rev. Benjamin Jowett. - - “January 22nd, 1861. - - “I heard of your friend Miss Cobbe the other day at Fulham.... Pray - urge her to go on with her books and try to make them more - interesting. (This can only be done by throwing more feeling into them - and adapting them more to what other people are thinking and feeling - about). I am not speaking of changing her ideas, but the mode of - expressing them. The great labour of writing is adapting what you say - to others. She has great ability, and there is something really fine - and striking in her views of things, so that it is worth while she - should consider the form of her writings.”... - - “April 16th, 1861. - - “Let me pass to a more interesting subject—Miss Cobbe. Since I wrote - to you last I have read the greater part of her book” (_Intuitive - Morals_) “which I quite agree with you in thinking full of interest. - It shows great power and knowledge of the subject, yet I should fear - it would be hardly intelligible to anyone who had not been nourished - at some time of their lives on the philosophy of Kant; and also she - seems to me to be too exclusive and antagonistic towards other - systems—_e.g._, the Utilitarian. All systems of Philosophy have their - place and use, and lay hold on some minds, and therefore though they - are not all equally true, it is no use to rail at Bentham and the - Utilitarians after the manner of _Blackwood’s Magazine_. Perhaps, - however, Miss Cobbe would retort on me that her attacks on the - Utilitarians have their place and their use too; only they were not - meant for people who ‘revel in Scepticism’ like me (the _Saturday - Review_ says, is it not very Irish of them to say so?) Pray exhort her - to write (for it is really worth while) and not to spend her money and - time wholly in schemes of philanthropy. For a woman of her ability, - writing offers a great field, better in many respects than practical - life.” - - “October 10th, 1861. - - “A day or two ago I was at Clifton and saw Miss Cobbe, who might be - truly described as very ‘jolly.’ I went to a five o’clock tea with her - and met various people—an aged physician named Dr. Brabant who about - thirty years ago gave up his practice to study Hebrew and became the - friend of German Theologians; Miss Blagden, whom you probably know, an - amiable lady who has written a novel and is the owner of a little - white puppy wearing a scarlet coat; Dr. Goodeve, an Indian Medical - Officer; and various others.”... - - “February 2nd, 1862. - - “Remember me to Miss Cobbe. I hope she gains from you sound notions on - Political Economy. I shall always maintain that Philanthropy is - intolerable when not based on sound ideas of Political Economy.” - - “June 4th, 1862. - - “The articles in the _Daily News_ I did not see. Were they Miss - Cobbe’s? I read her paper in Fraser in which the story of the Carnival - was extremely well told.”... - - “March 15th, 1863. - - “I write to thank you for Miss Cobbe’s pamphlet, which I have read - with great pleasure. I think her writing is always good and able. I - have never seen Theodore Parker’s works: he was, I imagine, a sort of - hero and prophet; but I think I would rather have the Church of - England large enough for us all with old memories and feelings, - notwithstanding many difficulties and some iniquities, than new - systems of Theism.”... - - “March 10th, 1864. - - “Miss Cobbe has also kindly sent me a little book called _Broken - Lights_, which appears to me to be extremely good. (I think the title - is rather a mistake.) I dare say that you have read the book. The - style is excellent, and the moderation and calmness with which the - different parties are treated is beyond praise. The only adverse - criticism that I should venture to make is that the latter part is too - much narrowed to Theodore Parker’s point of view, who was a great man, - but too confident, I think, that the world could be held together by - spiritual instincts.” - - -And here are three charming letters from Mr. Jowett to me, one of them -in reply to a letter from me from Rome, the others of a later date. - - - “Dear Miss Cobbe, - - “I write to thank you for the Fraser which I received this morning and - have read with great amusement and interest. I think that I should - really feel happier living to see the end of the Pope, at least in his - present mode of existence. - - “I did indeed receive a most capital letter from you with a kind note - from Miss Elliot. And ‘I do remember me of my faults this day.’ The - truth is that being very busy with Plato (do you know the intolerable - burden of writing a fat book in two vols.?) I put off answering the - letters until I was not quite certain whether the kind writers of them - were still at Rome. I thought the Plato would have been out by this - time, but this was only one of the numerous delusions in which authors - indulge. The notes, however, are really finished, and the Essays will - be done in a few months. I suspect you can read Greek, and shall - therefore hope to send you a copy. - - “I was always inclined to think well of the Romans from their defence - of Rome in 1848, and their greatness and strength really does seem to - show that they mean to be the centre of a great nation. - - “Will you give my very kind regards to the Elliots? I should write to - them if I knew exactly where: I hear that the Dean is transformed into - a worshipper of the Virgin and of other pictures of the Saints.[17] - - “Believe me, dear Miss Cobbe, - “Yours very truly, - “B. JOWETT. - - “Bal. Coll., May 19th. - - “Coll. de Bal., Oxon. - - “Dear Miss Cobbe, - - “I shall certainly read your paper on Political Economy. Political - Economy seems to me in this imperfect world to be Humanity on a large - scale (though not the whole of humanity). And I am always afraid of it - being partially supplanted by humanity on the small scale, which - relieves one-sixth of the poor whom we see, and pauperizes the mind of - five-sixths whom we don’t see. - - “I won’t trouble you with any more reflections on such an old subject. - Remember me most kindly to the Dean and his daughters. I was going to - send him a copy of the Articles against Dr. Williams. But upon second - thoughts, I won’t. It is such an ungracious, unsavoury matter. I hope - that he won’t give up the Prolocutorship, or that, if he does, he will - state boldly his reasons for doing so. It is true that neither he nor - anyone can do much good there. But the mere fact of a great position - in the Church of England being held by a liberal clergyman is of great - importance. - - “I should have much liked to go to Rome this winter. But I am so - entangled, first, with Plato, and, second, with the necessity of - getting rid of Plato and writing something on Theology, that I do not - feel justified in leaving my work. The vote of last Tuesday deferring - indefinitely the endowment of my Professorship makes me feel that life - is becoming a serious business to me. Not that I complain; the amount - of sympathy and support which I have received has been enough to - sustain anyone, if they needed it, (you should have seen an excellent - squib written by a young undergraduate). But my friends are sanguine - in imagining they will succeed hereafter. Next year it is true that - they probably will get a small majority in Congregation. This, - however, is of no use, as the other party will always bring up the - country clergy in Convocation. I have, therefore, requested Dr. - Stanley to take no further steps in the Council on the subject; it - seems to me undignified to keep the University squabbling about my - income. - - “Excuse this long story which is partly suggested by your kind letter. - I hope you will enjoy Rome. With sincere regard, - - “Believe me, yours truly, - “B. JOWETT.” - - “Rev. Benjamin Jowett to Miss Cobbe. - “Coll. de Ball., Oxon, - “February 24th, 1865. - - “My Dear Miss Cobbe, - - “I write to thank you for your very kind note. I am much more pleased - at the rejoicings of my friends than at the result which has been so - long delayed as to be almost indifferent to me. I used to be annoyed - at feeling that I was such a bad example to young men, because they - saw, as they were intended to see, that unless they concealed their - opinions they would suffer. I hope they will have more cheerful - prospects now. - - “I trust that some day I shall be able to write something more on - Theology. But the Plato has proved an enormous work, having expanded - into a sort of translation of the whole of the Dialogues. I believe - this will be finished and printed about Christmas, but not before. - - “I have been sorry to hear of your continued illness. When I come to - London I shall hope to look in upon you in Hereford Square. - - “In haste, believe me, - “Yours very truly, - “B. JOWETT.” - - “I read a book of Theodore Parker’s the other day—‘Discourses on - Religion.’ He was a friend of yours, I believe? I admire his - character—a sort of religious Titan. But I thought his philosophy - seemed to rest too much on instincts.” - - -How much Mr. Jowett had to bear from the animosity of his orthodox -contemporaries in the Sixties at Oxford was illustrated by the following -incident. I was, one day about this time, showing his photograph to a -lady, when her son, late from Oxford, came into the room with a dog at -his heels. Seeing the photograph, he remarked, “Ah, yes! very like. -_This dog_ pinned him in quod one day, and was made so much of -afterwards! The Dean of —— especially invited him” (the dog) “to lunch. -Jowett complained of me, and I had to send all my dogs out of Oxford!” - -The following is a Note which I made of two of his visits to me on -Durdham Down: - - - “Two visits from Mr. Jowett, who each time drank tea with me. He said - he felt writing to be a great labour; but regularly wrote one page - every day. The liberal, benevolent way he spoke of all creeds was - delightful. In particular he spoke of the temptation to Pantheism and - praised Hegel, whom, he said, he had studied deeply. Advising me - kindly to go on writing books, he maintained against me the vast power - of books in the world.” - - -Mr. Jowett was, of course, at all times a most interesting personality, -and one whose intercourse was delightful and highly exciting to the -intellect. But his excessive shyness, combined with his faculty for -saying exceedingly sharp things, must have precluded, I should think, -much ease of conversation between him and the majority of his friends. -As usually happens in the case of shy people, he exhibited rather less -of the characteristic with an acquaintance like myself who was never shy -(my mother’s training saved me from that affliction!) and who was not at -all afraid of him. - -In later years Mr. Jowett obtained for me (in 1876) the signatures of -the Heads of every College in Oxford to a Petition which I had myself -written, to the House of Lords in favour of Lord Carnarvon’s original -Bill for the restriction of Vivisection. At a later date the Master of -Balliol declined to support me further in the agitation for the -prohibition of the practice; referring me to the assurances of a certain -eminent Boanerges of Science as guarantee for the necessity of the -practice and the humanity of vivisectors. It is very surprising to me -how good and strong men, who would disdain to accept a _religious_ -principle or dogma from pope or Council, will take a _moral_ one without -hesitation from any doctor or professor of science who may lay down the -law for them, and present the facts so as to make the scale turn his -way. Where would Protestant divines be, if they squared their theologies -with all the historical statements and legends of Romanism? If we -construct our ethical judgments upon the statements and representations -of persons interested in maintaining a practice, what chance is there -that they should be sound? - -I find, in a letter to a friend (dated May, 1868) the following -_souvenir_ of a sermon by Mr. Jowett, delivered in a church near Soho:— - - - “We went to that sermon on Sunday. It was really very fine and very - bold; much better than the report in the _Pall Mall Gazette_ made it. - Mr. Albert D—— was there, but few else who looked as if they could - understand him. He has a good voice and delivery, and the “cherubic” - countenance and appealing eyes suit the pulpit; but he _looks at one_ - as I never knew any preacher do. We sat close to him, and it was as if - we were in a drawing-room. M. says that all the first part was taken - from my _Broken Lights_; that is,—it was a sketch of existing opinions - on the same plan. It was good when he said: - - “The High church watchword is: _The Church; always and ever the same_. - - “The Low church watchword is: _The Bible only the Religion of - Protestants_. - - “The party of Knowledge has for its principle: ‘_The Truth ever and - always, and wherever it be found_.’ - - “He gave each their share of praise and blame, saying: ‘the fault of - the last party’ (his own, of course) was—that ‘sometimes in the - pursuit of _Knowledge_ they forgot _Goodness_.’” - - -I heard him preach more than once afterwards in the same gloomy old -church. His aspect in his surplice was exceedingly quaint. His face, -even in old age, was like that of an innocent, round-faced child; and -his short, slender figure, wrapped in the long white garment, -irresistibly suggested to me the idea of “an elderly cherub prepared for -bed”! Altogether, taking into account his entire career, the Master of -Balliol was an unique figure in English life, whom I much rejoice to -have known; a modern Melchisedek. - -Here is another memorandum about the same date, respecting another -eminent man, interesting in another way:— - - - “Sept. 25th, 1860. A pleasant evening at Canon Guthrie’s. Introduced - to old Lord Lansdowne; a gentle, courteous old man with deep-set, - faded grey eyes, and heavy eyebrows; a blue coat and _brass buttons_! - In the course of the evening I was carrying on war in a corner of the - room against the Dean of Bristol, Mr. C—— and Margaret Elliot, about - Toryism. I argued that if _Justice to all_ were the chief end of - Government, the power should be lodged in the hands of the class who - _best understood Justice_; and that the consequence of the opposite - course was manifest in America, where the freest government which had - ever existed, supported also the most gigantic of all wrongs—Slavery. - On this Countess Rothkirch who sat by, clapped her hands with joy; and - the Dean came down on me saying, ‘That if power should only be given - to those who would use it justly, then the Tories should never have - any power at all; for they _never_ used it justly.’ Hearing the - laughter at my discomfiture, Lord Lansdowne toddled across the room - and sat down beside me saying: ‘What is it all about?’ I cried: ‘Oh - Lord Lansdowne! you are the very person in the whole world to help - me—_I am defending Tory principles!_’ He laughed heartily, and said ‘I - am afraid I can hardly do that.’ ‘Oh, yes,’ I said, ‘you may be - converted at the eleventh hour!’ ‘Don’t you know,’ he said, ‘what a - child asked her mother: “Are Tories _born_ wicked, mother, or do they - only become so?”’ Margaret said this was really asked by a cousin of - her own, one of the Adam family. It ended in much laughter and talking - about ‘_Transformation_,’ and the ‘_Semi-attached Couple_‘—which Lord - Lansdowne said he was just reading. ‘I like novels very much,’ he - said, ‘only I take a little time between each of them.’ When I got up - to go away the kind old man rose in the most courtly way to shake - hands, and paid me a little old-world compliment.” - - -This was the eloquent statesman and patron of literature, Henry, third -Marquis of Lansdowne, in whose time his house, (Bowood,) was the resort -of the finest intellectual society of England. I have a droll letter in -my possession referring to this Bowood society, by Sydney Smith, written -to Mrs. Kemble, then Mrs. Butler. It has come to me with all her other -papers and with seven letters from Lord Lansdowne pressing her to pay -him visits. Sydney Smith writes on his invitation to her to come to -Combe Fleury; after minute directions about the route:— - - - “The interval between breakfast and dinner brings you to Combe Fleury. - We are the next stage (to Bowood). Lord Lansdowne’s guests commonly - come here _dilated and disordered_ with high living.” - - -In another letter conveying a similar invitation he says, with his usual -bitterness and injustice as regards America: - - - “Be brave my dear lady. Hoist the American flag. Barbarise your - manners. _Dissyntax_ your language. Fling a thick mantle over your - lively spirits, and become the fust of American women. You will always - remain a bright vision in my recollection. Do not forget me. Call me - Butler’s Hudibras. Any appellation provided I am not forgotten.” - - -Among the residents in Clifton and at Stoke Bishop over the Downs I had -many kind friends, some of whom helped me essentially in my work by -placing tickets for hospitals and money in my hands for the poor. One of -these whom I specially recall with gratitude was that ever zealous moral -reformer, Mrs. Woolcott Browne, who is still working bravely with her -daughter for many good causes in London. I must not write here without -permission of the many others whose names have not come before the -public, but whose affectionate consideration made my life very pleasant, -and whom I ever remember with tender regard. Of one excellent couple I -may venture to speak,—Dr. and Mrs. Goodeve of Cook’s Folly. Mrs. Goodeve -herself told me their singular and beautiful story, and since she and -her husband are now both dead, I think I may allow myself to repeat it. - -Dr. Goodeve was a young medical man who had just married, and was going -out to seek his fortune in India, having no prospects in England. As -part of their honeymoon holiday the young couple went to visit Cook’s -Folly; then a small, half-ruinous, castellated building, standing in a -spot of extraordinary beauty over the Avon, looking down the Bristol -Channel. As they were descending the turret-stair and taking, as they -thought, a last look on the loveliness of England, the young wife -perceived that her husband’s head was bent down in deep depression. She -laid her hand on his shoulder and whispered “Never mind, Harry? You -shall make a fortune in India and we will come back and buy Cook’s -Folly.” - -They went to Calcutta and were there most kindly received by a gentleman -named Hurry, who edited a newspaper and whose own history had been -strange and tragic. Started in his profession by his interest, Dr. -Goodeve soon fell into good practice, and by degrees became a very -successful physician, the founder (I believe) of the existing Medical -College of Calcutta. Going on a shooting party, his face was most -terribly shattered by a chance shot which threatened to prove mortal, -but Mrs. Goodeve, without help or appliances, alone with him in a tent -in a wild district, pulled him back to life. At last they returned to -England, wealthy and respected by all, and bringing a splendid -collection of Indian furniture and _curios_. The very week they landed, -Cook’s Folly was advertised to be sold! They remembered it well,—went to -see it,—bought it—and rebuilded it; making it a most charming and -beautiful house. A peculiarity of its structure as remodelled by them -was, that there was an entire suite of rooms,—a large library -overlooking the river Avon, bedroom, bathroom and servant’s room,—all -capable of being shut off from the rest of the house, by double doors, -so that the occupant might be quite undisturbed. When everything was -finished, and splendidly furnished, the Goodeves wrote to Mr. Hurry: “It -is time for you to give up your paper and come home. You acted a -father’s part to us when we went out first to India. Now come to us, and -live as with your son and daughter.” - -Mr. Hurry accepted the invitation and found waiting for him and his -Indian servant the beautiful suite of rooms built for him, and the -tenderest welcome. I saw him often seated by their fireside just as a -father might have been. When the time came for him to die, Mrs. Goodeve -nursed him with such devoted care, and strained herself so much in -lifting and helping him, that her own health was irretrievably injured, -and she died not long afterwards. - - -I could write more of Bristol and Clifton friends, high and low, but -must draw this chapter of my life to a close. I went to Bristol an utter -stranger, knowing no human being there. I left it after a few years all -peopled, as it seemed to me, with kind souls; and without one single -remembrance of anything else but kindness received there either from -gentle or simple. - - - - - CHAPTER - XIV. - _ITALY. 1857–1879._ - - -I visited Italy six times between the above dates. The reader need not -be wearied by reminiscences of such familiar journeyings, which, in my -case, were always made quickly through France, (a country which I -intensely dislike) and extended pretty evenly over the most beautiful -cities of Italy. I spent several seasons in Rome and Florence, and a -winter in Pisa; and I visited once, twice or three times, Venice, -Bologna, Naples, Perugia, Assisi, Verona, Padua, Genoa, Milan and Turin. -The only interest which these wanderings can claim belongs to the people -with whom they brought me into contact, and these include a somewhat -remarkable list: Mr. and Mrs. Browning, Mrs. Somerville, Theodore -Parker, Walter Savage Landor, Massimo d’ Azeglio, John Gibson, Charlotte -Cushman, Count Guido Usedom, Adolphus Trollope and his first wife, Mr. -W. W. Story, and Mrs. Beecher Stowe. Of many of these I gave slight -sketches in my book, _Italics_; and must refer to them very briefly -here. That book, I may mention, was written principally at Villa Gnecco, -a beautiful villa at Nervi on the Riviera di Levante, then rented by my -kind friend Count Usedom, the Prussian Ambassador and his English wife. -Count Guido Usedom,—now alas! gone over to the majority,—was an -extremely cultivated man, who had been at one time Secretary to Bunsen’s -Embassy in Rome. He was so good as to undertake what I may call my -(Italian) Political Education; instructing me not only of the facts of -recent history, but of the _dessous des cartes_ of each event as they -were known to the initiated. He placed all his despatches for many years -in my hands, and explained the policy of each nation concerned; and even -taught me the cryptographs then in diplomatic use. His own letters to -his King, the late Emperor Wilhelm I., were lively and delightful -sketches of Italian affairs; for, as he said, he had discovered that to -induce the King to read them they must be both amusing and beautifully -transcribed. From him and the Prefects and other influential men who -came to visit him at Villa Gnecco, I gained some views of politics not -perhaps unworthy of record. - -One day I asked him, “Whether it were exactly true that Cavour had told -a distinct falsehood in the Chambers about Garibaldi’s invasion of -Naples?” Count Usedom replied, “He _did_; and I do not believe there is -a statesman in Europe who would not have done the same when a kingdom -was in question.” He obviously thought, (scrupulously conscientious as -he was himself) that, to diplomatists in general and their sovereigns, -the laws of morality and honour were like ladies’ bracelets, highly -ornamental and to be worn habitually, but to be slipped off when any -serious work was to be done which required free hands. He said: “People -(especially women) often asked me is such a King a _good man_? Is -Napoleon III. a _good man_? This is nonsense. They are all good men, in -so far that they will not do a cruel, or treacherous, or unjust thing -_without strong reasons_ for it. That would be not only a crime but a -blunder. But when great dynastic interests are concerned, Kings and -Emperors and their ministers are neither guided by moral considerations -or deterred from following their interests because a life, or many -lives, stand in the way.” He adduced Napoleon III.’s _Coup d’état_ as an -example. Napoleon was not a man to indulge in any cruel or vindictive -sentiment; but neither was he one to forego a step needed for his -policy. - -The year following these studies under Count Usedom I was living in -London, and met Mazzini one evening by special invitation alone at the -house of Mr. and Mrs. James Stansfeld (I speak of Mr. Stansfeld’s first -wife, sister of Madame Venturi). After dinner our hosts left us alone, -and Mazzini, whom I had often met before and who was always very good to -me, asked me if I would listen to his version of the recent history of -Italy, since he thought I had been much misinformed on the subject? Of -course I could only express my sense of the honour he did me by the -proposal; and then, somewhat to my amazement and amusement, Mazzini -descended from his armchair, seated himself opposite me cross-legged on -the magnificent white rug before Mrs. Stansfeld’s blazing fire, and -proceeded to pour out,—I believe for quite two hours,—the entire story -of all that went before and after the siege of Rome, his Triumvirate, -and the subsequent risings, plots and battles. If any one could have -taken down that wonderful story in shorthand it would possess immense -value, and I regret profoundly that I did not at least attempt, when I -went home, to write my recollections of it. But I was merely bewildered. -Each event which Mazzini named,—sitting so coolly there on the rug at my -feet:—“I sent an army here, I ordered a rising there,” appeared under an -aspect so entirely different from that which it had borne as represented -to me by my political friends in Italy, that I was continually -mystified, and asked: “But Signor Mazzini, are you talking of such and -such an event?”—“_Ma sì, Signora_”—and off he would go again with vivid -and eloquent explanations and descriptions, which fairly took my breath -away. At last (I believe it was near midnight), Mrs. Stansfeld, who had, -of course, arranged this effort for my conversion to Italian -Republicanism, returned to the drawing-room; and I fear that the truly -noble-hearted man who had done me so high a favour, rose disappointed -from his lowly rug! He said to me at another time: “You English, who are -blessed with loyal sovereigns, cannot understand that one of our reasons -for being Republicans is, that we cannot trust our Kings and Grand Dukes -an inch. They are each one of them a _Rè Traditore_!” One could quite -concede that a constitutional government under a traitor-prince would -not hold out any prospect of success; but at all events Victor Emanuel -and Umberto have completely exonerated themselves from such suspicions. - -To return to Italy and the men I know there. Count Usedom’s reference to -Napoleon’s _Coup d’état_ reminds me of the clever saying which I have -quoted elsewhere, of a greater diplomatist than he; Cavaliere Massimo d’ -Azeglio. Talking with him, as I had the privilege of doing every day for -many months at the table d’hôte in the hotel where we both spent a -winter in Pisa, I made some remark about the mistake of founding -Religion on histories of Miracles. “Ah, les miracles!” exclaimed D’ -Azeglio; “je n’en crois rien! _Ce sont des coups d’état célestes!_” -Could the strongest argument against them have been more neatly packed -in one simile? A _coup d’état_ is a practical confession that the -regular and orderly methods of Government _have failed_ in the hands of -the Governor, and that he is driven to have recourse to irregular and -lawless methods to compass his ends and vindicate his sovereignty. A -_coup d’état_ is like the act of an impatient chess player who, finding -himself losing the game while playing fairly, sweeps some pieces from -the board to recover his advantage. Is this to be believed of Divine -rule of the universe? - -D’ Azeglio was one of those men, of whom I have met about a dozen in -life, who impressed me as having in their characters elements of real -_greatness_; not being merely clever or gifted, but large-souled. When I -knew him he was a fallen Statesman, an almost forgotten Author, a -General on the shelf, a Prime Minister reduced to living in a single -room at an hotel, without a secretary or even a valet; yet he was the -cheeriest Italian I ever knew. His spirits never seemed to falter. He -was the life of our table every day, and I used to hear him singing -continually over his watercolour drawing in his room adjoining mine at -the _Gran’ Bretagna_, on the dull Lung-Arno of Pisa. The fate of Italy, -which still hung in suspense, was, however, ever near his heart. One day -it was talked over at the _table d’hôte_, and D’ Azeglio looked grave, -and said: “We speak of this man and the other; but it is GOD who is -making Italy!” It was so unusual a sentiment for an Italian gentleman to -utter, that it impressed the listeners almost with awe. Another day, -talking of Thackeray and the ugliness of his school of novelists, he -observed: “It is all right to seek to express Truth. But why do these -people always seem to think _qu’il n’y a rien de vrai excepté le laid_?” -The reason,—I might have replied,—is, that it is extremely difficult to -depict Beauty, and extremely easy to create Ugliness! Beauty means -Proportion, Refinement, Elevation, Simplicity. How much harder it is to -convey _these_ truly, than Disproportion, Coarseness, Baseness, -Duplicity? Since D’ Azeglio spoke we have gone on creating Ugliness and -calling it Truth, till M. Zola has originated a literature in honour of -LE LAID, and given us books like _L’Assommoir_ in which it is perfected, -almost as Beauty was of old in a statue of Praxiteles or in the Dresden -Madonna. - -One day that M. d’ Azeglio was doing me the honour of paying me a visit -in my room, he narrated to me the following singular little bit of -history. It seems that when he was Premier of Sardinia and Lord John -Russell of England, the latter sent him through Lord Minto a distinct -message,—“that he might safely undertake a certain line of policy, -since, if a given contingency arose, England would afford him armed -support.” The contingency did occur; but Lord Russell was unable to give -the armed support which he had promised; “and this,” said D’ Azeglio, -“caused my _fiasco_.” He resigned office, and, I think, then retired -from public life; but some years later, being in England, he was invited -to Windsor. There he happened to be laid up with a cold, and Lord -Russell and Lord Minto, who were also guests at the castle, paid him a -visit in his apartments. “Then,” said D’ Azeglio, “I turned on them -both, and challenged them to say whether Lord Minto had not conveyed -that message to me from Lord Russell, and whether he had not failed to -keep his engagement? They did not attempt to deny that it was so.” D’ -Azeglio (I understood him to say) had himself sent the Sardinian -contingent to fight with our troops and the French in the Crimea, for -the express and sole purpose of making Europe recognise that there was a -_Question d’Italie_; (or possibly he spoke of this being the motive of -the Minister who did so). Another remark which this charming old man -made has remained very clearly on my memory for a reason to be presently -explained. He observed, laughing: “People seem to think that Ministers -have indefinite time at their disposal, but they have only 24 hours like -other men, and they must eat and sleep and rest like the remainder of -the human race. When I was Premier I calculated that dividing the -subjects which demanded attention and the time I had to bestow on them, -there were just _three minutes and a-half_ on an average for ordinary -subjects, and _eight_ minutes for important ones! And if that be so in a -little State like Piedmont, what must it be in the case of a Prime -Minister of England? I cannot think how mortal man can bear the office!” - -Many years afterwards I told this to an English Statesman, and he -replied—with rather startling _gaieté de cœur_, considering the -responsibilities for Irish murders then resting on his shoulders:—“Quite -true, it is all a scuffle and a scramble from morning to night. If you -had seen me two hours ago you would have found me listening to a very -important dispatch read to me by one of my secretaries while I was -dictating another, equally important; to another. All a scuffle and a -scramble from morning to night!” Count Usedom told me that at one time -he had been Minister of War in Prussia, and that he knew a great battle -was imminent next day, the Prussian army having just come up with the -enemy. He lay awake all night reflecting on the horrors of the ensuing -fight; remembering that he had the power to telegraph to the General in -command to stop it, and longing with all his soul to do so, but knowing -that the act would be treachery to his country. Of this sort of anxiety -I strongly suspect some statesmen have never felt a twinge. - -It was at Florence in 1860 that I met Theodore Parker for the first -time. After the letters of deep sympathy and agreement on religious -matters which had passed between us, it was a strange turn of fate which -brought him to die in Florence, and me to stand beside his death-bed and -his grave. The world has, as is natural, passed on over the road which -he did much to open, and his name is scarcely known to the younger -generation; but looking back at his work and at his books again after -thirty years, and when early enthusiasm has given place to the calm -judgment of age, I still feel that Theodore Parker was a very great -religious teacher and Confessor,—as Albert Reville wrote of him: “_Cet -homme fût un Prophète_.” That is, he received the truths of what he -called “Absolute Religion” at first hand in his own faithful soul, and -spoke them out, fearless of consequences, with unequalled -straightforwardness. He was not subtle-minded. He did not at all see -obliquely round corners, as men like Cardinal Newman always seem to have -done; nor estimate the limitations which his broad statements sometimes -required. It would have been scarcely possible to have been both the man -he was, and also a fine critic and metaphysician. But his was a clear, -trumpet voice, to which many a freed and rejoicing spirit responded; and -if he founded no sect or school, he did better. He infused into the -religious life of England and America an element, hardly present before, -of natural confidence in the absolute goodness of God independent of -theologies. No man did more than he to awaken the Protestant nations -from the hideous nightmare of an Eternal Hell, which within my own -recollection, hovered over the piety of England. As he was wont himself -to say, laughingly, he had “knocked the bottom out of hell!” - -I will copy here some Notes of my only interviews with this honoured -friend and teacher, to whom I owed so much: - - - “28th April. Saw Mr. Parker for the first time. He was lying in bed - with his back to the light. Mrs. Parker brought me into the room. He - took my hand tenderly and said in a low, hurried voice, holding it: - ‘After all our wishes to meet, Miss Cobbe, how strange it is we should - meet _thus_.’ I pressed his hand and he turned his eyes, which were - trembling painfully and evidently seeing nothing, towards me and said, - ‘You must not think you have seen _me_. This is not _me_, only the - wreck of the man I was.’ Then, after a pause he added: ‘Those who love - me most can only wish me a quick passage to the other world. Of course - I am not _afraid_ to die (he smiled as he spoke) but there was so much - to be done!’ I said: ‘You have given your life to God and His truth as - truly as any martyr of old.’ He replied: ‘I do not know; I had great - powers committed to me, I have but half used them.’ I gave him a - nosegay of roses and lily-of-the-valley. He smiled and touched the - lily-of-the-valley, saying it was the sweetest of all flowers. I - begged him, if his lodgings were not all he desired, to come to villa - Brichieri” [a villa on Bellosguardo, which I then shared with Miss - Blagden], “but he said he was most comfortable where he was. Then his - mind wandered a little about a bad dream which haunted him, and I left - him.” - - “April 29th. I was told on arriving that Mr. Parker had spoken very - tenderly of my visit of the day before, but had said, ‘I must not see - her often. It makes my heart swell too high. But you (to his wife) - must see her every day. Remember there is but one Miss Cobbe in the - world.’ Afterwards he told Dr. Appleton that he wanted him to get an - inkstand for me as a last gift. [This inkstand I have used ever - since.] He received me very kindly, but almost at once his mind - wandered, and he spoke of ‘going home immediately.’ He asked what day - of the week it was? I said: ‘This is the blessed day; it is Sunday.’ - ‘Ah yes!’ he said, ‘It is a blessed day when one has got over the - superstition of it. I will try to go to you to-morrow.’ (Of course - this was utterly out of the question.) Then he looked at the lily of - Florence which I had brought, and told him how I had got it down from - one of the old walls for him, and he smiled the same sweet smile as - yesterday, and touched the beautiful blue Iris, and soon seemed to - sleep.” - - -I called after this every day, generally twice a day, at the Pension -Molini where he lay; but rarely could interchange a word. Parker’s -friend, Dr. Appleton of Boston, who was faithfully attending him, sent -for another friend, Prof. Desor, and they and the three ladies of the -party nursed him, of course, devotedly. On the 10th May I saw him lying -breathing quietly, while life ebbed gently. I returned to Bellosguardo -and at eight o’clock in the evening Prof. Desor and Dr. Appleton came up -to tell me he had passed peacefully away. - -Parker had, long before his death, desired that the first eleven verses -of the Sermon on the Mount should be read at his funeral. Whether he -intended that they should form the only service was not known; but Desor -and Appleton arranged that so it should be, and that they should be read -by Rev. W. Cunningham, an American Unitarian clergyman who was -fortunately at the time living near us on Bellosguardo, and who was a -man of much feeling and dignity of aspect. The funeral took place on -Sunday, the 13th May, at the beautiful old Campo Santo Inglese, outside -the walls of Florence, which contains the dust of Mrs. Browning, of -Arthur Hugh Clough, and many others dear to English memories. It was the -first funeral I had ever attended. The coffin when I arrived, was -already lying in the mortuary chapel. My companions placed a wreath of -laurels on it, and I added a large bunch of the lily-of-the-valley which -he had loved. Then eight Italian pall-bearers took up the coffin and -carried it on a side-walk to the grave. When it had been lowered with -some difficulty to the last resting-place, my notes say:— - - - “Dr. Appleton then handed a Bible to Mr. Cunningham. I was standing - close to him and heard his voice falter. He read like a man who felt - all the holy words he said, and those sacred Blessings came with - unspeakable rest to my heart. Then Desor, who had been pale as death, - threw in one handful of clay.... The burial ground is exquisitely - lovely, a very wilderness of flowers and perfume. Only a few cypresses - give it grandeur, not gloom. All Florence was decorated with flags in - honour of the anniversary of Piedmontese Constitution. We said to one - another: ‘It is a festival for us also—the solemn feast of an - Ascension.’” - - -Of course I visited this grave when I returned to Florence several years -afterwards. The cypresses had grown large and dark and somewhat shadowed -it. I had the violets, &c., renewed upon it more than once, but I heard -later that it had become somewhat dilapidated, and I was glad to join a -subscription got up by an American gentleman to erect a new tombstone. I -hope it has been done, as he would have desired, with simplicity. I -shall never see that grave again. - -Two or three years later I edited all the twelve vols. of Parker’s Works -for Messrs. Trübner, and wrote a somewhat lengthy Preface for them; -afterwards reprinted as a separate pamphlet entitled the _Religious -Demands of the Age_. Three Biographies of Parker have appeared; the -shortest, published in England by Rev. Peter Dean, being in my opinion -the best. The letters which I received from Parker in the years before I -saw him are all printed by my permission in Mr. Weiss’ _Life_, and -therefore will not be reproduced here. - -That venerable old man, Rev. John J. Tayler, writing to me a few years -later, summed up Parker’s character I think as justly as did Mr. Jowett -in calling him a “religious Titan.” - - - “I read lately with much pleasure your Preface to the forthcoming - edition of Theodore Parker’s works. I agree cordially with your - estimate of his character. His virtues were of the highest type of the - hero and the martyr. His faults, such as they were, were such as are - incident to every ardent and earnest soul fighting against wickedness - and hypocrisy; faults which colder and more worldly natures easily - avoid, faults which he shared with some of the best and noblest of our - race—a Milton, a Luther, and a Paul. When freedom and justice have - achieved some conquests yet to come, his memory will be cherished with - deeper reverence and affection than it is, except by a small number, - now. - - “I remain, dear Miss Cobbe, very truly yours, - “J. J. TAYLER.” - - -At the time of Parker’s death I was sharing the apartment of my clever -and charming friend, Isa Blagden, in Villa Brichieri on Bellosguardo. It -was a delightful house with a small _podere_ off the road, and with a -broad balcony (accommodating any number of chairs) opening from the airy -drawing-room, and commanding a splendid view of Florence backed by -Fiesole and the Apennines. On the balcony, and in our drawing-rooms, -assembled regularly every week and often on other occasions, an -interesting and varied company. We were both of us poor, but in those -days poverty in Florence permitted us to rent 14 well-furnished rooms in -a charming villa, and to keep a maid and a man-servant. The latter -bought our meals every morning in Florence, cooked and served them; -being always clean and respectably dressed. He swept our floors and he -opened our doors and announced our company and served our ices and tea -with uniform quietness and success. A treasure, indeed, was good old -Ansano! Also we were able to engage an open carriage with a pair of -horses to do our shopping and pay our visits in Florence as often as we -needed. And what does the reader think it cost us to live like this, -fire and candles and food for four included? In those halcyon days under -the old _régime_, it was precisely £20 a month! We divided everything -exactly and it never exceeded £10 apiece. - -Among our most frequent visitors was Mr. Browning. Mrs. Browning was -never able to drive so far, but her warm friendship for Miss Blagden was -heartily shared by her husband and we saw a great deal of him. Always -full of spirits, full of interest in everything from politics to -hedge-flowers, cordial and utterly unaffected, he was at all times a -charming member of society; but I confess that in those days I had no -adequate sense of his greatness as a poet. I could not read his poetry, -though he had not then written his most difficult pieces, and his -conversation was so playful and light that it never occurred to me that -I was wasting precious time chatting frivolously with him when I might -have been gaining high thoughts and instruction. There was always a -ripple of laughter round the sofa where he used to seat himself, -generally beside some lady of the company, towards whom, in his -eagerness, he would push nearer and nearer till she frequently rose to -avoid falling off at the end! When we drove out in parties he would -discuss every tree and weed, and get excited about the difference -between eglantine and eglatere (if there be any), and between either of -them and honeysuckle. He and Isa were always wrangling in an -affectionate way over some book or music; (he was a fine performer -himself on the piano), and one night when I had left Villa Brichieri and -was living at Villa Niccolini at least half-a-mile off, the air, being -in some singular condition of sonority, carried their voices between the -walls of the two villas so clearly across to me that I actually heard -some of the words of their quarrel, and closed my window lest I should -be an eavesdropper. I believe it was about Spirit-rapping they were -fighting, for which, and the professors of the art, Browning had a -horror. I have seen him stamping on the floor in a frenzy of rage at the -way some believers and mediums were deceiving Mrs. Browning. - -Thirty years afterwards, the last time I ever had the privilege of -talking with Robert Browning (it was in Surrey House in London), I -referred to these old days and to our friend, long laid in that Campo -Santo at Florence. His voice fell and softened, and he said: “Ah, poor, -_dear_ Isa!” with deep feeling. - -At that time I do not think that any one, certainly no one of the -society which surrounded him, thought of Mr. Browning as a great poet, -or as an equal one to his wife, whose _Aurora Leigh_ was then a new -book. The utter unselfishness and generosity wherewith he gloried in his -wife’s fame,—bringing us up constantly good reviews of her poems and -eagerly recounting how many editions had been called for,—perhaps helped -to blind us, stupid that we were! to his own claims. Never, certainly -did the proverb about the “_irritabile genus_” of Poets prove less true. -All through his life, even when the world had found him out, and -societies existed for what Mr. Frederic Harrison might justly have -called a “culte” of Browning, if not a “latria,” he remained the same -absolutely unaffected, unassuming, genial English gentleman. - -Of Mrs. Browning I never saw much. Sundry visits we paid to each other -missed, and when I did find her at home in Casa Guidi we did not fall on -congenial themes. I was bubbling over with enthusiasm for her poetry, -but had not the audacity to express my admiration, (which, in truth, had -been my special reason for visiting Florence;) and she entangled me in -erudite discussions about Tuscan and Bolognese schools of painting, -concerning which I knew little and, perhaps, cared less. But I am glad I -looked into the splendid eyes which _lived_ like coals, in her pain-worn -face, and revealed the soul which Robert Browning trusted to meet again -on the threshold of eternity.[18] Was there ever such a testimony as -their _perfect_ marriage,—living on as it did in the survivor’s heart -for a quarter of a century,—to the possibility of the eternal union of -Genius and Love? - -I received in later years from Mr. Browning several letters which I may -as well insert in this place. - - - “19, Warwick Crescent, W., - “December 28th, 1874. - - “Dear Miss Cobbe, - - “I return the Petition, for the one good reason, that I have just - signed its fellow forwarded to me by Mr. Leslie Stephen. You have - heard ‘I take an equal interest with yourself in the effort to - suppress Vivisection.’ I dare not so honour my mere wishes and prayers - as to put them for a moment beside your noble acts, but this I know, I - would rather submit to the worst of deaths, so far as pain goes, than - have a single dog or cat tortured on the pretence of sparing me a - twinge or two. I return the paper, because I shall be probably shut up - here for the next week or two, and prevented from seeing my friends, - whoever would refuse to sign would certainly not be of the number.” - - “Ever truly and gratefully yours, - “ROBERT BROWNING.” - - - “19, Warwick Crescent, W., - “July 3rd, 1881. - - “Dear Miss Cobbe, - - “I wish I were not irretrievably engaged on Monday afternoon, twice - over, as it prevents me from accepting your invitation. By all I hear, - Mr. Bishop’s performance must be instructive to those who need it, and - amusing to everybody.[19] - - “Thank you very much, - “Ever truly yours, - “ROBERT BROWNING.” - - - “19, Warwick Crescent, W., - “October 22nd, 1882, - - “Dear Miss Cobbe, - - “It is about a week ago since I had to write to the new Editor of the - ‘Fortnightly,’ Mr. Escott—and assure him that I was so tied and bound - by old promises ‘to give something to this and that Magazine if I gave - at all’—that it became impossible I could oblige anybody in even so - trifling a matter. It comes of making rash resolutions—but, once made, - there is no escape from the consequence—though I rarely have felt this - so much of a hardship as now when I am forced to leave a request of - yours uncomplied with. For the rest, I shall indeed rejoice if that - abominable and stupid cruelty of pigeon-shooting is put a stop to. The - other detestable practice, Vivisection, strikes deeper root, I fear; - but God bless whoever tugs at it! - - “Ever yours most truly, - “ROBERT BROWNING.” - - -Another of our most frequent visitors at Villa Brichieri was Mr. T. -Adolphus Trollope, author of the _Girlhood of Catherine de’ Medici_, “_A -Decade of Italian Women_” and other books. Though not so successful an -author as his brilliant brother Anthony, he was an interesting man, whom -we much liked. One day he came up and pressed us to go back with him and -pay a visit to a guest at his Villino Trollope in the Piazza Maria -Antonia,—a lovely house he had built, with a broad verandah behind it, -opening on a garden of cypresses and oranges backed by the old -crenelated and Iris-decked walls of Florence. He had, he told us, a most -interesting person staying with him and Mrs. Trollope;—Mrs. Lewes—who -had written _Adam Bede_, and was then writing _Romola_. Miss Blagden -alone went with him, and was enchanted, like all the world, with George -Eliot. - -Mr. Trollope told me many curious facts concerning Italian society -which, from his long residence, he knew more intimately than almost any -other foreigner. He described the marriage settlement of a nobleman -which had actually passed through his hands, wherein the intending -husband, with wondrous foresight and precaution, deliberately named -three or four gentlemen, amongst whom his future wife might choose her -_cavaliere servente_! - -We had several other _habitués_ at our villas; Dall’ Ongaro, a poet and -ex-priest; Romanelli, the sculptor; and Miss Linda White, now Madame -Villari, the charming authoress and hostess of a brilliant _salon_, wife -of the eminent historian who was recently Minister of Education. - -Perhaps the most interesting of our visitors, after Mr. Browning, was -Mrs. Beecher Stowe. She impressed me much, and the criticisms I have -read of her “_Sunny Memories_” and other books have failed to diminish -my admiration for her. She was one of the few women, I suppose, who have -actually _felt_ Fame, as heroes do who receive national Triumphs; and -she seemed to be as simple and unpretentious, as little elated as it was -possible to be. She had even a trick of looking down as if she had been -stared out of countenance; but this was perhaps a part of that singular -habit which most Evangelicals of her class exhibited thirty years ago, -of shyness in society and inability to converse except with the person -seated next them in company. It was the verification after eighteen -centuries of the old heathen taunt against the Christians, recorded in -the dialogues of Minucius Felix, “_In publicam muta, in angulis -garrula!_” I have recorded elsewhere Mrs. Stowe’s remark when I spoke -with grief of the end of Theodore Parker’s work. “Do you think,” she -said, suddenly looking up at me with flashing eyes, “that Theodore -Parker has no work to do for God _now_?” I must not repeat again her -interesting conversation as we sat on our balcony watching the sun go -down over the Val d’ Arno. After much serious talk as to the nearness of -the next life, Mrs. Stowe narrated a saying of her boy on which, (as I -told her), a good heterodox sermon _in my sense_ might be preached. She -taught the child that Anger was sinful, whereupon he asked: “Then why, -Mama, does the Bible say so often that God was angry?” She replied -motherlike: “You will understand it when you are older.” The boy -pondered seriously for awhile and then burst out: “O Mama, I have found -it out! God is angry, _because God is not a Christian_!” - -Another of our _habitués_ on my first visit to Florence was Walter -Savage Landor. At that time he was, with his dear Pomeranian dog, -_Giallo_, living alone in very ordinary lodgings in Florence, having -quarrelled with his family and left his villa in their possession. He -had a grand, leonine head with long white hair and beard, and to hear -him denouncing his children was to witness a performance of Lear never -matched on any stage! He was very kind to me, and we often walked about -odd nooks of Florence together, while he poured out reminiscences of -Byron and Shelley, some of which I have recorded (Chap. IX., p. 257), -and of others of the older generation whom he had known, so that I -seemed in touch with them all. He was then about 88 years of age, and -perhaps his great and cultivated intellect was already failing. Much -that he said in wrath and even fury seemed like raving, but he was -gentle as a child to us women, and to his dog whom he passionately -loved. When I wrote the first Memorial against Prof. Schiff which -started the anti-vivisection crusade, Mr. Landor’s name was one of the -first appended to it. He added some words to his signature so fierce and -contemptuous that I never dared to publish them! - -We also saw much of Dr. Grisanowski, a very clever Pole, who afterwards -became a prominent advocate of the science-tortured brutes. When I -discussed the matter with him he was entirely on the side of Science. -After some years he sent me his deeply thought-out pamphlet, with the -endorsement “For Miss Cobbe,—who was right when I was wrong;” a very -generous retractation. We also received Mr. Frederick Tennyson, (Lord -Tennyson’s brother), Madame Venturi, Madame Alberto Mario, the late Lord -Justice Bowen, (then a brilliant young man from Oxford,) and many more. - -By far the best and dearest of my friends in Florence however, was one -who never came up our hill, and who was already then an aged woman—Mrs. -Somerville. I had brought a letter of introduction to her, being anxious -to see one who had been such an honour to womanhood; but I expected to -find her an incarnation of Science, having very little affinity with -such a person as I. Instead of this, I found in her the dearest old lady -in all the world, who took me to her heart as if I had been a -newly-found daughter, and for whom I soon felt such tender affection -that sitting beside her on her sofa, (as I mostly did on account of her -deafness) I could hardly keep myself from caressing her. In a letter to -Harriet St. Leger I wrote of her: “She is the very ideal of an old lady, -so gentle, cordial and dignified, like my mother; and as fresh, eager -and intelligent _now_, as she can ever have been.” Her religious ideas -proved to be exactly like my own; and being no doubt somewhat a-thirst -for sympathy on a subject on which she felt profoundly, (her daughters -differing from her), she opened her heart to me entirely. Here are a few -notes I made after talks with her:— - -“Mrs. Somerville thinks no one can be eloquent who has not studied the -Bible. We discussed the character of Christ. She agreed to all I said, -adding she thought it clear the Apostles never thought he was God, only -the image of the perfection of God. She kissed me tenderly when I rose -to go and bade me come back at any hour—at three in the morning if I -liked!—May 18th. Mrs. Somerville gave me her photograph. She says she -always feels a regret thinking of the next life that we shall see no -more the flowers of this world. I said we should no doubt see others -still fairer. “Ah! yes,” she said, “but _our own_ roses and mignonette! -I shall miss them. The dear animals I believe we _shall_ meet. They -suffer so often here, they must live again.”—June 3rd. Wished farewell -to Mrs. Somerville. She said kissing me with many tears, “We shall meet -in Heaven! I shall claim you there.” - -I saw Mrs. Somerville again on my other visits to Italy, at Genoa, -Spezzia and Naples; of course making it a great object of my plans to be -for some weeks near her. In my last journey, in 1879, I saw at Naples -the noble monument erected over her grave by her daughter. It represents -her (heroic size) reclining on a classic chair,—in somewhat the attitude -of the statue of Agrippina in the Vatican. - -Mrs. Somerville ought to have been buried in Westminster Abbey. When I -saw her death announced on the posters of the newspapers in the streets -in London, I hurried as soon as I could recover myself, to ask Dean -Stanley to arrange for her interment in the Abbey. The Dean consented -freely and with hearty approval to my proposition, and Mrs. Somerville’s -nephew, Sir William Fairfax, promised at once to defray all expenses. -There was only one thing further needed, and that was the usual formal -request from some public body or official persons to the Dean and -Chapter of Westminster. Dean Stanley had immediately written to the -Astronomer Royal to suggest that he and the President of the Royal -Society, as the representatives of the sciences with which Mrs. -Somerville’s fame was connected, should address to him the demand which -would authorize his proceeding with the matter. But that gentleman -_refused_ to do it—on the ground that _he_ had never read Mrs. -Somerville’s books! Whether he had read one in which she took the -opposite side from his in the sharp and angry Adams-Le Verrier -controversy, it is not for me to say. Any way, jealousy, either -scientific or masculine, declined to admit Mary Somerville’s claims to a -place in the national Valhalla, wherein so many men neither -intellectually nor morally her equals have been welcomed. - -From the time of our first meeting till her death in 1872, Mrs. -Somerville maintained a close correspondence with me. I have had all her -beautifully-written letters bound together, and they form a considerable -volume. Of course it was a delight to me to send her everything which -might interest her, and among other things I sent her a volume of -Theodore Parker’s Prayers; edited by myself. In October, 1863, I spent a -long time at Spezzia to enjoy the immense pleasure of her society. I was -then a cripple and unable to walk to her house, and wrote of her visits -as follows to Miss Elliot: - - - “Mrs. Somerville comes to me every day. She is looking younger than - three years ago and she talked to me for three hours yesterday, - pouring out such stores of recent science as I never heard before. - Then we talked a little heresy, and she thanked me with tears in her - eyes for Parker’s _Prayers_, saying she had found them the greatest - comfort and the most perfect expression of religious feeling of any - prayers she has known.” - - -Another time I sent her my _Hopes of the Human Race_. She wrote, three -weeks before her death, “God bless you dearest friend for your -irresistible argument for our Immortality! Not that I ever doubted of -it, but as I shall soon enter my ninety-third year, your words are an -inexpressible comfort.” - -Mary Somerville was the living refutation of all the idle, foolish -things which have been said of intellectual women. There never existed a -more womanly woman. Her _Life_, edited by her eldest daughter Martha -Somerville (her son by her first marriage, Mr. Woronzow Greig, died long -before her), has been much read and liked. I reviewed it in the -_Quarterly_ (January, 1874), and am tempted to enclose a letter which -Martha Somerville (then and always my good friend) wrote about it: - - - “From Miss Somerville to F. P. C. - - “22nd January, Naples. - - “My dear Frances, - - “I have this morning received the _Quarterly Review_ and some slips - from newspapers. What can I say to express my gratitude to you for the - article,—so admirably written; and giving so touching a picture of my - Mother,—as you, her best friend (notwithstanding the great difference - of age) knew her? Also I received lately the _Academy_ which pleased - me much, too. The Memoir has been received far more favourably than I - ventured to expect.” - - -A long time after this, I paid a visit to friends at St. Andrews and -stopped from Saturday to Monday, on my way, at Burntisland. Writing from -thence to Miss Elliot about her own country, and countrymen, I said:— - - - “I came here to look up the scene of Mrs. Somerville’s childhood, and - I have found everything just as she described it;—the Links; the - pretty hills and woods full of wild flowers; the rocky bit of shore - with boulders full of fossil shells which excited her childish wonder - when she wandered about, a beautiful little girl, as she must have - been. If ever there were a case of— - - “‘Nourishing a youth sublime, - With the fairy tales of science and the long results of Time,’ - - it was surely hers. Very naturally I was thinking of her all day and - wondering whether she is _now_ studying the flora of Heaven, of which - she used to speak, and pursuing Astronomy among the stars; or whether - it _can_ be possible these things pass away for ever! I wanted very - much to make out where Sir William Fairfax’ house had been, and - finally was directed to the schoolmaster who, it was said, knew all - about it. I found the good man in a large schoolhouse where he has 600 - pupils; and as soon as he learned my name he seized my hand and made - great demonstrations; and straightway proceeded to constitute himself - my guide to the localities in question. The joke however was this. - Hardly were we out of the house before he said, ‘I’ll send you a - pamphlet of mine—not about Science, I don’t care for Science, I care - for Morals;—and I’ve found out there is only _a very little thing to - be done, to stop all pauperism and all crime_! You are just the person - to understand me!’ The idea of this poor schoolmaster in Burntisland - compressing _that_ modest programme into a ‘pamphlet’ seems to me - deliciously characteristic of Scotland.” - - -A college for Ladies was opened some years ago at Oxford and named after -Mrs. Somerville. I greatly rejoiced at the time at this very fitting -tribute to her memory; and induced my brother to send his daughter, my -dear niece, Frances Conway Cobbe, to the Hall. I ceased to rejoice, -however, when I found that a lady bearing a name identified with -Vivisection in England was nominated for election as a member of the -Council of the College. I entered, (as a Subscriber,) the most vigorous -protest I could make against the proposed choice, but, alas! in vain. - -One of our visitors at Villa Brichieri was a very pious French lady, who -came up to us one day to dinner straight from her devotions in the -Duomo, where a Triduo was going on against Renan; and, as it chanced, -she began to praise somewhat excessively a lady of rank whose reputation -had suffered more than one serious injury. My English friend remarked, -smiling, in mitigation of the eulogy:— - - - “Elle a eue ses petits délassements!” - - -the answer was deliciously XVIII. Century— - -“C’est ce qui m’occupe le moins. Pourvu que cela soit fait avec du bon -goût! D’ailleurs on ne parle sérieusement que de deux ou trois. Le -Prince de S., par exemple. Encore est il mort celui-là!” - -It was during one of my visits to Florence that I saw King Victor -Emanuel’s public entry into the city, which had just elected him King. -This is how I described the scene to Harriet St. Leger:— - - - “Happily we had a fine day for the king’s entry on Monday last. It was - a glorious sight! The beautiful old city blossomed out in flowers, - flags, garlands, hangings and gonfalons beyond all English - imagination. In every street there was a triumphal arch, while - _boulevards_ of artificial trees loaded with camelias, ran from the - railway to the gate and down the via Calzaiuoli. Even the mean little - sdrucciolo de’ Pitti was made into one long arbour by twenty green - arches sustaining hanging baskets of flowers. The Pitti itself had its - rugged old face decked with wreaths. I had the good fortune to stand - on a balcony commanding a view of the whole procession. Victor - Emanuel, riding his charger of Solferino, looked—coarse and fat as he - is,—a _man_ and a soldier, and more sympathetic than Kings in general. - Cavour has a Luther-like face, which wore a gleam of natural pleasure - at his reception. The people were quite mad with joy. They did not - cheer as we do, but uttered a sort of deep roar of ecstacy, flinging - clouds of flowers under the King’s horse’s feet, and seeming as if - they would fling themselves also from their balconies. Our hostess, an - Italian lady, went directly into hysterics, and all the party, men and - women cried and kissed and laughed in the wildest way. At night there - was a marvellous illumination, extending as far as the eye could - reach, in every palazzo and cottage down the Val d’ Arno and up the - slopes of the Apennines, where bonfires blazed on all the heights.” - - -In Florence my friends had been principally literary men and women. In -Rome they were chiefly artists. Harriet Hosmer, to whom I had letters, -was the first I knew. She was in those days the most bewitching sprite -the world ever saw. Never have I laughed so helplessly as at the -infinite fun of this bright Yankee girl. Even in later years when we -perforce grew a little graver, she needed only to begin one of her -descriptive stories to make us all young again. I have not seen her now -for many years since she has returned to America, nor yet any one in the -least like her; and it is vain to hope to convey to any reader the -contagion of her merriment. O! what a gift,—beyond rubies, are such -spirits! And what fools, what cruel fools, are those who damp them down -in children possessed of them! - -Of Miss Hosmer’s sculpture I hoped, and every one hoped, great things. -Her _Zenobia_, her _Puck_, her _Sleeping Faun_ were beautiful creations -in a very pure style of art. But she was lured away from sculpture by -some invention of her own of a mechanical kind, over which many years of -her life have been lost. Now I believe she has achieved a fine statue of -Isabella of Spain, which has been erected in San Francisco. - -Jealous rivals in Rome spread abroad at one time a slanderous story that -Harriet Hosmer did not make her own statues. I have in my possession an -autograph by her master, Gibson, which he wrote at the time to rebut -this falsehood, and which bears all the marks of his quaint style of -English composition. - - - “Finding that my pupil Miss Hosmer’s progress in her art begins to - agitate some rivals of the male sex, as proved by the following - malicious words printed in the Art journal;— - - “‘Zenobia—said to be by Miss Hosmer, but really executed by an Italian - workman at Rome’;— - - “I feel it is but justice on my part to state that Miss Hosmer became - my pupil on her arrival at Rome from America. I soon found that she - had uncommon talent. She studied under my own eyes for seven years, - modelling from the antique and her own original works from the living - models. - - “The first report of her Zenobia was that it was the work of Mr. - Gibson. Afterwards that it is by a Roman workman. So far it is true - that it was built up by my man from her own original small model, - according to the practice of our profession; the long study and - finishing is by herself, like every other sculptor. - - “If Miss Hosmer’s works were the productions of other artists and not - her own there would be in my studio two impostors—Miss Hosmer and - Myself. - - “JOHN GIBSON, R.A. - “Rome, Nov., 1863.” - - -Gibson was himself a most interesting person; an old Greek soul, born by -haphazard in a Welsh village. He had wonderfully little (for a Welshman) -of anything like what Mr. Matthew Arnold calls Hebraism in his -composition. There was a story current among us of some one telling him -of a bet which had been made that another member of our society could -not repeat the Lord’s Prayer; and it was added that the party defied to -repeat it had begun (instead of it) with a doggerel American prayer for -children:— - - “Before I lay me down to sleep, - I pray the Lord my soul to keep.” - -“Ah! you see,” said Gibson, “He _did_ know the Lord’s Prayer after all!” - -Once he sat by me on the Pincian and said: “You know I don’t often read -the Bible, I have my sculpture to attend to. But I have had to look into -it for my bas-relief of the Children coming to Christ, and, do you know, -I find that Jesus Christ really said a good thing?” - -I smothered my laughter, and said: “O certainly, Mr. Gibson, a great -many excellent things.” “Yes!” he said in his slow way. “Yes, he did. -There were some people called Pharisees who came and asked him -troublesome questions. And he said,—he said,—well, I forget exactly what -he said, but ‘Deeds not words,’ was what he meant to say.” - -The exquisite grace of Gibson’s statues was all a part of the purity and -delicacy of his mind. He was in many respects an unique character; a -simple-hearted and single-minded worshipper of Beauty; and if my good -friend Lady Eastlake had not thought fit to prune his extraordinarily -quaint and original Autobiography, (which I have read in the MS.) to -ordinary book form and modernised style, I believe it would have been -deemed one of the gems of original literature, like Benvenuto Cellini’s, -and the renown of Gibson as a great artist would have been kept alive -thereby. - -A merry party, of whom Mr. Gibson was usually one, used to meet -frequently that winter at the hospitable table of Charlotte Cushman, the -actress. She had, then, long retired from the stage, and had a handsome -house in the via Gregoriana, in which also lived her friend Miss -Stebbins and Miss Hosmer. Our dinners of American oysters and wild boar -with agro-dolce-sauce, and déjeuners including an awful refection -menacing sudden death, called “Woffles,” eaten with molasses (of which -woffles I have seen five plates divided between four American ladies!) -were extremely hilarious. There was a brightness, freedom and joyousness -among these gifted Americans, which was quite delightful to me. Miss -Cushman in particular I greatly admired and respected. She had, of -course, like all actors, the acquired habit of giving vivid outward -expression to every emotion, just as we quiet English ladies are taught -from our cradles to repress such signs, and to cultivate a calm -demeanour under all emergencies. But this vivacity rendered her all the -more interesting. She often read to us Mrs. Browning’s or Lowell’s -poetry in a very fine way indeed. Some years after this happy winter a -certain celebrated London surgeon pronounced her to be dying of a -terrible disease. She wished us farewell courageously, and went back to -New England, as we all sadly thought to die there. The next thing we -heard of Charlotte Cushman was, that she had returned to the stage and -was acting Meg Merrilies to immense and delighted audiences! Next we -heard that she had thus earned £5,000, and that she was building a house -with her earnings. Finally we learned that the house was finished, and -that she was living in it! She did so, and enjoyed it for some years -before the end came from other causes than the one threatened by the -great London surgeon. - -One day when I had been lunching at her house, Miss Cushman asked -whether I would drive with her in her brougham to call on a friend of -Mrs. Somerville, who had particularly desired that she and I should -meet,—a Welsh lady, Miss Lloyd, of Hengwrt? I was, of course, very -willing indeed to meet a friend of Mrs. Somerville. We happily found -Miss Lloyd, busy in her sculptor’s studio over a model of her Arab -horse, and, on hearing that I was anxious to ride, she kindly offered to -mount me if I would join her in her rides on the Campagna. Then began an -acquaintance, which was further improved two years later when Miss Lloyd -came to meet and help me when I was a cripple, at Aix-les-Bains; and -from that time, now more than thirty years ago, she and I have lived -together. Of a friendship like this, which has been to my later life -what my mother’s affection was to my youth, I shall not be expected to -say more. - -On my way home through France to Bristol from one of my earlier journeys -and before I became crippled, I had the pleasure of making for the first -time the acquaintance of Mdlle. Rosa Bonheur. Miss Lloyd, who knew her -very intimately and had worked in her studio, gave me an introduction to -her and I reported my visit in a letter to Miss Lloyd in Rome. - - - “Mdlle Bonheur received me most cordially when I sent up your note. - She was working in that most picturesque studio (at By, near Thoméry). - I had fancied from her picture that she was so much taller and larger - that I hardly supposed that it was she who greeted me, but her face is - _charming_; such fine, clear eyes looking straight into one’s own, and - frank bearing; an Englishwoman’s honesty with a Frenchwoman’s - courtesy. She spoke of you with great warmth of regard; remembered - everything you had said, and wanted to know all about your sculpture - studies in Rome. I said it had encouraged me to intrude on her to hope - I might persuade her to fulfil her promise of stopping with you next - winter, and added how very much you wished it, and described the - association she would have with you, sketching excursions, _bovi_, and - Thalaba” (Miss Lloyd’s Arab horse). “She said over and over she would - not go to Italy without going to see you; and that she hoped to go - soon, possibly next winter.... Somehow, from talking of Italy we - passed to talking of the North, which Mdlle. Bonheur thinks has a - deeper poetry than the South, and then to Ireland, where she wishes to - go next summer (I hope stopping at my brother’s _en passant_) and of - which country she said such beautiful, dreamy things that even I grew - poetic about our ‘_Brumes_,’—to which she quickly applied the epithet - ‘grandiose,’—and our sea, looking, I said, like an angel’s eye with a - tear in it. At this simile she was so pleased that we grew quite - friends, and I can only hope she will not see that sea on a grey day - and think me an impostor! Nothing I liked about her, so much, however, - as her interest in Hattie Hosmer, and her delight in hearing about her - _Zenobia_[20] (_triumphans_) in the Exhibition; at which report of - mine she exclaimed: ‘That is the thing above all others I shall wish - to see in London! You know I have seen Miss Hosmer, but I have never - seen any of her works, and I do very much desire to do so’.... Her - one-eyed friend sat by painting all the time. She is not enticing to - look at, but I dare say, not bad. I said I always envied friends whom - I caught working together and that I lived alone; to which she replied - ‘_Je vous plains alors!_’ in a tone of conviction, showing that, in - her case at all events, friendship was a very pleasant thing. Mdlle. - Bonheur showed me three or four fine pictures she is painting, and - some prints, but of course I was as stupid as usual in studios and - only remarked (as a buffalo might have done,) that Roman _bovi_ were - more majestic and like Homeric Junos than those wiry little Scotch - short-horns her soul delighteth to honour. But O! she has done a Dog, - _such_ a dog! Like Bush in outward dog, but the inner soul of him more - profoundly, unutterably wise than tongue may tell! a Dog to be set up - and worshipped as Anubis. Certainly Mdlle. Bonheur is a finer artist - than Landseer in this, his own line. I wish she would leave the cattle - and ‘go to the dogs.’” - - -My last journey but one to Italy was taken when I was lame; and, after -my sojourn at Aix-les-Bains, I spent the autumn in Florence and the -winter in Pisa; where I met Cav. d’ Azeglio as above recorded. Miss -Lloyd rejoined me at Genoa in the spring to help me to return to -England, as I was still (after four years!) miserably helpless. We -returned over Mont Cenis which had no tunnel through it in those days; -and, on the very summit, our carriage broke down. We were in a sad -dilemma, for I was quite unable to walk a hundred yards; but a train of -carts happily coming up and lending us ropes enough to hold our trap -together for my use alone, Miss Lloyd ran down the mountain, and at last -we found ourselves safe at the bottom. - -After another very pleasant visit together to her friend Mdlle. Rosa -Bonheur, and many promises on her part to come to us in England (which, -alas! she never fulfilled) we made our way to London; and, within a few -weeks, Miss Lloyd—one morning before breakfast,—found, and, in an -incredibly short time, _bought_ the dear little house in South -Kensington which became our home with few interruptions for a quarter of -a century; No. 26, Hereford Square. It was at that time almost at the -end of London. All up the Gloucester Road between it and the Park were -market-gardens; and behind it and alongside of it, where Rosary Gardens -and Wetherby Place now stand, there were large fields of grass with -abundance of fine old lime trees and elms, and one magnificent walnut -tree which ought never to have been cut down. Behind us we had a large -piece of ground, which we rented temporarily and called the “_Boundless -Prairie_,” (!) where we gave afternoon tea to our friends under the -limes, when they were in bloom. On a part of our garden Miss Lloyd -erected a sculptor’s Studio. The House itself, though small, was very -pretty and airy; every room in it lightsome and pleasant, and somehow -capable of containing a good many people. We often had in it as many as -50 or 60 guests. In short, I had once more a home, and a most happy one; -and my lonely wanderings were over. - - - - - CHAPTER - XV. - _LONDON IN THE SIXTIES AND SEVENTIES._ - _LITERARY LIFE._ - - -For some time before I took up my abode in London I had been writing -busily for the press. When my active work at Bristol came to an end and -I became for four years a cripple, I naturally turned to use my pen, -and, finding from my happy experience of _Workhouse Sketches_ in -_Macmillan’s Magazine_ that I could make money without much difficulty, -I soon obtained almost as many openings as I could profit by to add to -my income. I wrote a series of articles for _Fraser’s Magazine_, then -edited by Mr. Froude, who had been my brother’s friend at Oxford, and -who from that time I had the high privilege to count as mine also. These -first papers were sketches of Rome, Cairo, Athens, Jerusalem, etc.; and -they were eventually reprinted in a rather successful little volume -called _Cities of the Past_, now long out of print. I also wrote many -papers connected with women’s affairs and claims, in both _Macmillan_ -and _Fraser_; and these likewise were reprinted in a volume; _Pursuits -of Women_. Beside writing these longer articles, I acted as “Own -Correspondent” to the _Daily News_ in Rome one year, and in Florence -another, and sent a great many articles to the _Spectator_, _Economist_, -_Reader_, &c. In short I turned out (as a painter would say) a great -many _Pot-Boilers_. These, with my small patrimony, enabled me to bear -the expense of travelling and of keeping a maid; a luxury which had -become indispensable. - -I also at this time edited, as I have mentioned, for Messrs. Trübner, -the 12 vols. of _Parker’s Works_, with a _Preface_. The arrangement of -the great mass of miscellaneous papers was very laborious and -perplexing, but I think I marshalled the volumes fairly well. I did not -perform as fully as I ought to have done my editorial duty of correcting -for the press; indeed I did not understand that it fell to my share, or -I must have declined to undertake the task. Mr. Trübner paid me £50 for -this editing, which I had proposed to do gratuitously. - -I had much at heart,—from the time I gave up my practical work among the -poor folk at Bristol,—to write again on religious matters, and to help -so far as might be possible for me to clear a way through the maze of -new controversies which, in those days of _Essays_ and _Reviews_, -Colenso’s _Pentateuch_ and Renan’s _Vie de Jésus_, were remarkably -lively and wide-spread through all classes of society. With this hope, -and while spending a summer in my crippled condition at Aix-les-Bains, -and on the Diablerêts, I wrote to Harriet St. Leger:— - - - “I am now striving to write a book about present controversies and the - future basis of religious faith. I want to do justice to existing - parties, High, Low and Broad, yet to show (as of course I believe) - that none of them can really solve the problem; and that the faith of - the future must be one not _based_ on a special History, though - corroborated by all history.” - - -The plan of this book—named _Broken Lights_—is as follows: I -discriminate the different sections of thinkers from the point of view -of the answers they would respectively give to the supreme question, -“What are the ultimate grounds of our faith in God, in Duty and in -Immortality?” First, I distinguish between those who hold those grounds -to rest on the _Traditional Revelation_; and those who hold them to be -the _Original Revelation_ of the Divine Spirit in each faithful soul. -The former are divided again, naturally, into those who take their -authoritative tradition from a _Living Prophet_, a _Church_, or a -_Book_. But in Christian times we have only had a few obscure prophets -(Montanus, Joseph Smith, Swedenborg, Brother Prince, Mr. Harris, &c.), -and the choice practically lies between resting faith on a _Church_, or -resting it on a _Book_. - -I classify both the parties in the English Church who rest respectively -on a Church and on a Book, as _Palæologians_, the one, the _High -Church_, whose ground of religious faith is: “_The Bible authenticated -and interpreted by the Church_;” and the other the _Low Church_, whose -theory is still the formula of Chillingworth: “_The Bible, and the Bible -only, is the religion of Protestants_.” - -But it has come to pass that all the distinctive doctrines of -Christianity (over and above Theism) which the Traditionalists maintain, -are, in these days, more or less opposed to modern sentiment, criticism -and science; and among those who adhere to them, one or other attitude -as regards this opposition must be taken up. The Palæologian party in -both wings insists on the old doctrines more or less crudely and -strictly, and would fain _bend modern ideas_ to harmonize with them. -Another party, which is generally called the _Neologian_, endeavours to -_modify or explain the old doctrines_, so as to harmonize them with the -ethics and criticism of our generation. - -After a somewhat careful study of the positions, merits and failures of -the two Palæologian parties, I proceed to define among the Neologians, -the _First Broad Church_ (of Maurice and Kingsley), whose programme was: -“To harmonize the doctrines of Church and Bible with modern thought.” -This end it attempted to reach by new readings and interpretations, -consonant with the highest modern sentiment; but it remained of course -obvious, that the supposed Divinely-inspired Authorities had failed to -convey the sense of these interpretations to men’s minds for eighteen -centuries; indeed had conveyed the reverse. The old received doctrine of -an eternal Hell, for example, was the absolute contradiction of the -doctrines of Divine universal love and everlasting Mercy, which the new -teachers professed to derive from the same traditional authority. This -school emphatically “put the new wine into old bottles;” and the success -of the experiment could only be temporary, since it rests on the -assumption that God has miraculously taught men in language which they -have, for fifty generations, uniformly misinterpreted. - -The other branch of the Neologian party I call the _Second Broad Church_ -(the party of Stanley and Jowett). It may be considered as forming the -Extreme Left of the Revelationists; the furthest from mere Authority and -the nearest to Rationalism; just as the High Church party forms the -Extreme Right; the nearest to Authority and furthest from Rationalism. I -endeavour to define the difference between the _First_ and _Second Broad -Church_ parties as follows:— - - - “The First Broad Church, as we have seen, maintains that the doctrines - of the Bible and the Church can be perfectly harmonized with the - results of modern thought, _by a new, but legitimate exegesis of the - Bible and interpretation of Church formulæ_. The Second Broad Church - seems prepared to admit that, in many cases, they can only be - harmonized _by the sacrifice of Biblical infallibility_. The First - Broad Church has recourse (to harmonize them) to various logical - processes, but principally to that of diverting the student, at all - difficult points, from criticism to edification. The Second Broad - Church uses no ambiguity, but frankly avows that when the Bible - contradicts Science, the Bible must be in error. The First Broad - Church maintains that the Inspiration of the Bible differs in _kind_ - as well as in _degree_, from that of other books. The Second Broad - Church appears to hold that it differs in degree, but _not_ in kind.” - - -After a considerable discussion on the various doctrines of the nature -and limitations of Inspiration, I ask, p. 110, 111:— - - - “Admit the Inspiration of Prophets and Apostles to have been - substantially the same with that always granted to faithful - souls;—admit, therefore, the existence of a human element in - Revelation, can we still look to that Revelation as the safe - foundation for our Religion?” - - “To this question the leaders of the Second Broad Church answer - unhesitatingly: ‘Yes. It has been an egregious error of modern times - to confound the Record of the Revelation with the Revelation itself, - and to assume that God’s lessons lose their value because they have - been transmitted to us through the natural channels of human reason - and conscience. Returning to the true view, we shall only get rid of - uncounted difficulties and objections which prevent the reception of - Christianity by the most honest minds here in England and in heathen - countries.’” - - -But in conclusion I ask— - - - “‘What influence can the Second Broad Church exercise on the future - religion of the world? What answer will it supply to the doubts of the - age, and whereon would it rest our faith in God and Immortality?’ The - reply seems to be brief. The Second Broad Church would, like all the - other parties in the Church, call on us to rest our faith on History; - but in their case, it is History corroborated by consciousness, not - opposed thereto. In the next Chapter it will be my effort to show that - under _no_ conditions is it probable that History can afford us our - ultimate grounds of faith. Meanwhile, it must appear that if any form - of Historical faith may escape such a conclusion and approve itself to - mankind in time to come, it is that which is proposed by the Second - Broad Church, and which it worthily presents,—to the intellect by its - learning, and to the religious sentiment by its profound and tender - piety.”—_Broken Lights_, p. 120. - - -These four parties, two Palæologian and two Neologian, thus examined, -included between them all the members of the Church of England, and all -the Orthodox Dissenters. There remained the Jews, Roman Catholics, -Quakers and Unitarians, and of each of these the book contains a sketch -and criticism; finally concluding with an exposition (so far as I could -give it) of _Theoretic_ and of _Practical Theism_. - -The book contains further two _Appendices_. The first treats of Bishop -Colenso’s onslaught on the Pentateuch; then greatly disturbing English -orthodoxy. The second Appendix deals with the other most notable book of -that period; Renan’s _Vie de Jésus_. After maintaining that Renan has -failed in delineating his principal figure, while he has vastly -illuminated his environment, I give with diffidence my own view of -Christ, lest Traditionalists should, without contradiction, assume that -Renan has given the general Theistic idea of his character. After -referring to the measureless importance of the _palingenesia_ of which -Christ spoke to Nicodemus, I draw a comparison between the New Birth in -the individual soul, and the historically-traceable results of Christ’s -life on the human race. (P. 167.) - - - “Taking the whole ancient world in comparison with the modern, of - Heathendom with Christendom, the general character of the two is - absolutely analogous to that which in individuals we call Unregenerate - and Regenerate. Of course there were thousands of regenerated souls, - Hebrew, Greek, Indian, of all nations and languages, before Christ, - and of course there are millions unregenerate now. But nevertheless, - from this time onward we trace through history a _new spirit_ in the - world: a leaven working through the whole mass of souls.”... - - -The language of the old world was one of _self-satisfaction_, as its Art -was of _completeness_. On the other hand: - - - “The language of the new world, coming to us through the thousand - tongues of our multiform civilization, is one long cry of longing - aspiration: ‘Would that I could create the ineffable Beauty! Would - that I could discover the eternal and absolute Truth! Would! O, would - it were possible to live out the good, the noble, and the holy!’”... - - “This great phenomenon of history surely points to some corresponding - great event whereby the revolution was accomplished. There must have - been a moment when the old order stopped and the new began. Some - action must have taken place upon the souls of men which thenceforth - started them in a different career, and opened the age of progressive - life. When did this moment arrive? What was the primal act of the - endless progress? By whom was that age opened?” - - “Here we have really ground to go upon. There is no need to establish - the authenticity or veracity of special books or harmonize discordant - narratives to obtain an answer to our question. The whole voice of - human history unconsciously and without premeditation bears its - unmistakeable testimony. The turning point between the old world and - the new was the beginning of the Christian movement. The action upon - human nature which started it on its new course was the teaching and - example of Christ. Christ was he who opened the age of endless - progress.” - - “The view, therefore, which seems to be the best fitting one for our - estimate of the character of Christ, is that which regards him as the - great Regenerator of Humanity. _His coming was to the life of humanity - what Regeneration is to the life of the individual._ This is not a - conclusion doubtfully deduced from questionable biographies; but a - broad, plain inference from the universal history of our race. We may - dispute all details; but the grand result is beyond criticism. The - world has changed, and that change is historically traceable to - Christ. The honour, then, which Christ demands of us must be in - proportion of our estimate of the value of such Regeneration. He is - not merely a Moral Reformer inculcating pure ethics; not merely a - Religious Reformer clearing away old theologic errors and teaching - higher ideas of God. These things he was; but he might, for all we can - tell, have been them both as fully, and yet have failed to be what he - has actually been to our race. He might have taught the world better - ethics and better theology, and yet have failed to infuse into it that - new Life which has ever since coursed through its arteries and - penetrated its minutest veins.” - - -_Broken Lights_ proved to be (with the exception of my _Duties of -Women_) the most successful of my books. It went through three English -editions, and I believe quite as many in America; but of these last all -I knew was the occasional present of a single specimen copy. It was very -favourably reviewed, but some of my fellow Theists rather disapproved of -the tribute I had paid to Christ (as quoted above); and my good friend, -Prof. F. W. Newman, actually wrote a severe pamphlet against me, -entitled “_Hero-Making Religion_.” It did not alter my view. I do not -believe that our _Religion_ (the relation of our souls to God) can ever -properly rest upon History. Nay I cannot understand how any one who -knows the intricacies and obscurities attendant on the verification of -any ancient History, should for a moment be content to suppose that God -has required of all men to rest their faith in Him on such grounds, or -on what others report to them of such grounds. In the case of -Christianity, where scholars like Renan and Martineau—profoundly learned -in ancient and obsolete tongues, and equipped with the whole arsenal of -criticism of modern Germany, France and England,—can differ about the -age and authority of the principal _piéce de conviction_ (the Gospel of -St. John), it is truly preposterous to suggest that ordinary men and -women should form any judgment at all on the matter. The _Ideal Christ_ -needs only a good heart to find and love him. The _Historical_ Christ -needs the best critic in Europe, a Lightfoot, a Koenen, a Martineau, to -trace his footsteps on the sands of time. And _they_ differ as regards -nearly every one of them! - -But though History cannot rightly _be_ Religion or the basis of -Religion, there is, and must be, _a History of Religion_; as there is a -history of geometry and astronomy; and of that History of the whole -world’s Religion the supreme interest centres in the record of - - “The sinless years - That breathed beneath the Syrian blue.” - -Yet, as regards my own personal feeling, I must avow that the halo which -has gathered round Jesus Christ obscures him to my eyes. I see that he -is much more real to many of my friends, both Orthodox and Unitarian, -than he can ever be to me. There is nothing, no, not one single sentence -or action attributed to him of which (if we open our minds to criticism) -we can feel sufficiently certain to base on it any definite conclusion, -and this to me envelopes him in a cloud. Each Christian age has indeed, -(as I remark in my _Dawning Lights_), seen a Christ of its own; so that -we could imagine students in the future arguing that there must have -been “several Christs,” as old scholars held there were several -Zoroasters and several Buddhas. Just as Michael Angelo’s Christ was the -production of that dark and stormy age when first his awful form loomed -out of the shadows of the Sistine, in no less a degree do the portraits -of _Ecce Homo_ and the _Vie de Jésus_ belong to our era of sentiment and -philanthropy. We have no sun-made photograph of his features; only such -wavering image of them as may have rested on the waters of Galilee, -rippling in the breeze. I must not however further prolong these -reflections on a subject discussed to the best of my poor ability in my -more serious books. - -After BROKEN LIGHTS, I wrote the sequel: _Dawning Lights_ just quoted -above. In the first I had endeavoured to sketch the _Conditions and -Prospects_ of religious belief. In the second I speculated on the -_Results_ of the changes which were taking place in various articles of -that belief. The chapters deal consecutively with Changes in the _Method -of Theology_,—in the _Idea of God_; in the _Idea of Christ_; in the -_Doctrine of Sin_, theoretical and practical; in the idea of the -_Relation of this life to the next_; in the idea of the _Perfect Life_; -in the _Idea of Happiness_; in the _Doctrine of Prayer_; in the _Idea of -Death_; and in the _Doctrine of the eternity of Punishment_. - -This book also was fairly successful, and went into a second edition. - -Somewhere about this time (I have no exact record) I edited a little -book called _Alone to the Alone_, consisting of private prayers for -Theists. It contains contributions from fifteen men and women, of -Prayers, mostly written for personal use, before the idea of the book -had been suggested, under the influence of those occasional deeper -insights and more fervent feelings which all religious persons desire to -perpetuate. They are all anonymous. In the _Preface_ I say that the -result of such a compilation, - - - “‘Is necessarily altogether imperfect and fragmentary, but in the - great solitude where most of us pass our lives as regards our deeper - emotions, it may be more helpful to know that other human hearts are - feeling as we feel, and thinking as we think, rather than to read far - nobler words which come to us only as echoes of the Past.’ The book is - ‘designed for the use of those who desire to cultivate the feelings - which culminate in Prayer, but who find the rich and beautiful - collections of the Churches of Christendom no longer available, either - because of the doctrines whose acceptance they imply or of the nature - of the requests to which they give utterance. Adequately to replace in - a generation, or in several generations, such books, through which the - piety of ages has been poured, is wholly beyond hope; and the ambition - to do so would betray ignorance of the way in which these precious - drops are distilled slowly year after year, from the great - Incense-tree of humanity.’” - - -The remainder of the _Preface_, which is somewhat lengthy, discusses the -validity of Prayer for the attainment of _spiritual_ (not physical) -benefits. It concludes thus—p. xxxvi. - - - “And, lastly, if Religion is still to be to mankind in the future what - it has been in the past, it must still be a religion of Prayer. - Nothing is changed in human nature because it has outgrown some of the - errors of the past. The spiritual experience of the saintly souls of - old was true and real experience, even when their intellectual creeds - were full of mistakes. By the gate through which they entered the - paradise of love and peace, even by that same narrow portal of Prayer - must we pass into it. No present or future discoveries in science will - ever transmute the moral dross in human nature into the pure gold of - virtue. No spectrum analysis of the light of the nebulæ will enable us - to find God. If we are to be made holy, we must ask the Holy One to - sanctify us. If we are to know the infinite joy of Divine Love, we - must seek it in Divine communion.” - - -This book was first published in 1871; one of the years of the rising -tide of liberal-religious hope. A third edition was called for in 1881, -when the ebb had set in. In a short _Preface_ to this third edition I -notice this fact, and say that those hopes were doubtless all too hasty -for the slow order of Divine things. - - - “Nay, it would seem that, far from the immediate aurora of such a - morning, the world is destined first to endure a great ‘horror of - darkness,’ and to pass through the dreary and disaster-laden - experience of a night of materialism and agnosticism. Perhaps it will - only be when men have seen with their eyes how the universe appears - without a thought of God to illumine its dark places, and gauged for - themselves where human life will sink without hope of immortality to - elevate it, that they will recognise aright the unutterable - preciousness of religion. Faith, when restored after such an eclipse, - will be prized as it has never been prized heretofore.... - - “And Faith _must_ return to mankind sooner or later. So sure as God - _is_, so sure must it be that he will not finally leave his creatures, - whom he has led upward for thousands of years, to lose sight of him - altogether, or to be drowned for ever in the slough of atheism and - carnalism. He will doubtless reveal himself afresh to the souls of men - in his own time and in his own way,—whether, as of old, through - prophet-souls filled with inspiration, or by other methods yet - unknown. God is over us, and Heaven is waiting for us all the same, - even though all the men of science in Europe unite to tell us there is - only Matter in the universe, and only corruption in the grave. Atheism - may prevail for a night, but faith cometh in the morning. Theism is - ‘bound to win’ at last; not necessarily that special type of Theism - which our poor thoughts in this generation have striven to define; but - that great fundamental faith,—the needful substructure of every other - possible religious faith—the faith in a Righteous and loving God, and - in a life for man beyond the tomb.” - - -The book contains 72 Prayers; half of which refer to the outer and half -to the inner life. Among the former, are Noon and Sunset prayers; -thanksgivings for the love of friends, and for the beauty of the world; -also a Prayer respecting the sufferings of animals from human cruelty. -In the second part some of the Prayers are named, “In the Wilderness”; -“On the Right Way”; “God afar off”; “Doubt and Faith”; “_Fiat Lux_”; -“_Fiat Pax_”; “Thanksgiving for Religious Truth”; “For Pardon of a -Careless Life”; “For a Devoted Life”; “Joy in God”; “Here and -Hereafter.” - -I never expected that more than a very few friends would have cared for -this book, and in fact printed it with the intention of almost private -circulation; but it has been continuously, though slowly, called for -during the 23 years which have elapsed since it was compiled. - -I wrote the essays included in the volume “HOPES OF THE HUMAN RACE,” in -1873–1874. This has run through several editions. The long -_Introduction_ to this book was written immediately after the -publication of Mr. Mill’s _Essay on Religion_; a most important work of -which Miss Taylor had kindly put the proof sheets in my hands, and to -which I was eagerly anxious to offer such rejoinder from the side of -faith as might be in my power. Whether I succeeded in making an adequate -reply in the fifty pages I devoted to the subject, I cannot presume to -say. The Pessimist side, taken by Mr. Mill has been gaining ground ever -since, but there are symptoms that a reaction is taking place, beginning -(of all countries!) in France. I conclude this Preface thus—p. 53. - - - “But I quit the ungracious, and, in my case, most ungrateful, task of - offering my feeble protest against the last words given to us by a man - so good and great, that even his mistakes and deficiencies (as I needs - must deem them) are more instructive to us than a million platitudes - and truisms of teachers whom his transcendent intellectual honesty - should put to the blush, and whose souls never kindled with a spark of - the generous ardour for the welfare of his race which flamed in his - noble heart and animated his entire career.” - - -The book contains two long Essays on the _Life after Death_ contributed -originally to the _Theological Review_. In the first of these, after -stating at length the reasons for supposing that human existence ends at -death, I ask: “What have we to place against them in the scale of Hope?” -and I begin by observing that all the usual arguments for immortality -involve at the crucial point the assumption that we possess some -guarantee that mankind will _not_ be deceived, that Justice will -eventually triumph and that human affairs are the concern of a Power -whose purposes cannot fail. Were the faith which supplies such warrant -to fail, the whole structure raised upon it must fall to the ground. -Belief in Immortality is pre-eminently a matter of Faith; a corollary -from faith in God. To imagine that we can reach it by any other road is -vain. Heaven will always be (as Dr. Martineau has said) “a part of our -Religion, not a Branch of our Geography.” But in addressing men and -women who believe in God’s Justice and Love, I hope to show that, not by -one only but by many _convergent_ lines, Faith uniformly points to a -Life after Death; and that if we follow her guidance in any one -direction implicitly, we are invariably conducted to the same -conclusion. Nay more; we cannot stop short of this conclusion and retain -entire faith in any thing beyond the experience of the senses. Every -idea of Justice, of Love and of Duty is truncated if we deny to it the -extension of eternity; and as for our conception of God himself, I see -not how any one who has realised the dread darkness of “the riddle of -the painful earth,” can call him “Good” unless he can look forward to -the solution of that problem hereafter. The following are channels -through which Faith inevitably flows towards Immortality: - -1st. The human race longs for Justice. Even “if the Heavens fall,” we -feel Justice ought to be done. All literature, from Æschylus and Job to -our own time, has for its highest theme the triumph of Justice, or the -tragedy of the disappointment of human hope thereof. But where did we -obtain this idea? The world has never seen a Reign of Astræa. Injustice -and Cruelty prevail largely, even now in the world; and as we go back up -the stream of time to ruder ages where Might was more completely -dominant over Right, the case was worse and worse. Where then, did Man -derive his idea that the Power ruling the world,—Zeus, or Jehovah, or -Ormusd,—was Just? Not only could no ancestral experience have caused the -“set of our brains” towards the expectation of Justice, but experience, -under many conditions of society, pointed quite the other way. It is -assuredly (if anything can be so reckoned) the Divine spirit in man -which causes him to love Justice, and to believe that his Maker is just, -for it is inconceivable how he could have arrived at such faith -otherwise. But if death be the end of human existence this expectation -of justice has been only a miserable delusion. God has created us, poor -children of the dust, to love and hope for Justice, but He Himself has -disregarded it, on the scale of a disappointed world. After referring to -the thousands of cases where the bad have died successful and -peacefully, and the good,—like Christ,—have perished in misery and -agony, I say “boldly and so much the more reverently: _Either Man is -Immortal or God is not Just_.” - -2nd. The second line of thought leading us to belief in Immortality -is,—that if there be no future life, there are millions of human beings -whose existence has answered no purpose which we can rationally -attribute to a wise and merciful God. He is a _baffled_ God, if His -creature be extinguished before reaching _some_ end which He may -possibly have designed. - -3rd. The incompleteness of the noblest part of man offers so strange a -contrast to the perfection of the other work of creation that we are -drawn to conclude that the human soul is only a _bud_ to blossom out -into full flower hereafter. No man has ever in his life reached the -plentitude of moral strength and beauty of which his nature gives -promise. A garden wherein all the buds should perish before blooming, -would be more hideous than a desert, and such a garden is God’s world if -man dies for ever when we see him no more. - -4th. Human love urges an appeal to Faith which has been to millions of -hearts the most conclusive of all. - - - “To think of the one whose innermost self is to us the world’s chief - treasure, the most beautiful and blessed thing God ever made, and - believe that at any moment that mind and heart may cease to be, and - become only a memory, every noble gift and grace extinct, and all the - fond love for ourselves forgotten for ever,—this is such agony, that - having once known it we should never dare again to open our hearts to - affection, unless some ray of hope should dawn for us beyond the - grave. Love would be the curse of mortality were it to bring always - with it such unutterable pain of anxiety, and the knowledge that every - hour which knitted our heart more closely to our friend also brought - us nearer to an eternal separation. Better never to have ascended to - that high Vita Nuova where self-love is lost in another’s weal, better - to have lived like the cattle which browse and sleep while they wait - the butcher’s knife, than to endure such despair. - - “But is there nothing in us which refuses to believe all this - nightmare of the final sundering of loving hearts? Love itself seems - to announce itself as an eternal thing. It has such an element of - infinity in its tenderness, that it never fails to seek for itself an - expression beyond the limits of time, and we talk, even when we know - not what we mean of “undying affection,” “immortal love.” It is the - only passion which in the nature of things we can carry with us into - another world, and it is fit to be prolonged, intensified, glorified - for ever. It is not so much a joy we may take with us, as the only joy - which can make any world a heaven when the affections of earth shall - be perfected in the supreme love of God. It is the sentiment which we - share with God, and by which we live in Him and He in us. All its - beautiful tenderness, its noble self-forgetfulness, its pure and - ineffable delight, are the rays of God’s Sun of Love reflected in our - souls. - - “Is all this to end in two poor heaps of silent dust decaying slowly - in their coffins side by side in the vault? If so, let us have done - with prating of any Faith in Heaven or Earth. We are mocked by a - fiend.”—(_Hopes_, p. 52.) - - -5th. A remarkable argument is to be found in Prof. F. W. Newman’s -_Theism_ (p. 75). It insists on the fact that many men have certainly -loved God and that God must love them in return (else Man were better -than God); and we must reasonably infer that those whom God loves are -deathless, else would the Divine Blessedness be imperfect, nay, “a -yawning gulf of ever-increasing sorrow.” - -6th. The extreme variability of the common human belief that the “soul -of man never dies” makes it difficult to discern its proper evidential -value, still it seems to have the _Note_ of a genuine instinct. It -begins early, though (probably) not at the earliest stage of human -development. It attains its maximum among the highest races of mankind -(the Vedic-Aryan, early Persian and Egyptian). It projects such varied -and even contrasted ideals of the other life (_e.g._, Valhalla and -Nirvana) that it cannot well have been borrowed by one race from another -but must have sprung up in each indigenously. Finally the instinct -begins to falter in ages of self-consciousness and criticism. - -7th, lastly. The most perfect and direct faith in Immortality belongs to -saintly souls who personally feel that they have entered into relations -with the Divine Spirit which can never end. “_Faith in God and in our -eternal Union with Him_,” said one such devout man to me, “_are not two -dogmas but one_.” “Thou wilt not leave my soul in Hades. Thou wilt guide -me by thy counsel and afterwards receive me to Glory.” - - - “Such, for a few blessed souls, seems to be the perfect evidence of - things not seen. But can their full faith supply our lack? Can we see - with their eyes and believe on their report? It is only possible in a - very inferior measure. Yet if our own spiritual life have received - even some faint gleams of the ‘light which never came from sun or - star,’ then, once more, will our faith point the way to Immortality; - for we shall know in what manner such truths come to the soul, and be - able to trust that what is dawn to us may be sunrise to those who have - journeyed nearer to the East than we; who have surmounted Duty more - perfectly, or passed through rivers of affliction into which our feet - have never dipped. God cannot have deluded them in their sacred hope - of His eternal Love. If their experience be a dream all prayer and - communion may be dreams likewise.” - - -In conclusion, while commending to the reader’s consideration what -appears to me the true method of solving the problem of a Life after -Death, I point to the fact that on the answer to that question must hang -the alternative, not only of the hope or despair of the Human Race, but -of the glory or the failure of the whole Kosmos, so far as our uttermost -vision can extend. - - - “Lions and eagles, oaks and roses, may be good after their kind; but - if the summit and crown of the whole work, the being in whose - consciousness it is all mirrored, be worse than incomplete and - imperfect, an undeveloped embryo, an acorn mouldered in its shell, a - bud blighted by the frost, then must the entire world he deemed a - failure also. Now, Man can only be reckoned on any ground as a - _provisionally_ successful work; successful, that is, provided we - regard him as _in transitu_, on his way to another and far more - perfect stage of development. We are content that the egg, the larva, - the bud, the half-painted canvas, the rough scaffolding, should only - faintly indicate what will be the future bird and butterfly and flower - and picture and temple. And thus to look on man (as by some deep - insight he has almost universally regarded himself) as a ‘sojourner - upon earth,’ upon his way to ‘another country, even a heavenly,’ - destined to complete his pilgrimage and make up for all his - shortcomings elsewhere, is to leave a margin for believing him to be - even now a Divine work in its embryonic stage. But if we close out - this view of the future, and assure ourselves that nothing more is - ever to be expected of him than what we knew him to be during the last - days of his mortal life; if we are to believe we have seen the best - development which his intellect and heart, his powers of knowing, - feeling, enjoying, loving, blessing and being blessed, will ever - obtain while the heavens endure,—then, indeed, is the conclusion - inevitable and final. Man is a Failure, the consummate failure of - creation. Everything else,—star, ocean, mountain, forest, bird, beast - and insect—has a sort of completeness and perfection. It is fitting in - its own place, and it gives no hint that it ought to be other than it - is. ‘Every Lion,’ as Parker has said, ‘is a type of all lionhood; but - there is no Man who is a type of all Manhood.’ Even the best and - greatest of men have only been imperfect types of a single phase of - manhood—of the saint, the hero, the sage, the philanthropist, the - poet, the friend,—never of the full-orbed man who should be all these - together. If each perish at death, then,—as the seeds of all these - varied forms of good are in each,—every one is cut off prematurely, - blighted, spoiled. Nor is this criterion of success or failure solely - applicable to our small planet; a mere spark thrown off the wheel - whereon a million suns are turned into space. It is easy to believe - that much loftier beings, possessed of far greater mental and moral - powers than our own, inhabit other realms of immensity. But Thought - and Love are, after all, the grandest things which any world can show; - and if a whole race endowed with them should prove such a failure as - death-extinguished Mankind would undoubtedly be, there remains no - reason why all the spheres of the universe should not be similar - scenes of disappointment and frustration, and creation itself one huge - blunder and mishap. In vain may the President of the British Congress - of Science dazzle us with the splendid panorama of the material - universe unrolling itself ‘from out of the primal nebula’s fiery - cloud.’ Suns and planets swarming through the abysses of space are but - whirling sepulchres after all, if, while no grain of dust is shaken - from off their rolling sides, the conscious souls of whom they have - been the palaces are all for ever lost. Spreading continents and - flowing seas, soaring Alps and fertile plains are worse than failures, - if we, even we, poor feeble, sinful, dim-eyed creatures that we are, - shall ever ‘vanish like the streak of morning cloud in the infinite - azure of the past.’” - - -The second part of this essay discusses the possible _conditions_ of the -Life after Death. I cannot summarize it here. - -The rest of the volume consists of a sermon which I read at Clerkenwell -Unitarian Chapel, in 1873, entitled “_Doomed to be Saved_.” I describe -the disastrous moral consequences to a man in old times who believed -himself to have sold his soul to the Evil One, and to have cast himself -off from God’s Goodness for ever; and I contrast this with what we ought -to feel when we recognize that we are _Doomed to be Saved_—destined -irretrievably to be brought back, in this life or in far future lives, -from all our wanderings in remorse and penitence to the feet of God. - -The book concludes with an Essay on the _Evolution of the Social -Sentiment_, in which I maintain that the primary human feeling in the -savage which still lingers in the Aryan child, is _not_ Sympathy with -suffering, but quite an opposite, angry and even cruel sentiment, which -I have named _Heteropathy_; which inspires brutes and birds to kill -their wounded or diseased companions. Half-way after this, comes -_Aversion_; and last of all, _Sympathy_,—slowly extending from the -mother’s “pity for the son of her womb,” to the Family, the Tribe, the -Nation, and the Human Race; and, at last to the Brutes. I conclude thus: - - - “Such is, I believe, the great Hope of the human race. It does not lie - in the progress of the intellect, or in the conquest of fresh powers - over the realms of nature; not in the improvement of laws, or the more - harmonious adjustment of the relations of classes and states; not in - the glories of Art, or the triumphs of Science. All these things may, - and doubtless will, adorn the better and happier ages of the future. - But that which will truly constitute the blessedness of Man will be - the gradual dying out of his tiger passions, his cruelty and his - selfishness, and the growth within him of the god-like faculty of love - and self-sacrifice; the development of that holiest Sympathy wherein - all souls shall blend at last, like the tints of the rainbow which the - Seer beheld around the great White Throne on high.” - - -Beside these theological works I published more recently two slight -volumes on cognate subjects: _A Faithless World_, and _Health and -Holiness_. I wrote “_A Faithless World_” (first published in the -_Contemporary Review_) in reply to Sir Fitzjames Stephen’s remark in the -_Nineteenth Century_, No. 88, that “We get on very well without -religion” ... “Love, Friendship, Ambition, Science, literature, art, -politics, commerce, and a thousand other matters will go equally well as -far as I can see, whether there is or is not a God and a future state.” -I examine this view in detail and conclude that instead of life -remaining (in the event of the fall of religion) to most people much -what it is at present, there would, on the contrary, be actually -_nothing_ which would be left unchanged by such a catastrophe. - -I sent a copy of this article when first published, (as I was bound in -courtesy to do), to Sir James, whom I had often met, and whose brother -and sister were my kind friends. He replied in such a manly and generous -spirit that I am tempted to give his letter. - - - “December 2nd, - “32, De Vere Gardens, W. - - “My dear Miss Cobbe, - - “I am much obliged by your note and by the article in the - _Contemporary_, which is perfectly fair in itself and full of kind - things about myself personally. - - “The subject is too large to write about, and I am only too glad to - take both the letter and the article in the spirit in which they were - written and ask no further discussion. - - “It seems to me very possible that there may be a good deal of truth - in what you suggest as to the nature of the difference between the - points of view from which we look at these things, but it is not - unnatural that _I_ should think you rather exaggerate the amount of - suffering and sorrow which is to be found in the world. I may do the - opposite. - - “However that may be, thank you heartily for both your letter and your - article. - - “I am sure you will have been grieved to hear of poor Henry Dicey’s - death. His life had been practically despaired of for a considerable - time. - - “I am, ever sincerely yours, - J. F. STEPHEN.” - - -Several of these books of mine, dealing with religious subjects, were -translated into French and published by my French and Swiss -fellow-religionists, and also in Danish by friends at Copenhagen. _Le -Monde Sans Religion_; _Coup d’œil sur le Monde à Venir_; _L’Humanité -destinée au Salut_; _La Maison sur le Rivage_; _Seul avec Dieu_ (Geneva -Cherbuliez, 1881), _En Verden uden Tro_, &c., &c. - -But all the time during the intervals of writing these theological -books, I employed myself in studying and writing on various other -subjects of temporary or durable interest. I contributed a large number -of articles to the following periodicals:— - -_The Quarterly Review_ (then edited by Sir William Smith). - -_The Contemporary Review_ (edited by Mr. Bunting). - -_Fraser’s Magazine_ (edited by Mr. Froude). - -_Cornhill Magazine_ (edited by Mr. Leslie Stephen). - -_The Fortnightly Review_ (edited by Mr. Morley). - -_Macmillan’s Magazine_ (edited by Mr. Masson). - -_The Theological Review_ (Unitarian Organ, edited by Rev. C. Beard). - -_The Modern Review_ (Unitarian, edited by Rev. R. Armstrong). - -_The New Quarterly Magazine_ (edited by W. Oswald Crawford). - -One collection of these articles was published by Trübner in 1865, -entitled _Studies New and Old on Ethical and Social Subjects_; (1 vol., -crown 8vo., pp. 466). This volume begins with an elaborate study of -“_Christian Ethics and the Ethics of Christ_” (_Theological Review_, -September, 1869), which I have often wished to reprint in a separate -form. Also a very long and careful study of the _Sacred Books of the -Zoroastrians_, which brought me the visits and friendships of a very -interesting Parsee gentleman, Nowrosjee Furdoonjee, President of the -Bombay Parsee Society, and of another Parsee gentleman resident in -London. Both expressed their entire approval of my representation of -their religion. - -These _Studies_ also contain a long paper on the _Philosophy of the Poor -Laws_, which, as I have narrated in a previous chapter, fell into -fertile soil on the mind of an Australian gentleman and caused the -introduction of some of the reforms I advocated into the Poor Law system -of New South Wales. - -There were also in this volume articles on “_Hades_”; on the “_Morals of -Literature_”; and on the “_Hierarchy of Art_,” which perhaps have some -value; but I have not of late years cared to press the book, and have -not included it in Mr. Fisher Unwin’s Re-issue of 1893 on account of the -paper it contains on “_The Rights of Man and the Claims of Brutes_.” -This article, which appeared first in _Fraser’s Magazine_, Nov., 1863, -was my earliest effort (so far as I know, the first effort of anybody) -to work out the very obscure and difficult ethical problem to which it -refers, in answer to the demands of Vivisectors. I am not satisfied with -the position I took up in this paper. In the thirty years which have -elapsed since I wrote it, my thoughts have been greatly exercised on the -subject, and I think I see the “Claims of Brutes” more clearly, and find -them higher than I did. But, though I believe that I expressed the most -advanced opinion _of that time_ on the duty of Man to the lower animals, -and of the offence of cruelty towards them, I here enter my _caveat_ -against the quotation of this article (as was lately done by a zealous -Zoophilist) as if it still represented exactly what I think on the -subject after pondering upon it for thirty years, and taking part in the -Anti-vivisection crusade for two entire decades. - -I have mentioned this matter especially, because it is of some -importance to me, and also because I do not find that there is any other -opinion which I have ever published in any book or article, on morals or -religion, which I now desire to withdraw, or even of which I care to -modify the expression. It is a great happiness to me at the end of a -long and busy literary life, to feel that I have never written anything -of which I repent, or which I wish to unsay. - -A collection of minor articles, with several fresh papers of a lighter -sort,—an _Allegory_, _The Spectral Rout_, &c.—was also published by -Trübner in 1867, under the name of _Hours of Work and Play_. - -In 1872 Messrs. Williams & Norgate published a rather large collection -of my Essays, under the name of _Darwinism in Morals and other Essays_. -The first is a review of the theory of ethics expounded in Darwin’s -_Descent of Man_. I argue that the moral history of mankind (so far as -it is known to us) gives no support whatever to Mr. Darwin’s hypothesis -that Conscience is the result of certain contingencies in our -development, and that it might, at an earlier stage, have been moulded -into quite another form, causing Good to appear to us Evil, and Evil -Good. - - - “I think we have a right to say that the suggestions offered by the - highest scientific intellects of our time to account for its existence - on principles which shall leave it on the level of other instincts, - have failed to approve themselves as true to the facts of the case. - And I think, therefore, that we are called on to believe still in the - validity of our own moral consciousness, even as we believe in the - validity of our other faculties; and to rest in the faith (well-nigh - universal) of the human race, in a fixed and supreme Law, of which the - will of God is the embodiment and Conscience the Divine - transcript.”—_Darwinism in Morals_, p. 32. - - -In this same volume (included in the re-issue) are essays on _Hereditary -Piety_ (a review of Mr. Galton’s _Hereditary Genius_); one on _The -Religion of Childhood_, on Robertson’s _Life_; on “A French Theist” (M. -Pécaut); and a series of studies on Eastern Religions; including reviews -of Mr. Ferguson’s _Tree and Serpent Worship_ (with which Mr. F. was so -pleased that he made me a present, of his magnificent book); Bunsen’s -_God in History_, Max Muller’s _Chips from a German Workshop_, and Mrs. -Manning’s _Ancient and Mediæval India_. Each of these is a careful essay -on one or other of the oriental faiths referring to many other books on -each subject. Beside these there are in the same volume two articles on -_Unconscious Cerebration_ and _Dreams_, which excited some interest in -their day; and seem to me (if I be not misled by vanity) to have -forestalled a good deal which has been written of late years about the -“subliminal” or “subjective” consciousness. - -In 1875, Messrs. Ward, Lock & Tyler, for whose _New Quarterly Magazine_ -I had written two long articles on _Animals in Fable and Art_ and the -_Fauna of Fancy_, asked my consent to re-publishing them in their -_Country House Library_. To this I gladly agreed, adding my article in -the _Quarterly Review_ on the _Consciousness of Dogs_; and that in _the -Cornhill_: “_Dogs whom I have met_.” The volume was prettily got up, and -published under the name of “_False Beasts and True_.” - -From the close of 1874, when I undertook the Anti-vivisection crusade, -my literary activity dwindled down rapidly to small proportions. In the -course of eight years I wrote enough magazine articles to fill one -volume, published in 1882, and containing essays on _Magnanimous -Atheism_; _Pessimism and One of its Professors_, and a few other papers, -of which the most important,—the _Peak in Darien_,—gives its name to the -book. It is an argument, (with many facts cited in its support,) for -believing that the dying, as they are passing the threshold, not seldom -become aware of the presence of beloved ones waiting for them in the new -state of existence which they are actually entering. - -After this book I wrote little for some years, but in 1888 I was asked -to contribute an article to the _Universal Review_ on the _Scientific -Spirit of the Age_. I gladly acceded, but the Editor desired to cut down -my MS., so I published it as a book with a few other older papers; -notably one on the _Town Mouse and the Country Mouse_; a half-humorous -study of the _pros_ and _cons_ of Life in London, and Life in a Country -house. - -After this, again, I published two editions of a little compilation, the -“_Friend of Man and His Friends the Poets_;” a collection (with running -commentary) of Poems of all ages and countries relating to Dogs, which -were likely, I thought, to aid my poor, four-footed friends’ claims to -sympathy and respect. - -Of my remaining books, the _Duties of Women_, and _The Modern Rack_ I -shall speak in the chapters which respectively concern my work for -Women, and the Anti-vivisection movement. - - - - - CHAPTER - XVI. - _MY LIFE IN LONDON IN THE SIXTIES AND SEVENTIES_ - _JOURNALISM._ - - -Journalism is, to my thinking, a delightful profession, full of -interest, and promise of ever-extending usefulness. During the years in -which I was a professional Journalist, when I had occasion to go into a -Bank or a lawyer’s office, I always pitied the clerks for their dull, -monotonous, ugly work, as compared with mine. If not carried on too long -or continuously,—so that the brain begins to _churn_ leaders sleeping or -waking (a dreadful state of things into which we _may_ fall),—it is -pre-eminently healthy, being so full of variety and calling for so many -different mental faculties one after another. Promptitude, clear and -quick judgment as to what is, and is not, expedient and decorous to say; -a ready memory well stored with illustrations and unworn quotations, a -bright and strong style; and, if it can be attained, a playful (not -saturnine) humour superadded,—all these qualities and attainments are -called for in writing for a daily newspaper; and the practice of them -cannot fail to sharpen their edge. To be in touch with the most striking -events of the whole world, and enjoy the privilege of giving your -opinion on them to 50,000 or 100,000 readers within a few hours, this -struck me, when I first recognised that such was my business as a -leader-writer, as something for which many prophets and preachers of old -would have given a house full of silver and gold. And I was to be _paid_ -for accepting it! It is one thing to be a “Vox clamantis in Deserto,” -and quite another to speak in Fleet Street, and, without lifting up -one’s voice, to reach all at once, as many men as formed the population -of ancient Athens, not to say that of Jerusalem! But I must not “magnify -mine office” too fondly! - -From the time of my second journey to Italy I obtained employment, as I -have mentioned, as Correspondent to the _Daily News_, with whose Italian -politics I was in sympathy. I also wrote all sorts of miscellaneous -papers and descriptions for the _Spectator_, the _Reader_, the -_Inquirer_, the _Academy_, and the _Examiner_. When in London I was -engaged on the staff of the short-lived _Day_ (1867); and much lamented -its untimely eclipse, when my friend Mr. Haweis, unkindly “chaffed” me -by mourning over it:— - - “_Sweet_ Day! - How _cool_! how bright!” - -I was paid, however, handsomely for all I had written for it, and a few -months later I received an invitation from Mr. Arthur Arnold (since M.P. -for Salford) to join his staff on the newly-founded _Echo_. It was a -great experiment on the part of the proprietors, Messrs. Petter & -Galpin, to start a half-penny paper. Such a thing did not then exist in -England, and the ridicule it encountered, and boycotting from the -news-agents who could not make enough profit on it to satisfy -themselves, were very serious obstacles to success. Nevertheless Mr. -Arnold’s great tact and ability cleared the way, and before many months -our circulation, I believe, was very large indeed. My share in the -undertaking was soon arranged after a few interviews and experiments. It -was agreed that I should go on three mornings every week at ten o’clock, -to the office in Catherine Street, Strand, and there in a private room -for my own use only, write a leading article on some social subject -after arranging with the editor what it should be. I am proud to say -that for seven years from that time till I retired, I never once failed -to keep my engagement. Of course I took a few weeks’ holiday every year; -but Mr. Arnold never expected his contributor in vain. Sometimes it was -hard work for me; I had a cold, or was otherwise ill, or the snow lay -thick and cabs from South Kensington were not to be had. Nevertheless I -made my way to my destination punctually; and, when there, I wrote my -leader, and as many “Notes” as were allotted to me, and thus proved, I -hope, once for all, that a woman may be relied on as a journalist no -less than a man. I do not think indeed, that very many masculine -journalists could make the same boast of regularity as I have done. My -first article appeared in the third number of the _Echo_, December 10th, -1868, and the last on, or about, March, 1875. Of course at first I found -it a little difficult to write exactly what, and how much was wanted, -neither more nor less; but practice made this easier. I wrote, of -course, on all manner of subjects, politics excepted; but chose in -preference those which offered some ethical interest,—or (on the other -hand) an opening for a little fun! The reader may see specimens of both, -_e.g._, the papers on the great _Divorce Case_; _Lent in Belgravia_; and -on _Fat People_; _Sweeping under the Mats_, &c., in _Re-echoes_, a -little book compiled from a selection of my _Echo_ articles which -Tauchnitz reproduced in his library. A few incidents in my experience in -Catherine Street recur to me, and may be worth recording. - -Terrible stories of misery and death were continuously cropping up in -the reports of Coroners’ Inquests, and I found that if I took these -reports as they were published and wrote leading articles on them, we -were almost sure next day to receive several letters begging the Editor -to forward money (enclosed) to the surviving relations. It became a duty -for me to satisfy myself of the veracity of these stories before setting -them forth with claims for public sympathy; and in this way I came to -see some of the sadder sides of poverty in London. There was one case I -distinctly recall, of a poor lady, daughter of a country rector, who was -found (after having been missed for several days, but not sought for) -lying dead, scarcely clothed, on the bare floor of a room in a miserable -lodging-house in Drury Lane. I went to the house and found it a filthy -coffee-house, frequented by unwashed customers. The mistress, though -likewise unwashed, was obviously what is termed “respectable.” She told -me that her unhappy lodger was a woman of 40 or 50, perfectly sober and -well conducted in every way. She had been a governess in very good -families, but had remained unemployed till her clothes grew shabby. She -walked all day long over London for many weeks, seeking any kind of work -or means of support, and selling by degrees everything she possessed for -food. At last she returned to her wretched room in that house into which -it was a pain for any lady to enter,—and having begged a last cup of tea -from her landlady, telling her she could not pay for it, she locked her -door, and was heard of no more. Many days afterwards the busy landlady -noticed that she had not seen her going in or out, and finding her door -locked, called the police to open it. There was hardly an atom of flesh -on the poor worn frame, scarcely clothes for decency, no food, no coals -in the grate. “_Death from Starvation_” was the only possible verdict. -When the case had been made public, relatives, obviously belonging to a -very good class of society, came hastily and took away the corpse for -burial in some family vault. The sight, the sounds, the fetid smells of -that sordid lodging-house as endured by that lonely, dying, starving -lady, will haunt me while I live. - -Another incident (in January, 1869) had a happier conclusion. There was -a case in the law Reports one day of a woman named Susannah Palmer, who -was sent to Newgate for stabbing her husband. The story was a piteous -one as I verified it. Her husband was a savage who had continually -beaten her; had turned her out of the house at night; brought in a bad -woman in her place; and then had deserted her for months, leaving her to -support herself and their children. After a time he would suddenly -return, take the money she had earned out of her pocket (as he had then -a legal right to do), sell up any furniture she possessed; kick and beat -her again; and then again desert her. One day she was cutting bread for -the children when he struck her, and the knife in her hand cut him; -whereupon he gave her in charge for “feloniously wounding”; and she was -sent to jail. The Common Sergeant humanely observed as he passed -sentence that “Newgate would be ten times better for her than the hell -in which she was compelled to live.” It was the old epitaph exemplified: - - “Here lies the wife of Matthew Ford, - Whose soul we hope is with the Lord; - But if for Hell she’s changed this life - ‘’Tis better than being Mat. Ford’s wife!’” - -Having obtained through John Locke (the well-known Member for Southwark, -who had married my cousin) a special permit from the Lord Mayor, I saw -the poor, pale creature in Newgate and heard her long tale of wrong and -misery. The good Ordinary of the jail felt deeply with me for her; and -when I had seen the people who employed her as charwoman (barbers and -shoemakers in Cowcross Street) and received the best character of her, I -felt justified in appealing, in the _Echo_, for help for her, and also -in circulating a little pamphlet on her behalf. Eventually, when Mrs. -Palmer left Newgate a few weeks later, it was to take possession, as -_caretaker for the chaplain_, of nice, tidy rooms where she and her -children could live in peace, and where her brutal husband could not -follow her, since the place belonged legally to the chaplain. - -When there was a dearth of interesting news on the mornings of my -leader-writing, it was my custom to send for a certain newspaper, the -organ of the extreme Ritualistic party, and out of this I seldom failed -to extract _Pabulum_ for a cheerful article! One day, just after the -29th of September, I found such a record of folly,—vestments, -processions, thuribles, and what not, that I proceeded with glee to -write a leader on _Michaelmas Geese_. Next day, to my intense amusement, -there was a letter at the office addressed to the author of the article, -in which one of the “Geese,” whom I had particularly attacked and who -naturally supposed me to be a man, invited me to come and dine with him, -and “talk of these matters over a good glass of sherry and a cigar!” The -worldly wisdom which induced the excellent clergyman to try and thus -“silence my guns” by inducing me to share his salt; and his idea of the -irresistible attractions of sherry and cigars to a “poor devil” (as he -obviously supposed) of a contributor to a half-penny paper, made a -delightful joke. I had the greatest mind in the world to accept the -invitation without betraying my sex till I should arrive at his door in -the fullest of my feminine finery, and claim his dinner; but I was -prudent, and he never knew who was the midge who had assailed him. - -The incident reminds me of another journalistic experience not connected -with the _Echo_, which throws some light on certain charges recently -discussed about “commissions” given to newspaper writers who puff the -goods of tradesmen under the guise of instructing the public in the -latest fashions in dress, furniture and _bric-à-brac_. It was the only -case in which any bribe of the kind ever came to my door. Some _grandes -dames_ anxious for the health of work-girls, had opened a millinery -establishment in Clifford Street on purely philanthropic lines, and -begged me to write an appeal in the _Times_ for support for it. After -visiting the beautiful, airy workrooms and dormitories, I did this with -a clear conscience (of course gratuitously) to oblige my friends on the -Committee. Next day a smart brougham drove to my door in Hereford -Square, and an exquisitely dressed lady got out of it, and sent in her -card, “Madame D——.” I was so grossly ignorant of fashionable millinery, -that I did not know that my visitor was then at the very apex of that -lofty commerce. She remonstrated on my injustice in praising the -Clifford Street establishment, when _her_ girls were exactly as well -lodged and fed. “Would I not come and see for myself, and then write and -say so equally publicly?” I agreed that this would be only fair, and -fixed an hour for my inspection; on which she gracefully thanked me and -departed, murmuring as she disappeared that she would be happy to -present me with “_Une jolie toilette!_” Poor woman! She had come to the -only gentlewoman perhaps in London to whom a “toilette” by Madame D—— -offered no attractions at all, and to whom (even if I would have -accepted one) it would have been useless, seeing that I never wore -anything but the simply-made skirts and jackets of my maid’s -manufacture. Of course I visited and justly praised her establishment, -as I had promised; and I suppose she long expected me to come and claim -her “_jolie toilette!_” - -There was another story of which the memory is in my mind closely -associated with a dear young friend,—Miss Letitia Probyn, who helped me -ardently in my efforts, very shortly before her untimely death, while -bathing, at Hendaye near Arcachon. The case of a woman named Isabel -Grant moved us deeply. The poor creature, in a drunken struggle with her -husband at supper, had cut him with the bread knife in such manner that -he died next day. Her remorse was most genuine and extreme. She was -sentenced to be hanged; and just at the same time an Irishman who had -murdered his wife under circumstances of exceptional brutality and who -had from first to last gloried in his crime, was set free after a week’s -imprisonment! We got up a Memorial for Isabel Grant, Miss Probyn’s -family interest enabling her to obtain many influential signatures; and -we contrived that both the cases of exceptional severity to the -repentant woman and that of lenity to the unrepentant man, should be set -forth in juxtaposition in a score of newspapers. In the end Isabel Grant -obtained a commutation of her sentence. - -In 1875 the proprietors of the _Echo_ sold the paper to Baron Grant; and -Mr. Arnold and I at once resigned our positions as Editor and -Contributor. He had created the paper,—I may say even more,—had created -first-class, half-penny journalism altogether; and it was deeply -regretted that his able and judicious guidance was lost to the _Echo_. -After an interval, the paper was redeemed from the first purchaser’s -hands by that generous gentleman, Mr. Passmore Edwards, than whom it -could have no better Proprietor. - -I wrote on the whole more than 1,000 leading articles, and a vast number -of Notes, for the _Echo_ during the seven years in which I worked upon -its staff. The contributors who successively occupied the same columns -of second leaders on my off-days were willing, (as I believe Mr. Arnold -desired), to adopt on the whole the general line of sentiment and -principle which my articles maintained; and thus I had the comfort of -thinking that, as regarded social ethics, my work had given in some -measure the tone to the paper. It was _my pulpit_, with permission to -make in it (what other pulpits lack so sadly!) such jokes as pleased me; -and to put forward on hundreds of matters my views of what was right and -honourable. We did not profess to be “written by gentlemen for -gentlemen.” The saturnine jests, the snarls and the pessimisms of the -clubs were not in our way; and we did not affect to be _blasés_, or to -think the whole world was going to the dogs. There were of course -subjects on which a Liberal like Mr. Arnold and a Tory like myself -differed widely; and then I left them untouched, for (I need scarcely -say) I never wrote a line in that or any other paper not in fullest -accordance with my own opinions and convictions, on any subject small or -great. The work, I think, was at all events wholesome and harmless. I -hope that it also did, now and then, a little good. - -After the sudden and unexpected termination of my connection with the -_Echo_ I accepted gladly an engagement, not requiring personal -attendance, on the staff of the _Standard_, and wrote two or three -leaders a week for that newspaper, for a considerable time. At last the -Vivisection controversy came in the way, when I resigned my post in -consequence of the appearance of a pro-vivisecting paragraph. The editor -assured me generally of his approval of my crusade, and I wrote a few -articles more, but the engagement finally dropped. My time had indeed -become too much absorbed by the other work to carry on regular -Journalism with the needful vigour. - -It may interest women who are entering the profession in which I found -such pleasure and profit, to know that as regards “filthy lucre,” I -found it more remunerative than writing for the best monthly or -quarterly periodicals. I did both at the same period; often sitting down -to spend some hours of the afternoon over a “Study of Eastern Religion” -or some such subject, when I had gone to the Strand and written my -leader and notes in the forenoon. Putting all together and the profits -of my books, (which were small enough,) I made by my literary and -journalistic work at one time a fair income. This golden epoch ended, -however, when I threw myself into the Anti-vivisection movement, after -which date I do not think I have ever earned more than £100 a year, and -for the last 12 years not £20. I suppose in my whole life I have earned -nearly £5,000, rather more than my whole patrimony. What my poor father -would have felt had he known that his daughter eked out her subsistence -by going down in all weathers to write articles for a half-penny -newspaper in the Strand, I cannot guess. My brothers happily had no -objection to my industry, and the eldest—who drew, as usual with elder -sons in our class, more money every year from the family property than I -received for life,—kindly paid off my charges on the estate and added -£100 a year to the proceeds, so that I was thenceforth, for my moderate -wants, fairly well off, especially since I had a friend who shared all -expenses of housekeeping with me. - -In reviewing my whole literary and journalistic life as I have done in -these two chapters, I perceive that I have been from first to last _an -Essayist_; almost _pur et simple_. I have done very little in any other -way than to try to put forward—either at large in a book or in a -magazine article, or, lastly, in a newspaper-leader—which was always a -miniature essay,—an appeal for some object, an argument for some truth, -a vindication of some principle, an exposure of what I conceived to be -an absurdity, a wrong, a falsehood, or a cruelty. At first I had -exaggerated hopes of success in these endeavours. Books had been a great -deal to me in my own solitary life, and I far over-estimated their -practical power. When editors and publishers readily accepted my -articles and books, and reviewers praised them, I fancied, (though they -never sold very freely,) that I was really given the great privilege of -moving many hearts. But by degrees as years went on I felt the sorrowful -limitation of literary influence. Sometimes I was wild with -disappointment and indignation when critics lauded the “style” of my -books while they never so much as noticed the _purpose_ for sake of -which I had laboured to make them good and strong literature. - -For my own part I have shunned Review-writing; partly (as regarded -newspaper criticism) for the rather sordid reason that it involves the -double labour of reading and writing for the same pay per column, but -generally, and in all cases, because I cannot say,—as dear Fanny Kemble -used to remark in a sepulchral voice (quite falsely), “_I am nothing if -not critical_.” On the contrary, I am several other things, and very -little critical; and the pain and deadly injury I have seen inflicted by -a severe review is a form of cruelty for which I have no predilection. -It is necessary, no doubt, in the literary community that there should -be warders and executioners at the public command to birch juvenile -offenders, and flog garrotters, and hang anarchists; but I never felt -any vocation for those disagreeable offices. The few reviews I have ever -written have been properly Essays on given subjects, taking some book -which I could honestly praise for a peg. As in the old Egyptian _Book of -the Dead_ the soul of the deceased protests, among his forty-two -abjurations,—“I have not been the cause of others’ tears,”—so, I hope, I -may say, I have given no brother or sister of the pen the wound (and -often the ruinous loss) of a damaging critique of his or her books. If -my writings have given pain to any persons, it can only have been to men -whose dead consciences it would be an act of mercy to awaken, and -towards whom I feel not the smallest compunction. Briefly I conclude in -this book, (doubtless my last), a long and moderately successful -literary life, with no serious regrets, but with much thankfulness and -rejoicing for all the interest, the pleasure and the warm and precious -friendships which the profession of letters has brought to me ever since -I entered it,—just forty years ago,—when William Longman accepted my -_Intuitive Morals_. - - - - - CHAPTER - XVII. - _MY LIFE IN LONDON IN THE SIXTIES AND SEVENTIES._ - _SOCIAL._ - - -When we had settled down, as we did rapidly, into our pretty little -house in South Kensington, we began soon to enjoy many social pleasures -of a quiet kind. Into Society (with a big _S_!), we had no pretensions -to enter, but we had many friends, very genuine and delightful ones, ere -long; and a great many interesting acquaintances. Happily death has -spared not a few of these until now, and, of course, of them I shall not -write here; but of some of those who have “gone over to the majority” I -shall venture to record my recollections, interspersed in some cases -with their letters. I may premise that we were much given to dining out, -but not to attending late evening parties; and that in our small way we -gave little dinners now and then, and occasionally afternoon and evening -parties,—the former held sometimes in summer under the lime trees behind -our house. I attribute my long retention of good health to my -persistence in going to bed before eleven o’clock, and never accepting -late invitations. - -I hope I shall be acquitted of the presumption of pretending to offer in -the scrappy _souvenirs_ I shall now put together any important -contribution to the memoirs of the future. At best, a woman’s knowledge -of the eminent men whom she only meets at dinner parties, and perhaps in -occasional quiet afternoon visits, is not to be compared to that of -their associates in their clubs, in Parliament and in all the work of -the world. Nevertheless as all of us, human beings, resemble diamonds in -having several distinct facets to our characters, and as we always turn -one of these to one person and another to another, there is generally -some fresh side to be seen in a particularly brilliant gem. The relation -too, which a good and kindly man (and such I am happy to say were most -of my acquaintances) bears to a woman who is neither his mother, sister, -daughter, wife or potential wife, but merely a reasonably intelligent -listener and companion of restful hours, is so different from that which -he holds to his masculine fellow-workers,—rivals, allies or enemies as -they may be,—that it can rarely happen but that she sees him in quite a -different light from theirs. Englishmen are not eaten up with _Invidia_, -like Italians and Frenchmen, such as made D’ Azeglio say to me that it -was a positive danger to a statesman to win a battle, or gain a -diplomatic triumph, so much envy did it excite among his own party. In -our country, men, and still more emphatically, women, glory -enthusiastically in the successes of their friends, if not of others. -But the masculine mind, so far as I have got to the bottom of it, (as -George Eliot says, “it is always so superior—_what there is of it_!”), -is not so quick in gathering impressions of character as ours of the -softer (and therefore, I suppose, more waxlike) sex; and when fifty men -have said their say on a great man I should always wish to hear _also_ -what the women who knew him socially had to add to their testimony. In -short, dear Fanny Kemble’s “_Old Woman’s Gossip_” seems to me admissible -on the subject of the character and “little ways” of everybody worthy of -record. - -It was certainly an advantage to us in London to be, as we were, without -any kind of ulterior aim or object in meeting our friends and -acquaintances, beyond the pleasure of the hour. We never had anything in -view in the way of social ambition; not even daughters to bring out! It -was not “_de l’Art pour l’Art_,” but _la Société pour la Société_, and -nothing beyond the amusement of the particular day and the interest of -the acquaintanceships we had the good fortune to make. We had no rank or -dignity of any kind to keep up. I think hardly any of our friends and -_habitués_ even knew who we were, from Burke’s point of view! I was -really pleased once, after I had been living for years in London, to -find at a large dinner-party, where at least half the company were my -acquaintances, that not one present suspected that I had any connection -with Ireland at all. Our host (a very prominent M.P. at the time) having -by chance elicited from me some information on Irish affairs, asked me, -“What do you know about Ireland?” “Simply that the first 36 years of my -life were spent there,” was my reply; which drew forth a general -expression of surprise. The few who had troubled themselves to think who -I was, had taken it for granted that I belonged to a family of the same -name, _minus_ the final letter, in Oxfordshire. In a country -neighbourhood the one prominent fact about me, known and repeated to -everyone, would have been that I was the daughter of Charles Cobbe of -Newbridge. I was proud to be accepted and, I hope, liked, on the -strength of my own talk and books, not on that of my father’s acres. - -We did not (of course) live in London all the year round, but came every -summer to Wales to enable my friend to look after her estate; and I went -every two or three years to Ireland, and more frequently to the houses -of my two brothers in England,—Maulden Rectory, in Bedfordshire, and -Easton Lyss, near Petersfield,—where they respectively lived, and where -both they and their wives were always ready to welcome me -affectionately. I also paid occasional visits at two or three country -houses, notably Broadlands and Aston Clinton, where I was most kindly -invited by the beloved owners; and twice or three times we let our house -for a term, and went to live on one occasion in Cheyne Walk, and another -time at Byfleet. We always fell back, however, on our dear little house -in Hereford Square, till we let it finally to our old friend Mrs. -Kemble, and left London for good in the spring of 1884. - -I think the first real acquaintances we made in London (whether through -Mrs. Somerville or otherwise I cannot recall) were Sir Charles and Lady -Lyell, and their brother and sister, Col. and Mrs. Lyell. The house, No. -73, Harley Street—in after years noticeable by its bright blue door, (so -painted to catch Sir Charles’ fading eyesight on his return from his -daily walks), became very dear to us, and I confess to a pang when it -was taken by Mr. and Mrs. Gladstone after the death of our dear old -friends. Like Lord Shaftesbury’s house in Grosvenor Square, pulled down -after his death and replaced by a brand new mansion in the latest -Londonesque architecture, there was a “bad-dreaminess” about both -transformation scenes. The Lyells regularly attended Mr. Martineau’s -chapel in Little Portland Street, as we did; and ere long it became a -habit for us to adjourn after the service to Harley Street and spend -some of the afternoon with our friends, discussing the large supply of -mental food which our pastor never failed to lay before us. Those were -never-to-be-forgotten Sundays. - -Sir Charles Lyell realised to my mind the Man of Science as he was of -old; devout, and yet entirely free-thinking in the true sense; filled -with admiring, almost adoring love for Nature, and also (all the more -for that enthusiasm), simple and fresh-hearted as a child. When a good -story had tickled him he would come and tell it to us with infinite -relish. I recollect especially his delight in an American boy (I think -somehow connected with our friend Mr. Herman Merivale), who, being -directed to say his prayers night and morning, replied that he had no -objection to do so at _night_, but thought that “a boy who is worth -anything can take care of himself _by day_.”[21] Another time we had -been discussing Evolution, and some of us had betrayed the impression -that the doctrine, (which he had then recently adopted), involved always -the survival of the _best_, as well as of the “fittest.” Sir Charles -left the room and went downstairs, but suddenly rushed back into the -drawing-room, and said to me all in a breath, standing on the rug: “I’ll -explain it to you in one minute! Suppose _you_ had been living in Spain -three hundred years ago, and had had a sister who was a perfectly -common-place person, and believed everything she was told. Well! your -sister would have been happily married and had a numerous progeny, and -that would have been the survival of the fittest; but _you_ would have -been burnt at an _auto-da-fè_, and there would have been an end of you. -You would have been unsuited to your environment. There! that’s -Evolution! Good-bye!” On went his hat, and we heard the hall door close -after him before we had done laughing. - -Sir Charles’ interest in his own particular science was eager as that of -a boy. One day I had a long conversation with him at his brother, -Colonel Lyell’s hospitable house, on the subject of the Glacial period. -He told me that he was employing regular calculators at Greenwich to -make out the results of the ice-cap and how it would affect land and -sea; whether it would cause double tides, &c. He said he had pointed out -(what no one else had noticed) that the water to form this ice-cap did -not come from another planet, but must have been deducted from the rest -of the water on the globe. Another day I met him at a very imposing -private concert in Regent’s Park. The following is my description of our -conversation in a letter to my friend, Miss Elliot:— - - - “Sir Charles sat beside me yesterday at a great musical party at the - D.’s, and I asked him, ‘Did he like music?’ He said, ‘Yes! _for it - allowed him to go on thinking his own thoughts._’ And so he evidently - did, while they were singing Mendelssohn and Handel! At every interval - he turned to me. ‘Agassiz has made a discovery. I can’t sleep for - thinking of it. He finds traces of the Glaciers in tropical America.’ - (Here intervened a sacred song.) ‘Well, as I was saying, you know - 230,000 years ago the eccentricity of the earth’s orbit was at one of - its maximum periods; and we were 11,000,000 miles further from the sun - in winter, and the cold of those winters must have been intense; - because heat varies, not according to direct ratio, but the squares of - the distances.’ ‘Well,’ said I, ‘but then the summers were as much - hotter?’ (Sacred song.) ‘No, the summers wern’t! They could not have - conquered the cold.’ ‘Then you think that the astronomical 230,000 - years corresponded with the glacial period? Is that time enough for - all the strata since?’ (Handel.) ‘I don’t know. Perhaps we must go - back to the still greater period of the eccentricity of the orbit - three million years ago. Then we were 14 millions of miles out of the - circular path.’ (Mendelssohn.) ‘Good-bye, dear Sir Charles—I must be - off.’ - - “Another day last week, he came and sat with me for two hours. I would - not light candles, and we got very deep into talk. I was greatly - comforted and instructed by all he said. I asked him how the modern - attacks on the argument from Design in Nature, and Darwin’s views, - touched him religiously? He replied, ‘Not at all.’ He thought the - proofs in Nature of the Divine Goodness quite triumphant; and that he - watched with secret pleasure even sceptical men of science whenever - they forget their theories, instinctively using phrases, all - _implying_ designing wisdom.” - - -I remember on another occasion Sir Charles telling me with much glee of -two eminent Agnostic friends of ours who had been discussing some -question for a long time, when one said to the other, “You are getting -very _teleological_!” To which the friend responded, “I can’t help it!” - -At another of his much prized visits to me (April 19th, 1866) he spoke -earnestly of the future life, and made this memorable remark of which I -took a note: “The further I advance in science, the less the mere -physical difficulties in believing in immortality disturb me. I have -learned to think nothing too amazing to be within the order of Nature.” - -The great inequalities in the conditions of men and the sufferings of -many seemed to be his strongest reasons for believing in another life. -He added: “Aristotle says that every creature has its instincts given by -its Creator, and each instinct leads to its good. Now the belief in -immortality is an instinct tending to good.” - -After the death of his beloved wife—the truest “helpmeet” ever man -possessed—he became even more absorbed in the problem of a future -existence, and very frequently came and talked with me on the subject. -The last time I had a real conversation with him was not long before his -death, when we met one sweet autumn day by chance in Regent’s Park, not -far from the Zoological Gardens. We sat down under a tree and had a long -discussion of the validity of religious faith. I think his argument -culminated in this position:— - - - “The presumption is enormous that all our faculties, though liable to - err, are true in the main, and point to real objects. The religious - faculty in man is one of the strongest of all. It existed in the - earliest ages, and instead of wearing out before advancing - civilization, it grows stronger and stronger; and is, to-day, more - developed among the highest races than ever it was before. I think we - may safely trust that it points to a great truth.” - - -Here is another glimpse of him from a letter:— - - - “After service I went to Harley Street, Sir Charles, I thought, - looking better than for a long time. He thinks the caves of Aurignac - can never be used as evidence; the witnesses were all tampered with - from the first. He saw a skeleton found at Mentone 15 feet deep, which - he thinks of the same age as the Gibraltar caves. The legs were - distinctly platycnemic, and there was also a curious process on the - front of the shoulder—like the breast of a chicken. The skull was - full-sized and good. I asked him how he accounted for the fact that - with the best will in the world we could not find the _least_ - difference between the most ancient skulls and our own? He said the - theory had been suggested that all the first growth went to brain, so - that very early men acquired large brains, as was necessary. This is - not very Darwinian, is it?” - - -It is the destiny of all books of Science to be soon superseded and -superannuated, while those of Literature may live for all time. I -suppose Sir Charles Lyell’s _Principles of Geology_ has undergone, or -will undergo, this fate ere long; but the magnanimity and candour which -made him, in issuing the 10th edition of that book, abjure all his -previous arguments against Evolution and candidly own himself Darwin’s -convert, was an evidence of genuine loyalty to truth which I trust can -never be quite forgotten. He was, as Prof. Huxley called him, the -“greatest Geologist of his day,”—the man “who found Geology an infant -science feebly contending for a few scattered truths, and left it a -giant, grasping all the ages of the past.” But to my memory he will -always be something more than _an_ eminent man of Science. He was the -type of what _such men ought to be_; with the simplicity, humility and -gentleness which should be characteristic of the true student of Nature. -Of the priestlike arrogance of some representatives of the modern -scientific spirit he had not a taint. In one of his last letters to me, -he said: - - - “I am told that the same philosophy which is opposed to a belief in a - future state undertakes to prove that every one of our acts and - thoughts are the necessary result of antecedent events, and conditions - and that there can be no such thing as Free-will in man. I am quite - content that both doctrines should stand on the same foundation; for - as I cannot help being convinced that I have the power of exerting - Free-will, however great a mystery the possibility of this may be, so - the continuance of a spiritual life may be true, however inexplicable - or incapable of proof. - - “I am told by some that if any of our traditionary beliefs make us - happier and lead us to estimate humanity more highly, we ought to be - careful not to endeavour to establish any scientific truths which - would lessen and lower our estimate of Man’s place in Nature; in - short, we should do nothing to disturb any man’s faith, if it be a - delusion which increases his happiness. - - “But I hope and believe that the discovery and propagation of every - truth, and the dispelling of every error tends to improve and better - the condition of man, though the act of reforming old opinions causes - so much pain and misery.” - - -It will give me pleasure if these few reminiscences of my honoured -friend send fresh readers to his excellent and spirited biography by his -sister-in-law Mrs. Lyell, Lady Lyell’s sister, who was also his brother, -Colonel Lyell’s wife; the mother of Sir Leonard Lyell, M.P. - -I saw a great deal of Dr. Colenso during the years he spent in England; -I think about 1864–5. He lived near us in a small house in Sussex Place, -Glo’ster Road (not Sussex Place, Onslow Square), where his large family -of sons and daughters practised the piano below stairs and produced -detonations with chemicals above, while visitors called incessantly, -interrupting his arduous and anxious studies! He was in all senses an -iron-grey man. Iron-grey hair, pale, strong face, fine but somewhat -rigid figure, a powerful, strong-willed, resolute man, if ever there -were one, and an honest one also, if such there have been on earth. His -friend, Sir George W. Cox, who I may venture to call mine also, has, in -his admirable biography, printed the three most important letters which -the Bishop of Natal wrote to me, and I can add nothing to Sir George’s -just estimate of the character of this modern _Confessor_. I will give -here, however, another letter I received from him at the very beginning -of our intercourse, when I had only met him once (at Dr. Carpenter’s -table); and also a record in a letter to a friend of a _tête-à-tête_ -conversation with him, further on. I have always thought that he made a -mistake in returning to Natal, and that his true place would have been -at the head of a Christian-Theistic Church in London:— - - - “23, Sussex Place, Kensington, - “Feb. 6th, 1863. - - “My Dear Miss Cobbe, - - “I thank you sincerely for your letter, and for the volume which you - have sent me. I have read the preface with the deepest interest—and - heartily respond to _every_ word which you have written in it. A - friend at the Cape had lent me a German edition of De Wette, which I - had consulted carefully. But, about a fortnight ago, a lady, till then - a stranger to me, sent me a copy of Parker’s Edition. I value it most - highly for the sake both of the Author’s and Editor’s share in it. But - the criticism of the present day goes, if I am not mistaken, - considerably beyond even De Wette’s, in clearing up the question of - the Age and Authorship of the different parts of the Pentateuch. I - shall carefully consider the Tables of Elohistic and Jehovistic - portions, as given in De Wette; but, in many important respects, my - conclusions will be found to differ from his, and, as I think, upon - certain grounds. De W. leant too much to the judgment of Stäbelin. - - “The above, however, is the only one of Th. Parker’s works, which has - yet come into my hands, till the arrival of your book this morning. - When I repeat that every word of your Preface went to my very - heart—and that many of them drew the tears from my eyes and the prayer - from my heart that God would grant me grace to be in any degree a - follower of the noble brother whose life you have sketched, and whose - feet have already trodden the path, which now lies open before me—you - will believe that I shall not leave long the rest of the volume - unread. But, whatever I may find there, your Preface will give comfort - and support to thousands, if only they can be brought to read it. - Would it not be possible to have it printed separate, as a _cheap - Tract_? It would have the effect of recommending the book itself, and - Parker’s works, generally, to multitudes, who might otherwise not have - them brought under their notice effectively? I think if largely - circulated it might help materially the progress of the great work, in - which I am now engaged. - - “You will allow me, I hope, to have the pleasure of renewing my - acquaintance with you, by making a call upon you before long—and may I - bring with me Mrs. Colenso, who will be very glad to see you? - - “Very truly yours, - “JO. NATAL. - - “Please accept a copy of my ‘Romans,’ which Macmillan will send you. - The _spirit_ of it will remain, I trust, abiding, though much of the - _letter_ must now be changed.” - - -Writing of Dr. Colenso to a friend in February, 1865, I said:— - - - “I never felt for him so much as last night. We came to talk on what - we felt at standing so much alone; and he said that when the extent of - his discoveries burst on him he felt as if he had received a - paralyzing electric shock. A London clergyman wrote to him the other - day to give him solemn warning that he had led one of his parishioners - to destruction and drunkenness. Colenso answered him, that ‘it was not - _he_ who led men to doubt of God and duty, but those teachers who made - them rest their faith on God and Duty on a foundation of falsehood - which every new wave of thought was sweeping away.’ The clergyman - seems to have been immensely dumbfounded by this reply.” - - -Another most interesting man whom I met at Dr. Carpenter’s table was -Charles Kingsley. - -One day, while I was still a miserable cripple, I went to dine in -Regent’s Park and came rather late into a drawing-room full of company, -supported by what my maid called my “_best_ crutches!” The servant did -not know me, and announced “Miss Cobble.” I corrected her loudly enough -for the guests to hear, in that moment of pause: “No! Miss Hobble!” -There was of course a laugh, and from the little crowd rushed forward to -greet me with both hands extended, a tall, slender, stooping figure with -that well-known face so full of feeling and tenderness—Charles Kingsley. -“At _last_, Miss Cobbe, at _last_ we meet,” he said, and a moment later -gave me his arm to dinner. This greeting touched me, for we had -exchanged, as theological opponents, some tolerably sharp blows for -years before, but his large, noble nature harboured no spark of -resentment. We talked all dinner-time and a good deal in the evening, -and then he offered to escort me home to South Kensington—a proposal -which I greedily accepted, but, somehow, when he found that I had a -brougham, and was not going in miscellaneous vehicles (in my best -evening toggery!) from one end of London to the other at night, he -retracted, and could not be induced to come with me. We met, however, -not unfrequently afterwards, and I always felt much attracted to him; as -did, I may mention, my friend’s little fox terrier, who, travelling one -day with her mistress in the Underground, spied Kingsley entering the -carriage, and incontinently leaving her usual safe retreat under the -seat made straight to him, and without invitation, leaped on his knee -and began gently kissing his face! The dog never did the same or -anything like it to any one else in her life before or afterwards. Of -course, my friend apologised to Mr. Kingsley, but he only said in his -deep voice, “Dogs always do that to me,”—and coaxed the little beast -kindly, till they left the train. - -The last time I saw Canon Kingsley was one day late in the autumn some -months before he died. Somebody who, I thought, he would like to meet -was coming to dine with me at short notice, and I went to Westminster in -the hope of catching him and persuading him to come without losing time -by sending notes. The evening was closing, and it was growing very dark -in the cloisters, where I was seeking his door, when I saw a tall man, -strangely bent, coming towards me, evidently seeing neither me nor -anything else, and absorbed in some most painful thought. His whole -attitude and countenance expressed grief amounting to despair. So -terrible was it that I felt it an intrusion on a sacred privacy to have -seen it; and would fain have hidden myself, but this was impossible -where we were standing at the moment. When he saw me he woke out of his -reverie with a start, pulled himself together, shook hands, and begged -me to come into his house; which of course I did not do. He had an -engagement which prevented him from meeting my guest (I think it must -have been Keshub Chunder Sen), and I took myself off as quickly as -possible. I have often wondered what dreadful thought was occupying his -mind when I caught sight of him that day in the gloomy old cloisters of -Westminster in the autumn twilight. - -The quotation made a few pages back of Sir Charles Lyell’s observations -on belief in Immortality reminds me that I repeated them soon after he -had made them, to another great man whom it was my privilege to -know—John Stuart Mill. We were spending an afternoon with him and Miss -Helen Taylor at Blackheath; and a quiet conversation between Mr. Mill -and myself having reached this subject, I told him of what Sir C. Lyell -had said. In a moment the quick blood suffused his cheeks and something -very like tears were in his eyes. The question, it was plain, touched -his very heart. This wonderful sensitiveness of a man generally supposed -to be “dry” and devoted to the driest studies, struck me, I think, more -than anything about him. His special characteristic was extreme delicacy -of feeling; and this showed itself, singularly enough, for a man -advanced in life, in transparency of skin, and changes of colour and -expression as rapid as those in a mountain lake when the clouds shift -over it. When Watts painted his fine portrait of him, he failed to -notice this peculiarity of his thin and delicate skin, and gave him the -common thick, muddy complexion of elderly Englishmen. The result is that -the _èthos_ of the face is missing—just as in the case of the portrait -of Dr. Martineau he is represented with weak, sloping shoulders and -narrow chest. The look of power which essentially belongs to him is not -to be seen. I remarked when I saw this picture first exhibited: “I -should never have ‘sat under’ _that_ Dr. Martineau!” Mill and I, of -course, met in deep sympathy on the Woman question; and he did me the -honour to present me with a copy of his “_Subjection of Women_” on its -publication. He tried to make me write and speak more on the subject of -Women’s Claims, and used jestingly to say that my laugh was worth—I -forget how much!—to the cause. I insert a letter from him showing the -minute care he took about matters hardly worthy of his attention. - - - “Avignon, Feb. 23rd, 1869. - - “Dear Miss Cobbe, - - “I have lately received communication from the American publisher - Putnam, requesting me to write for their Magazine, and I understand - that they would be very glad if you would write anything for them, - more especially on the Women question, on which the Magazine (a new - one) has shown liberal tendencies from the first. The communications I - have received have been through Mrs. Hooker, sister of Mrs. Stowe and - Dr. Ward Beecher, and herself the author of two excellent articles in - the Magazine on the suffrage question, by which we had been much - struck before we knew the authorship. I enclose Mrs. Hooker’s last - letter to me, and I send by post copies of Mrs. Hooker’s articles and - some old numbers of the Magazine, the only ones we have here; and I - shall be very happy if I should be the medium of inducing you to write - on this question for the American public. - - “My daughter desires to be kindly remembered, and I am, - - “Dear Miss Cobbe, - “Very truly yours, - “J. S. MILL. - - “P.S.—May I ask you to be so kind as to forward Mrs. Hooker’s letter - to Mrs. P. A. Taylor, as she will see by it that Mrs. Hooker has no - objection to put her name to a reprint of her articles.” - - -There never was a more unassuming philosopher than Mr. Mill, just as -there never was a more unassuming poet than Mr. Browning. All the world -knows how Mr. Mill strove to give to his wife the chief credit of his -works; and, after her death, his attitude towards her daughter, who was -indeed a daughter also to him, was beautiful to witness, and a fine -exemplification of his own theories of the rightful position of women. -He was, however, equally unpretentious as regarded men. Talking one day -about the difficulty of doing mental work when disturbed by street -music, and of poor Mr. Babbage’s frenzy on the subject, Mr. Mill said it -did not much interfere with him. I told him how intensely Mr. Spencer -objected to disturbance. “Ah yes; of course! writing _Spencer’s_ works -one must want quiet!” As if nothing of the kind were needed for such -trivial books as his own _System of Logic_, or _Political Economy_! He -really was quite unconscious of the irony of his remark. I have been -told that he would allow his cat to interfere sadly with his literary -occupation when she preferred to lie on his table, or sometimes on his -neck,—a trait like that of Newton and his “Diamond.” This extreme -gentleness is ever, surely a note of the highest order of men. - -Here are extracts from letters concerning Mr. Mill, which I wrote to -Miss Elliot in August, 1869. I believe I had been to Brighton and met -Mr. Mill there. - - - “We talked of many grave things, and in everything his love of right - and his immense underlying faith impressed me more than I can - describe. I asked him what he thought of coming changes, and he - entirely agreed with me about their danger, but thought that the - mischief they will entail must be but temporary. He thought the loss - of Reverence unspeakably deplorable, but an inevitable feature of an - age of such rapid transition that the son does actually outrun the - father. He added that he thought even the most sceptical of men - generally had an _inner altar to the Unseen Perfection_ while waiting - for the true one to be revealed to them. In a word the ‘dry old - philosopher’ showed himself to me as an enthusiast in faith and love. - The way in which he seemed to have thought out every great question - and to express his own so modestly and simply, and yet in such - clear-cut outlines, was most impressive. I felt (what one so seldom - does!) the delightful sense of being in communication with a mind - deeper than one would reach the end of, even after a lifetime of - intercourse. I never felt the same, so strongly, except towards Mr. - Martineau; and though the forms of _his_ creed and philosophy are, I - think, infinitely truer than those of Mill (not to speak of the - feelings one has for the man whose prayers one follows), I think it is - more in form than in spirit that the two men are distinguished. The - one has only an ‘inner,’ the other has an outward ‘altar;’ but both - _kneel_ at them.” - - -A month or two earlier in the same year I wrote to the same friend:— - - - “Last night I sat beside Mr. Mill at dinner and enjoyed myself - exceedingly. He is looking old and worn, and the nervous twitchings of - his face are painful to see, but he is so thoroughly genial and - gentlemanly, and laughs so heartily at one’s little jokes, and keeps - up an argument with so much play and good humour, that I never enjoyed - my dinner-neighbourhood more. Mr. Fawcett was objurgating some M.P. - for taking office, and said: ‘When I see _Tories_ rejoice, I know it - must be an injury to the Liberal Cause.’ ‘Do you never, then, feel a - qualm,’ I said, ‘all you Liberal gentlemen, when you see the _priests_ - rejoice at what you have just done in Ireland? Do you reflect whether - _that_ is likely to be an injury to the Liberal Cause?’ The - observation somehow fell like a bomb; (the entire company, as I - remember, were Radicals, our host being Mr. P. A. Taylor). For two - minutes there was a dead silence. Then Mrs. Taylor said: ‘Ah, Miss - Cobbe is a bitter Conservative!’ ‘Not a _bitter_ one,’ said Mr. Mill. - ‘Miss Cobbe is a Conservative. I am sorry for it; but Miss Cobbe is - never bitter.’” - - -It has been a constant subject of regret to me that Mr. Mill’s intention -(communicated to me by Miss Taylor) of spending the ensuing summer -holiday in Wales, on purpose to be near us, was frustrated by his -illness and death. How much pleasure and instruction I should have -derived from his near neighbourhood there is no need to say. - -A friend of Mr. Mill for whom I had great regard was Prof. Cairnes. He -underwent treatment at Aix-les-Bains at the same time as I; and we used -to while away our long hours by interminable discussions, principally -concerning ethics, a subject on which Mr. Cairnes took the Utilitarian -side, and I, of course, that of the school of Independent Morality -(_i.e._, of Morality based on other grounds than Utility). He was an -ardent disciple of Mill, but his extreme candour caused him to admit -frankly that the “mystic extension” of the idea of _Usefulness_ into -_Right_, was unaccountable, or at least unaccounted for; and that when -we had proved an act to be pre-eminently useful and likely to promote -“the greatest happiness of the greatest number,” there yet remained the -question for each of us, “Why should _I_ perform that useful action, if -it cost _me_ a moment’s pain?” To find the answer (he admitted) we must -fall back on an inward “Categoric imperative,” “_ought_;” and having -done so, (I argued,) we must thenceforth admit that the basis of -Morality rests on something beside Utility. All these controversies are -rather bygone now, since we have been confronted with “hereditary sets -of the brain.” I think it was in these discussions with Prof. Cairnes -that I struck out what several friends (among others Lord Arthur -Russell) considered an “unanswerable” argument against the Utilitarian -philosophy; it ran thus: - - - “Mr. Mill has nobly said, that,—if an Almighty Tyrant were to order - him to worship him and threaten to send him to hell if he refused, - then, sooner than worship that unjust God, ‘_to Hell would I go!_’ Mr. - Mill, of course, desired every man to do what he himself thought - right; therefore it is conceivable that, in the given contingency, we - might behold the apostle of the Utilitarian philosophy _conducting the - whole human race to eternal perdition_, for the sake of,—shall we say - the ‘_Greatest Happiness of the Greatest number_?’” - - -Prof. Cairnes did great public service both to England and America at -the time of the war of Secession by his wise and able writing on the -subject. In a small way I tried to help the same cause by joining Mrs. -P. A. Taylor’s Committee formed to promote and express English sympathy -with the North; and wrote several little pamphlets, “_The Red Flag in -John Bull’s Eyes_”; “_Rejoinder to Mrs. Stowe_,” &c. This common -interest increased, of course, my regard for Mr. Cairnes, and it was -with real sorrow I saw him slowly sink under the terrible disease, (a -sort of general ossification of the joints) of which he died. I have -said he _sank_ under it, but assuredly it was only his piteously -stiffened _body_ which did so, for I never saw a grander triumph of mind -over matter than was shown by the courage and cheerfulness wherewith he -bore as dreadful a fate as that of any old martyr. I shall never forget -the impression of _the nobility of the human Soul_ rising over its -tenement of clay, which he made upon me, on the occasion of my last -visit to him at Blackheath. - -Another man, much of the character and calibre of Prof. Cairnes, whom I -likewise had the privilege to know well, was Prof. Sheldon Amos. He -also, alas! died in the prime of life; to the loss and grief of the -friends of every generous movement. - -The following is a memorandum of the first occasion on which I met Mr. -John Bright:— - - - “February 28th, 1866. Dined at Mr. S.’s, M.P. Sat between Bright and - Mr. Buxton. Bright so exquisitely _clean_ and with such a sweet voice! - His hands alone are coarse. Great discussion, in which Mr. B. - completely took the lead; the other gentlemen present seeming to hang - on his words as I never saw Englishmen do on those of one another. - Talking of Ireland he said he would, if he ever had the power, force - all the English Companies and great English landlords to sell their - estates there; the land to be cut up into small farms. I asked, did he - believe in small farming in 1866, and in Celtic capitalists ready to - purchase farms? He then told us how he picked up much information - travelling through Ireland _on cars_, from the drivers, (as if every - Irish car-driver did not recognise him in a moment from Punch’s - caricatures!) and how, especially, he visited the only small farm he - had heard of where the occupier was a freeholder; and how it was - exceedingly prosperous. I asked where this was? He said ‘in a place - called the Barony of Forth.’ Of course I explained that Forth and - Bargy in Wexford have been for four hundred years isolated English, - (or rather Welsh) colonies, and afford no sort of sample of _Irish_ - farming. Bright’s way of speaking was dogmatic, but full of genial fun - and quiet little bits of wit. He spoke with great feeling of the - wrongs and miseries of the poor, but seemed to enjoy in full the - delusion that it only depended on rich people being ready to sacrifice - themselves, to remove them all to-morrow. - - “I ventured to ask him why he laboured so hard to get votes for - working carpenters and bricklayers, and never stirred a finger to ask - them for women, who possessed already the property qualification? He - said: ‘Much was to be said for women,’ but then went on maundering - about our proper sphere, and ‘would they go into Parliament?’” - - -Again another time I sat beside him (I know not at whose hospitable -table), and he told me a most affecting story of a poor crippled woman -in a miserable cottage near Llandudno, where he usually spent his -holidays. He had got into the habit of visiting this poor creature, who -could not stir from her bed, but lay there all day long alone, her -husband being out at work as a labourer. Sometimes a neighbour would -look in and give her food, but unless one did so, she was entirely -helpless. Her only comforter was her dog, a fine collie, who lay beside -her on the floor, ran in and out, licked her poor useless hands, and -showed his affection in a hundred ways. Bright grew fond of the dog, and -the dog always welcomed him each year with gambols and joy. One summer -he came to the cottage, and the hapless cripple lay on her pallet still, -but the dog did not come out to him as usual, and his first question to -the woman was: “Where is your collie?” The answer was that _her husband -had drowned the dog_ to save the expense of feeding it. - -Bright’s voice broke when he came to the end of this story, and we said -very little more to each other during that dinner. - -Another day I was speaking to Mr. Bright of the extraordinary _canard_ -which had appeared in the _Times_ the day before announcing (quite -falsely) that Lord Russell, then Premier, had resigned. “What on earth,” -I asked, “can have induced the _Times_ to publish such intelligence?” -(As it happened, it inconvenienced Lord Russell very much.) “I will tell -you,” said Bright; “I am sure it is because Delane is angry that Lady -Russell has not asked him to dinner. He expected to go to the Russells’ -as he did to the Palmerstons’, and get his news at first hand!” A day or -two later I met Lord Russell, and told him what Mr. Bright had said was -the reason of the mischievous trick Mr. Delane had played him. Lord -Russell chuckled a great deal and said, rubbing his hands in his -characteristic way: “I believe it is! I do believe it is!” - -My beautiful cousin, Laura, one of my father’s wards, had married (from -Newbridge in old days) Mr. John Locke, Q.C., who was for a long time -M.P. for Southwark. Their house, 63, Eaton Place, was always most -cordially opened to me, and beside Mr. Locke, who was generally brimful -of political news, I met at their table many clever barristers and -M.P.’s. Among the latter was Mr. Ayrton, against whom a virulent set was -made by the scientific _clique_, in consequence of his endeavours, on -behalf of the public, to open Kew Gardens earlier in the day. He was -rather saturnine, but an incorruptible, unbending sort of man, for whom -I felt respect. Another _habitué_ was Mr. Warren, author of _Ten -Thousand a Year_. He was a little ugly fellow, but full of fire and fun, -retorting right and left against the Liberals present. Sergeant Gazelee, -a worn-looking man, with keen eyes, one day answered him fairly. There -was an amusing discussion whether the Tories could match in ability the -men of the opposite party? Warren brought up an array of clever -Conservatives, but then pretended to throw up the sponge, exclaiming in -a dolorous voice, “but then you Liberals have got—Whalley!” - -Beside my cousin Mrs. Locke and her good and able husband, I had the -pleasure for many years of constantly seeing in London her two younger -sisters, Sophia and Eliza Cobbe, who were my father’s favourite wards -and have been from their childhood, when they were always under my -charge in their holidays, till now in our old age, almost like younger -sisters to me. They were of course rarely absent from the Eaton Place -festivities. - -There was a considerable difference between dinner parties in the -Sixties and those of thirty years later. They lasted longer at the -earlier date; a greater number of dishes were served at each course, and -much more wine was taken. I cannot but think that there must be a -certain declension in the general vitality of our race of late years -for, I think, few of us, young or old, would be inclined to share -equally now in those banquets of long ago which always lasted two hours -and sometimes three. There were scarcely any teetotalers, men or women, -at the time I speak of, in the circles to which I belonged; and the -butlers, who went round incessantly with half-a-dozen kinds of wine, and -(after dinner) liqueurs, were not, as now, continually interrupted in -their courses by “No wine, thank you! Have you Appolinaris or Seltzer?” -I never saw anyone the worse for the sherry and the milkpunch and the -hock or chablis, and champagne and claret; but certainly there was -generally a little more gaiety of a well-bred sort towards the end of -the long meals. My cousins kept a particularly good cook and good -cellar, and their guests—especially some who hailed from the -City—certainly enjoyed at their table other “feasts” beside those of -reason. And so I must confess did _I_, in those days of good appetite -after a long day’s literary work; and I sincerely pitied Dean Stanley, -who had no sense of taste, and scarcely knew the flavour of anything -which he put in his mouth. When the company was not quite up to his -mark, the tedium of the dinners which he attended must have been -dreadful to him; whereas, in my case, I could always,—provided the -_menu_ was good,—entertain myself satisfactorily with my plate and knife -and fork. The same great surgeon who had treated my sprained ankle so -unsuccessfully, told me with solemn warning when we were taking our -house in Hereford Square, that, if I lived in South Kensington and went -to dinner parties, I should be a regular victim to gout. As it happened -I lived in South Kensington for just twenty years, and went out, I -should think to some two thousand dinners, great and small, and I never -had the gout at all, but, on the contrary, by my own guidance, got rid -of the tendency before I left London. There has certainly been a -perceptible diminution in the _animal spirits_ of men and women in the -last thirty years, if not of their vital powers. Of course there was -always, among well-bred people a certain average of spirits in society, -neither boisterous nor yet depressed; and the better the company the -softer the general “_susurro_” of the conversation. I could have -recognized blindfold certain drawing-rooms wherein a mixed congregation -assembled, by the strident, high note which pervaded the crowded room. -But the ripple of gentle laughter in good company has decidedly fallen -some notes since the Sixties. - -I am led to these reflections by remembering among my cousin’s guests -that admirable man—Mr. Fawcett. He was always, not merely fairly -cheerful, but more gay and apparently light-hearted than those around -him who were possessed of their eyesight. The last time I met him was at -the house of Madame Bodichon in Blandford Square, and we three were all -the company. One would have thought a blind statesman alone with two -elderly women, would not have been much exhilarated; but he seemed -actually bursting with boyish spirits; pouring out fun, and laughing -with all his heart. Certainly his devoted wife (in my humble opinion the -ablest woman of this day), succeeded in cheering his darkened lot quite -perfectly. - -Mr. and Mrs. Fawcett were the third couple who in this century have -afforded a study for Mr. Francis Galton of “Hereditary Genius.” The -first were Shelley and his Mary (who again was the daughter of Godwin -and Mary Wollstoncraft). Their son, the late Sir Percy Shelley, was a -very kindly and pleasant gentleman, with good taste for private -theatricals, but not a genius. The second were Robert and Elizabeth -Barrett Browning. They also have left a son, of whose gifts as a painter -I do not presume to judge. The third were Mr. Fawcett and Millicent -Garrett, who, though not claiming the brilliant genius of the others, -were each, as all the world knows, very highly endowed persons. _Their_ -daughter, Miss Philippa Garrett Fawcett,—the Senior Wrangler, _de -jure_,—has at all events vindicated Mr. Galton’s theories. - -Many of us, in those days of the Sixties, were deeply interested in the -efforts of women to enter the medical profession in spite of the bitter -opposition which they encountered. Miss Elizabeth Garrett, Mrs. -Fawcett’s sister, occupied a particularly prominent place in our eyes, -succeeding as she did in obtaining her medical degree in Paris, and -afterwards a seat on the London School Board, which last was quite a new -kind of elevation for women. While still occupying the foreground of our -ambition for our sex, Miss Garrett resolved to make (what has proved, I -believe, to be) a happy and well assorted marriage, which put an end, -necessarily, to her further projects of public work. I sent her, with my -cordial good wishes, the following verses:— - - The Woman’s cause was rising fast - When to the Surgeons’ College past - A maid who bore in fingers nice - A banner with the new device - Excelsior! - - “Try not to pass”! the Dons exclaim, - “M.D. shall grace no woman’s name”— - “Bosh!” cried the maid, in accents free, - “To France I’ll go for my degree.” - Excelsior! - - The School-Board seat came next in sight, - “Beware the foes of woman’s right!” - “Beware the awful husting’s fight!” - Such was the moan of many a soul— - A voice replied from top of poll— - Excelsior! - - In patients’ homes she saw the light - Of household fires beam warm and bright - Lectures on Bones grew wondrous dry, - But still she murmured with a sigh - Excelsior! - - “Oh, stay!”—a lover cried,—“Oh, rest - Thy much-learned head upon this breast; - Give up ambition! Be my bride!” - —Alas! _no_ clarion voice replied - Excelsior! - - At end of day, when all is done, - And woman’s battle fought and won, - Honour will aye be paid to one - Who erst called foremost in the van - Excelsior! - - But not for her that crown so bright, - Which hers had been, of surest right, - Had she still cried,—serene and blest— - “The Virgin throned by the West,”[22] - Excelsior! - -Some years after this I brought from Rome as a present for my much -valued friend and lady-Doctor, Mrs. Hoggan, M.D. (widow of Dr. George -Hoggan), a large photograph of the statue in the Vatican of _Minerva -Medica_. Under it I wrote these lines:— - - “_Minerva Medica!_ Shocking profanity! - How could these heathens their doctors vex, - Putting the cure of the ills of humanity - Into the hands of the ‘weaker sex?’ - O Pallas sublime! Would you come back revealing - Your glory immortal, our doctors should see,— - Instead of proclaiming you Goddess of Healing, - They’d prohibit your practice, refuse your degree!” - - -The first dinner-party I ever attended in London, before I went to live -in town, was at Mr. Bagehot’s house. I sat beside Mr. Richard Hutton, -who has been ever since my good friend, and opposite us there sat a -gentleman who at once attracted my attention. He had a strong dark face, -a low forehead and hair parted in the middle, the large loose mouth of -an orator and a manner quite unique; as if he were gently looking down -on the follies of mortality from the superior altitudes of Olympos, or -perhaps of Parnassus. “Do you know who that is sitting opposite to us?” -said Mr. Hutton. I looked at him again, and replied: “I never saw him -before, and I have never seen his picture, but I feel in my inner -consciousness that it can only be Mr. Matthew Arnold;” and Mr. Arnold, -of course, it was,—with an air which made me think him (what he was not) -an intellectual coxcomb. He wrote, about that time or soon afterwards, -some dreadfully derisive things of my Theism; not on account, -apparently, of its intrinsic demerits, but because of what he conceived -to be its _upstart_ character. We are all familiar with a certain tone -of lofty superiority common to Roman Catholics and Anglicans in dealing -with Dissenters of all classes; the tone, no doubt, in which the priests -of On talked of Moses when he led the Israelitish schism in the -wilderness. It comes naturally to everybody who stands serenely on “the -old paths,” and watches those who walk below, or strive to fray new ways -through the jungle of poor human thoughts. But when Mr. Arnold had -himself slipped off the old road so far as to have liquefied the -Articles of the Apostles’ Creed into a “_Stream of Tendency_;” and -compared the doctrine of the Trinity to a story of “_Three Lord -Shaftesburys_;” and reduced the Object of Worship to the lowest possible -denomination as “_a Power not ourselves which makes for righteousness_;” -he must, I think, have come to feel that it was scarcely his affair to -treat other people’s heresies as new-fangled, and lacking in the -sanctities of tradition. As one after another of his brilliant essays -appeared, and it became manifest that his own creed grew continually -thinner, more exiguous, and less and less substantial, I was reminded of -an old sporting story which my father told of a town-bred gentleman, the -“Mr. Briggs” of those days, who for the first time shot a cock-pheasant, -and after greatly admiring it laid it down on the grass. A keeper took -up the bird and stroked it, pretending to wonder at its size, and -presently shifted it aside and substituted a partridge, which he -likewise stroked and admired, till he had an opportunity of again -changing it for a snipe. At this crisis “Mr. Briggs” broke in furiously, -bidding the keeper to stop stroking his bird: “Be hanged to you! If you -go on like that, you’ll rub it down to a wren!” The creed of many -persons in these days seems to be undergoing the process of being patted -and praised, while all the time it is being rubbed down to a wren! - -But whatever hard things Mr. Arnold said of me, I liked and admired him, -and he was always personally most kind to me. He had of all men I have -ever known the truest insight,—the true _Poet’s_ insight,—into the -feelings and characters of animals, especially of dogs. His poem, -_Geist’s Grave_, is to me the most affecting description of the death of -an animal in the range of literature. Indeed, the subject of Death -itself, whether of beasts or of men, viewed from the same standpoint of -hopelessness, has never, I think, been more tenderly touched. How deeply -true to every heart is the thought expressed in the stanzas, which -remind us that in all the vastness of the universe and of endless time -there is not, and never will be, another being like the one who is dead! -_That_ being (some of us believe) may revive and live for ever, but -_another_ who will “restore its little self” will never be. - - “... Not the course - Of all the centuries to come, - And not the infinite resource - Of Nature, with her countless sum - - “Of figures, with her fulness vast - Of new creation evermore, - Can ever quite repeat the past, - Or just thy little self restore. - - “Stern law of every mortal lot! - Which man, proud man, finds hard to bear - And builds himself, I know not what - Of second life, I know not where.” - -We knew dear _Geist_, I am glad to say. When Miss Lloyd and I came to -live at Byfleet Mr. Arnold and his most charming wife,—then living three -miles off at Cobham,—kindly permitted us to see a good deal of them, and -we were deeply interested in poor Geist’s last illness. He was a black -dachshund, not a handsome dog, but possessed of something which in -certain dogs and (those dogs only) seems to be the canine analogue of a -human soul. As to Mr. Arnold’s poem on his other dog, _Kaiser_, who is -there that enjoys a gleam of humour and dog-love can fail to be -enchanted with such a perfect picture of a dog,—not a dog of the -sentimental kind, but one— - - “Teeming with plans, alert and glad - In work or play, - Like sunshine went and came, and bade - Live out the day!” - -Does not every one feel how true is the likeness of a happy loving dog -to sunshine in a house? - -I met Mr. Arnold one day in William and Norgate’s bookshop, and he -inquired after my dog, and when I told him the poor beast had “gone -where the good dogs go,” he said, with real feeling, “And you have not -replaced her? No! of course you could not.” I asked his leave to give a -copy of “Geist’s Grave” for a collection of poems on animals made for -the purpose of humane propaganda, and he gave it very cordially. I was, -however, deeply disappointed when he returned the following reply to my -application for his signature to our first Memorial inviting the -R.S.P.C.A. to undertake legislation for the restriction of vivisection. -I do not clearly understand what he meant by disliking “the English way -of employing for public ends private Societies and Memorials to them.” -The R.S.P.C.A. is scarcely a “private society;” and, if it were so, I -see no harm in “employing it for public ends,” instead of leaving -everything to Government to do; or to _leave undone_. - - - “Cobham, Surrey, - “January 8th, 1875. - - “Dear Miss Cobbe, - - “Your letter was directed to Oxford, a place with which I have now no - connection, and it reaches me too late for signing your Memorial, but - I should in any case have declined signing it, strongly as your cause - speaks to my feelings; because, first, I greatly dislike the English - way of employing, for public ends, private societies and Memorials to - them; secondly, the signatures you will profit by, in this case, are - not those of literary people, who will at once be disposed of as a set - of unpractical sentimentalists. To yourself this objection does not - apply, because you are distinguished not in letters only, but also as - a lover and student of animals. I hope if you read my paper in the - _Contemporary_, you observe how I apologise for calling them the - _lower_ animals, and how thoroughly I admit that they _think and - love_. - - “Sincerely yours, - “MATTHEW ARNOLD.” - - -In my first journey to Italy on my way to Palestine I made acquaintance -with R. W. Mackay, the author of that enormously learned, but, perhaps, -not very well digested book, the _Progress of the Intellect_. I -afterwards renewed acquaintance with him and his nice wife in their -house in Hamilton Terrace. Mr. Mackay was somewhat of an invalid and a -nervous man, much absorbed in his studies. I have heard it said that he -was the original of George Elliot’s _Mr. Casaubon_. At all events Mrs. -Lewes had met him, and taken a strong prejudice against him. That -prejudice I think was unjust. He was a very honest and _real_ student, -and a modest one, not a pretender like Mr. Casaubon. His books contain -an amazing mass of knowledge, (presented, perhaps, in rather a crude -state) respecting all the great religious doctrines of the world. I had -once felt that both his books and talk were hard and steel-cold, and -that his religion, though dogmatically the same as mine, was all lodged -in his intellect. One day, however, when he called on me and we took a -drive and walk in the Park together, I learned to my surprise that he -entirely felt with me that the one _direct_ way of reaching truth about -religion was Prayer, and all the rest mere corroboration of what may so -be learned. To have _come round_ to this seemed to me a great evidence -of intellectual sincerity. - -I forget now what particular point we had been discussing when he wrote -me the following curious bit of erudition:— - - - “Dear Miss Cobbe, - - “Dixit Rabbi Simeon Ben Lakis,—Nomina angelorum et mensium ascenderunt - in domum Israelis ex Babylone.” - - “This occurs in the treatise _Rosh Haschanah_, which is part of the - Mischna. - - “The Mischna (the earliest part of the Talmud) is said to have been - completed in the 3rd century, under the auspices of Rabbi Judah the - Holy, and his disciples. - - “I send the above as promised, The professed aversion of the Jews for - foreign customs seems strangely at variance with their practice, as - seen, _e.g._, in their names for the divisions of the heavenly hosts; - the words ‘Legion and Sistra (castra) are evidently taken from the - Roman army. Four Chief Spirits or Archangels are occasionally - mentioned, as in _Pirke Eliezer_ and _Henoch_, cf. 48, 1. Others make - their number seven, as Tobit 12, 5; Revel. 2, 4–3, 1–4, 5. The angelic - doings are partly copied from the usages of the Jewish Temple, hence - the Jerusalem Targum renders Exod. 14, 24. ‘It happened in the morning - watch, the hour when the heavenly host sing praises before God’—comp.: - Luke 2, 13,—and the same reason is applied by the Targumist for the - sudden exit of the angel in Genes. 32, 26. One may perhaps, however, - be induced to ask whether (as in the case of Euthyphron in the - Platonic dialogue) a better cause for departure might not be found in - the inconvenience of remaining! - - “Though I have Haug’s version of the Gathas, I am far from able to - decipher the grounds of difference between him and Spiegel. _Non - nostrum est tantas componere lites_, a volume entitled _Erân_ by Dr. - Spiegel contains, among other Essays, one entitled _Avesta and Veda_, - or the relation of Iran and India, and another _Avesta and Genesis_, - or the relation of Iran to the Semites. Weber’s _Morische Skizzen_ - also contains interesting matter on similar subjects. We were speaking - about the magical significance of names. See as to this Origen against - Celsus, 1–24; Diod. Sicul, 1–22; Iamblicus de Myst, 2, 4, 5. - - “Socrates himself appears superstitiously apprehensive about the use - of divine names in the Philebus 1, 2 and the Cratylus 400e. The - suppression of it among the Jews, (for instance in the Septuagint, - where Κυριος is substituted for Jehovah, and Sirach, Ch. 23, 9) - express the same feeling. - - “We were talking of the original religion of Persia. You, of course, - recollect the passage on this subject in the first book of Herodotus, - Ch. 131, and Strabo 15, see 13, p. 732 Casaub. The practice of - prohibiting selfish prayer mentioned in the next following chapter in - Herodotus, is remarkable. - - “I hope that in the above rigmarole a grain of useful matter may be - found. Mrs. Mackay is, I am glad to say, better to-day. - - “I remain, sincerely yours, - “R. W. MACKAY. - - “20th February, 1865, - “41, Hamilton Terrace, N.W.” - - -Another early acquaintance of mine in London was Lady Byron, the widow -of the poet. I called on her one day, having received from her a kind -note begging me to do so as she was unable to leave her house to come to -me. She had been exceedingly kind in procuring for me valuable letters -of introduction from Sir Moses Montefiore and others, which had been -very useful to me in my long wanderings. - -Lady Byron was short in stature and, when I saw her, deadly pale; but -with a dignity which some of our friends called “royal,” albeit without -the smallest affectation or assumption. She talked to me eagerly about -all manner of good works wherein she was interested; notably concerning -Miss Carpenter’s Reformatory, to which she had practically subscribed -£1,000 by buying Red Lodge and making it over for such use. During the -larger part of the time of my visit she stood on the rug with her back -to the fire and the power and will revealed in her attitude and -conversation were very impressive. I bore in mind all the odious things -Byron had said of her: - - “There was Miss Mill-pond, smooth as summer sea - That usual paragon, an only daughter, - Who seemed the cream of equanimity - Till skimmed, and then there was some milk and water.” - -Also the sneers at her (very genuine) humour: - - “Her wit, for she had wit, was Attic-all - Her favourite science was the mathematical” &c., &c. - -I thought that for a man to hold up such a woman as _this_, and that -woman his wife, on the prongs of ridicule for public laughter was enough -to make him detestable. - -A lady whom I met long afterwards told me, (I made a note of it Nov. -13th, 1869) that she had been stopping, at the time of Lady Byron’s -separation, at a very small seaside place in Norfolk. Lady Byron came -there on a visit to Mrs. Francis Cunningham, _née_ Gurney, as more -retired than Kirkby Mallory. She had then been separated about six weeks -or two months. She was (Mrs. B. said) singularly pleasing and healthful -looking, rather than pretty. She was grave and reticent rather than -depressed in spirits; and gave her friends to understand that there was -something she could not explain to them about her separation. Mrs. B. -_heard her say_ that Lord Byron always slept with pistols under his -pillow, and on one occasion had threatened to shoot her in the middle of -the night. There was much singing of duets going on in the two families, -but Lady Byron refused to take any part in it. - -Miss Carpenter, who was entirely captivated by her, received from her -some charge amounting to literary executorship; but after one or two -furtive delvings into the trunks full of papers (since, I believe, -stored in Hoare’s bank), she gave up in despair. She told me that the -papers were in the most extraordinary confusion; letters both of the -most trivial and of the most serious and compromising kind, household -accounts, poems, and tradesmen’s bills, were all mixed together in -hopeless disorder and dust. As is well known, Byron’s famous verses: - - “Fare thee well! and if for ever!” - -were written on the back of a butcher’s bill—_unpaid_ like most of the -rest. Miss Carpenter vouched for this fact. - -Lady Byron was at one time greatly attracted by Fanny Kemble. Among Mrs. -Kemble’s papers in my possession are seven letters from Lady Byron to -her. Here is one of them worth presenting: - - - “Dear Mrs. Kemble, - - “The note you wrote to me before you left Brighton made me revert to a - train of thought which had been for some time in my mind. I alluded - once to “your Future.” I submit to be considered a Visionary, yet some - of my decided visions have come to pass in the course of years let me - tell you my Vision about _you_—That you are to be something _to the - People_; that your strong sympathy with them (though you will not let - them touch the hem of your garment) will bring your talents to bear - upon their welfare; that the way is open to you, after your personal - objects are fulfilled. My mind is so full of this, that though the - time has not arrived for putting it in practice, I cannot help telling - you of it. I am neither Democratic nor Aristocratic. I do not _see_ - those distinctions in looking at Humanity, but I feel most strongly - that for every advantage we have received we are bound to offer - something to those who do not possess it. Happy they who have gifts to - place at the feet of their less favoured fellow-Christians! - - “I cannot believe that a relation so truthful as yours and mine will - be merely casual. Time will show. I might not have an opportunity of - saying this in a visit. - - “Yours most truly, - A. NOEL BYRON.” - - “March 19th. - - -It is an unsolved mystery to me why such a woman did not definitely -adopt one of either of two courses. The first (and far the best) would, -of course, have been to bury her husband’s misdeeds in absolute silence -and oblivion, carefully destroying all papers relating to the tragedy of -their joint lives. Or, if she had not strength for this, to write -exactly what she thought ought to be known by posterity concerning him, -and put her account in safe hands with all the needful _pièces -justificatives_ before she died. That she did not adopt either one -course or the other must be a source of permanent regret to all who -recognized her great merits and honoured them as they deserved. - - -Among our neighbours in South Kensington, whom we were privileged to -know were many delightful people, who are still, I am happy to say, -living and taking active part in the world. Among them were Mr. Froude, -Mr. and Mrs. W. E. H. Lecky, Mr. Leslie Stephen, Mrs. Brookfield, Mrs. -Simpson, and Mrs. Richmond Ritchie. But of several others, alas! “the -place that knew them knows them no more.” Of these last were Mr. and -Mrs. Herman Merivale, Sir Henry Maine, Mrs. Dicey, Lady Monteagle (who -had written some of Wordsworth’s poems to his dictation as his -amanuensis), and my dear old friend Mrs. de Morgan. - -Sir Henry Maine’s interest in the claims of women and his strong -statements on the subject, made me regard him with much gratitude. I -asked him once a question about St. Paul’s citizenship, to which he was -good enough to write so full and interesting a reply that I quote it -here _in extenso_:— - - - “Athenæum Club, Pall Mall, S.W., - “April 6th, 1874. - - “My dear Miss Cobbe, - - “There is no question that for a considerable time before the - concession of the Roman citizenship to the whole empire, quite at all - events, B.C. 89 or 90,—it could be obtained in various ways by - individuals who possessed a lower franchise in virtue of their place - of birth or who were even foreigners. The legal writer, Ulpian, - mentions several of these modes of acquiring it; and Pliny, more than - once solicits the citizenship for protégés of his own. There is no - authority for supposing that it could be directly purchased (at least - _legally_), but it could be obtained by various processes which came - to the same thing as paying directly, _e.g._, building a ship of a - certain burden to carry corn to Rome. - - “I suspect that St. Paul’s ancestor obtained the citizenship by - serving in some petty magistracy. The coins of Tarsus are said to show - that its citizens in the reign of Augustus, enjoyed one or other of - the lower Roman franchises; and this would facilitate the acquisition - by individuals of the full Roman citizenship. - - “The Roman citizenship was necessarily hereditary. The children of the - person who became a Roman citizen came at once under his _Patria - Potestas_, and each of them acquired the capacity for becoming some - day a Roman _Paterfamilias_. - - “St. Paul, as a Roman citizen, lived under the Roman Law of _Persons_, - but he remained under the local Law of _Property_. His allusions to - the _Patria Potestas_ and to the Roman Law of Wills and guardianship - (which was like the _Patria Potestas_), are quite unmistakeable, and - more numerous than is commonly supposed. In the obscure passage, for - example, about women having power over the head, “Power” and “Head” - are technical terms from the Roman Law. - - “Believe me, very sincerely yours, - “H. S. MAINE.” - - -George Borrow who, if he were not a gipsy by blood _ought_ to have been -one, was, for some years, our near neighbour in Hereford Square. My -friend was amused by his quaint stories and his (real or sham) -enthusiasm for Wales, and cultivated his acquaintance. I never liked -him, thinking him more or less of a hypocrite. His missions, recorded in -the “_Bible in Spain_,” and his translations of the scriptures into the -out-of-the-way tongues, for which he had a gift, were by no means -consonant with his real opinions concerning the veracity of the said -Bible. Dr. Martineau once told me that he and Borrow had been -schoolfellows at Norwich some sixty years before. Borrow had persuaded -several of his other companions to rob their fathers’ tills, and then -the party set forth to join some smugglers on the coast. By degrees the -truants all fell out of line and were picked up, tired and hungry along -the road, and brought back to Norwich school where condign chastisement -awaited them. George Borrow it seems received his large share _horsed_ -on James Martineau’s back! The early connection between the two old men -as I knew them, was irresistibly comic to my mind. Somehow when I asked -Mr. Borrow once to come and meet some friends at our house he accepted -our invitation as usual, but, on finding that Dr. Martineau was to be of -the party, hastily withdrew his acceptance on a transparent excuse; nor -did he ever after attend our little assemblies without first -ascertaining that Dr. Martineau would not be present! - -I take the following from some old letters to my friend referring to -him: - - - “Mr. Borrow says his wife is very ill and anxious to keep the peace - with C. (a litigious neighbour). Poor old B. was very sad at first, - but I cheered him and sent him off quite brisk last night. He talked - all about the Fathers again, arguing that their quotations went to - prove that it was _not_ our gospels they had in their hands. I knew - most of it before, but it was admirably done. I talked a little - theology to him in a serious way (finding him talk of his ‘horrors’) - and he abounded in my sense of the non-existence of Hell, and of the - presence and action on the soul of _a_ Spirit, rewarding and - punishing. He would not say ‘God;’ but repeated over and over that he - spoke not from books but from his own personal experience.” - - -Some time later—after his wife’s death: - - - “Poor old Borrow is in a sad state. I hope he is starting in a day or - two for Scotland. I sent C. with a note begging him to come and eat - the Welsh mutton you sent me to-day, and he sent back word, ‘Yes.’ - Then, an hour afterwards, he arrived, and in a most agitated manner - said he had come to say ‘he would rather not. He would not trouble - anyone with his sorrows.’ I made him sit down, and talked as gently to - him as possible, saying: ‘It won’t be a trouble Mr. Borrow, it will be - a pleasure to me’. But it was all of no use. He was so cross, so - _rude_, I had the greatest difficulty in talking to him. I asked about - his servant, and he said I could not help him. I asked him about - Bowring, and he said: ‘Don’t speak of it.’ [It was some dispute with - Sir John Bowring, who was an acquaintance of mine, and with whom I - offered to mediate.] ‘I asked him would he look at the photos of the - Siamese,’ and he said: ‘Don’t show them to me!’ So, in despair, as he - sat silent, I told him I had been at a pleasant dinner-party the night - before, and had met Mr. L——, who told me of certain curious books of - mediæval history. ‘Did he know them?’ ‘No, and he _dare said_ Mr. L—— - did not, either! Who was Mr. L——?’ I described that _obscure_ - individual, [one of the foremost writers of the day], and added that - he was immensely liked by everybody. Whereupon Borrow repeated at - least 12 times, ‘Immensely liked! As if a man could be immensely - liked!’ quite insultingly. To make a diversion (I was very patient - with him as he was in trouble) ‘I said I had just come home from the - Lyell’s and had heard—.’... But there was no time to say what I had - heard! Mr. Borrow asked: ‘Is that old Lyle I met here once, the man - who stands at the door (of some den or other) and _bets_?’ I explained - who Sir Charles was, (of course he knew very well), but he went on and - on, till I said gravely: ‘I don’t think you will meet those sort of - people here, Mr. Borrow. We don’t associate with blacklegs, exactly.’” - - -Here is an extract from another letter: - - - “Borrow also came, and I said something about the imperfect education - of women, and he said it was _right_ they should be ignorant, and that - no man could endure a clever wife. I laughed at him openly, and told - him some men knew better. What did he think of the Brownings? ‘Oh, he - had heard the name; he did not know anything of them. Since Scott, he - read no modern writer; Scott _was greater than Homer_! What he liked - were curious, old, erudite books about mediæval and northern things.’ - I said I knew little of such literature, and preferred the writers of - our own age, but indeed I was no great student at all. Thereupon he - evidently wanted to astonish me; and, talking of Ireland, said, ‘Ah, - yes; a most curious, mixed race. First there were the Firbolgs,—the - old enchanters, who raised mists.’... ‘Don’t you think, Mr. Borrow,’ I - asked, ‘it was the Tuatha-de-Danaan who did that? Keatinge expressly - says that they conquered the Firbolgs by that means.’ (Mr. B., - somewhat out of countenance), ‘Oh! Aye! Keatinge is _the_ authority; a - most extraordinary writer.’ ‘Well, I should call him the Geoffrey of - Monmouth of Ireland.’ (Mr. B., changing the _venue_), ‘I delight in - Norse-stories; they are far grander than the Greek. There is the story - of Olaf the Saint of Norway. Can anything be grander? What a noble - character!’ ‘But,’ I said, ‘what do you think of his putting all those - poor Druids on the Skerry of Shrieks and leaving them to be drowned by - the tide?’ (Thereupon Mr. B. looked at me askant out of his gipsy - eyes, as if he thought me an example of the evils of female - education!) ‘Well! well! I forgot about the Skerry of Shrieks. Then - there is the story of Beowulf the Saxon going out to sea in his - burning ship to die.’ ‘Oh, Mr. Borrow! that isn’t a Saxon story at - all. It is in the Heimskringla! It is told of Hakon of Norway.’ Then, - I asked him about the gipsies and their language, and if they were - certainly Aryans? He didn’t know (or pretended not to know) what - Aryans were; and altogether displayed a miraculous mixture of odd - knowledge and more odd ignorance. Whether the latter were real or - assumed, I know not!” - - -With the leading men of Science in the Sixties we had the honour of a -good deal of intercourse. Through Dr. W. B. Carpenter (who, as Miss -Carpenter’s brother, I had met often) and the two ever hospitable -families of Lyell, we came to know many of them. Sir William Grove was -also a particular friend of my friend Mrs. Grey. He and Lady Grove and -their daughter, Mrs. Hall, (Imogen), were all charming people, and we -had many pleasant dinners with them. Professor Tyndall was, of course, -one of the principal members of that scientific coterie, and in those -days we saw a good deal of him. He was very friendly as were also Mr. -and Mrs. Francis Galton. Mr. Galton’s speculations seemed always to me -exceedingly original and interesting, and I delighted in reviewing them. -The beginning of the Anti-vivisection controversy, however, put an end -to all these relations, so that since 1876, I have seen few of the -circle. It is curious to recall how nearly we joined hands on some -theological questions before this gulf of a great ethical difference -opened before us. Some readers may recall a curious controversy raised -by Prof. Tyndall on the subject of the efficacy of prayer for _physical_ -benefits. Having read what he wrote on it, I sent him my own little -book, _Dawning Lights_, which vindicates the efficacy of prayer, for -spiritual benefits only. The following was his reply, to which I will -append another kindly note referring to a request I had proffered on -behalf of Mrs. Somerville. - - - “Professor Tyndall to F. P. C. - “Royal Institution of Great Britain, - “7th Nov., 1865. - - “My dear Miss Cobbe, - - “Our minds—that is yours and mine—sound the same note as regards the - economy of nature. With clearness and precision you have stated the - question. In fact, had I known that you had written upon the subject I - might have copied your words and put my name to them. - - “I intend to _keep_ your book, but I have desired my publisher to send - you a book of mine in exchange—this is fair, is it not? - - “Your book so far as I have read it is full of strength. Of course I - could not have written it all. Your images are too concrete and your - personification of the mystery of mysteries too intense for me. But as - long as you are tolerant of others—which you are—the shape into which - you mould the power of your soul must be determined by yourself alone. - - “Believe me, yours most truly, - “JOHN TYNDALL.” - - “Royal Institution of Great Britain, - “21st June. - - “My dear Miss Cobbe, - - “I would do anything I could for _your_ sake and irrespectively of the - interest of your subject. - - “Had I Faraday’s own letter, I could decipher at once what he meant, - for I was intimately acquainted with his course of thought during the - later years of his life. It would however be running a great risk to - attempt to supply this hiatus without seeing his letter. - - “I should think it refers to the influence of _time_ on magnetic - action. About the date referred to he was speculating and trying to - prove experimentally whether magnetism required time to pass through - space. - - “Always yours faithfully, - “JOHN TYNDALL.” - - -In a letter of mine to a friend written after meeting Prof. Tyndall at -dinner at Edgbaston during the Congress of the British Association in -Birmingham, after mentioning M. Vambéry and some others, I said; “The -one I liked best was Prof. Tyndall, with whom I had quite an ‘awful’ -talk alone about the bearing of Science on Religion. He said in words -like a fine poem, that Knowledge seemed to him ‘like an instrument on -which we went up, note after note, and octave after octave; but at last -there came a note which our ears could not hear, and which was silent -for us. And at the other end of the scale there was another silent -note.’” - -Many years after this, there appeared an article in the _Pall Mall -Gazette_ which I felt sure was by Prof. Tyndall, in which it was calmly -stated that the scientific intellect had settled the controversy between -Pantheism and Theism, and that the said Scientific Intellect “permitted -us to believe in an order of Development,” and would “allow the -religious instincts and the language of Religion to gather round that -idea;” but that the notion of a “Great Director” can by no means be -suffered by the same Scientific Intellect. - -I wrote a reply, begging to be informed _when_ and _where_ the -controversy between Pantheism and Theism had been settled, as the -statement, dropped so coolly in a single paragraph, was, to say the -least, startling; and I concluded by saying, “We may be _driven_ into -the howling wilderness of a Godless world by the fiery swords of these -new Cherubim of Knowledge; but at least we will not shrink away into it -before their innuendoes!” - -I have also lost in quitting this circle, the privilege of often meeting -Mr. Herbert Spencer; though he has never (to his honour be it -remembered!) pronounced a word in favour of painful experiments on -animals. - -With the great naturalist who has revolutionized modern science I had -rather frequent intercourse till the same sad barrier of a great -difference of moral opinion arose between us. Mr. Charles Darwin’s -brother-in-law, Mr. Hensleigh Wedgwood, was, for a time tenant here at -Hengwrt; and afterwards took a house named Caer-Deon in this -neighbourhood, where Mr. and Mrs. Charles Darwin and their boys also -spent part of the summer. As it chanced, we also took a cottage that -summer close by Caer-deon and naturally saw our neighbours daily. I had -known Mr. Darwin previously, in London, and had also met his most -amiable brother, Mr. Erasmus Darwin, at the house of my kind old friend -Mrs. Reid, the foundress of Bedford Square College. The first thing we -heard concerning the illustrious arrivals was the report, that one of -the sons had had “_a fall off a Philosopher_;” word substituted by the -ingenious Welsh mind for “velocipede” (as bicycles were then called) -under an easily understood confusion between the rider and the machine -he rode! - -Next,—the Welsh parson of the little church close by, having fondly -calculated that Mr. Darwin would certainly hasten to attend his -services, prepared for him a sermon which should slay this scientific -Goliath and spread dismay through the ranks of the sceptical host. He -told his congregation that there were in these days persons, puffed up -by science, falsely so called, and deluded by the pride of reason, who -had actually been so audacious as to question the story of the six days -Creation as detailed in Sacred Scripture. But let them note how idle -were these sceptical questionings! Did they not see that the events -recorded happened before there was any man existing to record them, and -that, therefore, Moses _must_ have learned them from God himself, since -there was no one else to tell him? - -Alas! the philosopher, I fear, never went to be converted (as he surely -must have been) by this ingenious Welsh parson, and we were for a long -time merry over his logic. Mr. Darwin was never in good health, I -believe, after his Beagle experience of sea sickness, and he was glad to -use a peaceful and beautiful old pony of my friend’s, yclept Geraint, -which she placed at his disposal. His gentleness to this beast and -incessant efforts to keep off the flies from his head, and his fondness -for his dog Polly (concerning whose cleverness and breeding he indulged -in delusions which Matthew Arnold’s better dog-lore would have swiftly -dissipated), were very pleasing traits in his character. - -In writing at this time to a friend I said:— - - - “I am glad you like Mill’s book. Mr. Charles Darwin, with whom I am - enchanted, is greatly excited about it, but says that Mill could learn - some things from physical science; and that it is in the struggle for - existence and (especially) for the possession of women that men - acquire their vigour and courage. Also he intensely agrees with what I - say in my review of Mill about _inherited_ qualities being more - important than _education_, on which alone Mill insists. All this the - philosopher told me yesterday, standing on a path 60 feet above me and - carrying on an animated dialogue from our respective standpoints!” - - -Mr. Darwin was walking on the footpath down from Caer-Deon among the -purple heather which clothes our mountains so royally; and impenetrable -brambles lay between him above and me on the road below; so we exchanged -our remarks at the top of our voices, being too eager to think of the -absurdity of the situation, till my friend coming along the road heard -with amazement words flying in the air which assuredly those “valleys -and rocks never heard” before, or since! When we drive past that spot, -as we often do now, we sigh as we look at the “Philosopher’s Path,” and -wish (O, _how_ one wishes!) that he could come back and tell us what he -has learned _since_! - -At this time Mr. Darwin was writing his _Descent of Man_, and he told me -that he was going to introduce some new view of the nature of the Moral -Sense. I said: “Of course you have studied Kant’s _Grundlegung der -Sitten_?” No; he had not read Kant, and did not care to do so. I -ventured to urge him to study him, and observed that one could hardly -see one’s way in ethical speculation without some understanding of his -philosophy. My own knowledge of it was too imperfect to talk of it to -him, but I could lend him a very good translation. He declined my book, -but I nevertheless packed it up with the next parcel I sent him. - -On returning the volume he wrote to me:— - - - “It was very good of you to send me _nolens volens_ Kant, together - with the other book. I have been extremely glad to look through the - former. It has interested me much to see how differently two men may - look at the same points. Though I fully feel how presumptuous it - sounds to put myself even for a moment in the same bracket with - Kant—the one man a great philosopher looking exclusively into his own - mind, the other a degraded wretch looking from the outside through - apes and savages at the moral sense of mankind.” - - -There was irony, and perhaps not a little pride in his reference to -himself as a “degraded wretch looking through apes and savages at the -moral sense of mankind”! Between the two great Schools of -thinkers,—those who study from the Inside (of human consciousness), -and those who study from the Outside,—there has always existed mutual -animosity and contempt. For my own part, while fully admitting that -the former needed to have their conclusions enlarged and tested by -outside experience, I must always hold that they were on a truer line -than the (exclusively) physico-scientific philosophers. Man’s -consciousness is not only _a_ fact in the world but the _greatest_ of -facts; and to overlook it and take our lessons from beasts and insects -is to repeat the old jest of Hamlet with Hamlet omitted. A philosophy -founded solely on the consciousness of man, _may_; and, very likely, -will, be imperfect; and certainly it will be incomplete. But a -philosophy which begins with inorganic matter and the lower animals, -and only includes the outward facts of anthropology, regardless of -human consciousness,—_must_ be worse than imperfect and incomplete. It -resembles a treatise on the Solar System which should omit to notice -the Sun. - -I mentioned to him in a letter, that we had found some seeds of -Tropæolum, very carefully gathered from brilliant and multicoloured -varieties, all revert in a single year to plain scarlet. He -replied:—“You and Miss Lloyd need not have your faith in inheritance -shaken with respect to Tropæolum until you have prevented for six or -seven generations any crossing between the varieties in the same garden. -I have lately found the very shade of colour is transmitted of a most -fluctuating garden variety if the flowers are carefully self-fertilized -during six or seven generations.” - -The _Descent of Man_ of which Mr. Darwin was kind enough to give me a -copy before publication, inspired me with the deadliest alarm. His new -theory therein set forth, respecting the nature and origin of -conscience, seemed to me then, and still seems to me, of absolutely -fatal import. I wrote the strongest answer to it in my power at once, -and published in the _Theological Review_, April, 1871 (reprinted in my -_Darwinism in Morals_, 1872). Of course I sent my review to Down House. -Here is a generous message which I received in reply:— - - - “Mr. Darwin is reading the _Review_ with the greatest interest and - attention and feels so much the kind way you speak of him and the - praise you give him, that it will make him bear your severity, when he - reaches that part of the review.” - - -Referring to an article of mine in the _Quarterly Review_ (Oct., 1872) -on the _Consciousness of Dogs_, Mr. Darwin wrote to me, Nov. 28th, -1872:— - - - “I have been greatly interested by your article in the _Quarterly_. It - seems to me the best analysis of the mind of an animal which I have - ever read, and I agree with you on most points. I have been - particularly glad to read what you say about the reasoning power of - dogs, and about that rather vague matter, their self-consciousness. I - dare say however that you would prefer criticism to admiration. - - “I regret that you quote J. so often: I made enquiries about one case - (which quite broke down) from a man who certainly ought to know Mr. J. - well; and I was cautioned that he had not written in a scientific - spirit. I regret also that you quote old writers. It may be very - illiberal, but their statements go for nothing with me and I suspect - with many others. It passes my powers of belief that dogs ever commit - suicide. Assuming the statements to be true, I should think it more - probable that they were distraught, and did not know what they were - doing; nor am I able to credit about fetishes. - - “One of the most interesting subjects in your article seems to me to - be about the moral sense. Since publishing the _Descent of Man_ I have - got to believe rather more than I did in dogs having what may be - called a conscience. When an honourable dog has committed an - undiscovered offence he certainly seems _ashamed_ (and this is the - term naturally and often used) rather than _afraid_ to meet his - master. My dog, the beloved and beautiful Polly, is at such times - extremely affectionate towards me; and this leads me to mention a - little anecdote. When I was a very little boy, I had committed some - offence, so that my conscience troubled me, and when I met my father, - I lavished so much affection on him, that he at once asked me what I - had done, and told me to confess. I was so utterly confounded at his - suspecting anything, that I remember the scene clearly to the present - day, and it seems to me that Polly’s frame of mind on such occasions - is much the same as was mine, for I was not then at all afraid of my - father.” - - -In a letter to a friend (Nov., 1869) I say:— - - - “We lunched with Mr. Charles Darwin at Mr. Erasmus D——’s house on - Sunday. He told us that a German man of science, (I think Carl Vogt), - the other day gave a lecture, in which he treated the Mass as the last - relic of that _Cannibalism_ which gradually took to eating only the - heart, or eyes of a man to acquire his courage. Whereupon the whole - audience rose and cheered the lecturer enthusiastically! Mr. Darwin - remarked how much more _decency_ there was in speaking on such - subjects in England.” - - -This pleasant intercourse with an illustrious man was, like many other -pleasant things, brought to a close for me in 1875 by the beginning of -the Anti-vivisection crusade. Mr. Darwin eventually became the centre of -an adoring _clique_ of vivisectors who (as his Biography shows) plied -him incessantly with encouragement to uphold their practice, till the -deplorable spectacle was exhibited of a man who would not allow a fly to -bite a pony’s neck, standing forth before all Europe (in his celebrated -letter to Prof. Holmgren of Sweden) as the advocate of Vivisection. - - -We had many interesting foreign visitors in Hereford Square. I have -mentioned the two Parsee gentlemen who came to thank me for having made -(as they considered) a just estimate of their religion in my article -“_The Sacred Books of the Zoroastrians_.” The elder of them, Mr. -Nowrozjee Furdoonjee, was President of the Parsee Society of Bombay; but -resided much in England, and had an astonishing knowledge of English and -American theological and philosophic literature. He asked me one day to -recommend him the best modern books on ethics. My small library -contained a good many, but he not only knew every one I possessed, but -almost all others which I named as worthy of his attention. We talked -very freely on religious matters and with a good deal of sympathy. I -pressed him one day with the question, “Do you really believe in -Ahriman?” “Of course I do!” “What! In a real personal Evil Being, who is -as much a _person_ as Ormusd?” “O no! I did not mean that! I believe in -Evil existing in the world;”—and obviously in nothing more! - -My chief Eastern visitors, however (and they were so numerous that my -artist-minded friend was wont to call them my “Bronzes”), were the -Brahmos of Bengal, and one or two of the same faith from Bombay. There -were very remarkable young men at that date, members of the “Church of -the One God;” nearly all of them having risen from the gross idolatry in -which they had been educated into a purer Theistic faith, not without -encountering considerable family and social persecution. Their leader, -Keshub Chunder Sen at any other age of the world, would have taken his -place with such prophets as Nanuk (the founder of the Sikh religion) and -Gautama; or with the mediæval Saints like St. Augustine and St. Patrick, -who converted nations. He was, I think, the most _devout_ man with whose -mind I ever came in contact. When he left my drawing-room after long -conversations on the highest themes,—sometimes held alone together, -sometimes with the company of my dear friend William Henry Channing—the -impression left on me was one never-to-be-forgotten. I wrote of one such -interview at the time to my friend as follows (April 28, 1870): - - - “Keshub came and sat with me the other evening, and I was profoundly - impressed, not by his intellect but by his goodness. He seems really - to _live in God_, and the single-mindedness of the man seemed to me - utterly un-English; much more like Christ! He said some very profound - things, and seemed to feel that the joy of prayer was quite the - greatest thing in life. He said, ‘I don’t know anything about the - future, but I only know that when I pray I feel that my union with God - is eternal. In our faith the belief in God and in Immortality are not - two doctrines but one.’ He also said that we must believe in - intercessory prayer, else _the more we lived in Prayer the more - selfish we should grow_. He told me much of the _beginning_ of his own - religious life, and, wonderful to say, his words would have described - that of my own! He said, indeed, that he had often laid down my books - when reading them in India, and said to himself: ‘How can this English - woman have felt all this just as I?’” - - -In his outward man Keshub Chunder Sen was the ideal of a great teacher. -He had a tall, manly figure, always clothed in a long black robe of some -light cloth like a French _soutane_, a very handsome square face with -powerful jaw; the complexion and eyes of a southern Italian; and all the -Eastern gentle dignity of manner. He and his friend Mozoomdar and -several others of his party spoke English quite perfectly; making long -addresses and delivering extempore sermons in our language without error -of any kind, or a single betrayal of foreign accent. Keshub in -particular, was decidedly eloquent in English. I gathered many -influential men to meet him and they were impressed by him as much as I -was. - -The career of this very remarkable man was cut short a few years after -his return from England by an early death. I believe he had taken to -ascetic practices, fasting and watching; against which I had most -urgently warned him, seeing his tendency towards them. I had argued with -him that, not only were they totally foreign to the spirit of simple -Theism, but dangerous to a man who, living habitually in the highest -realms of human emotion, needed _all the more for that reason_ that the -physical basis of his life should be absolutely sound and strong, and -not subject to the variabilities and possible hallucinations attendant -on abstinence. My friendly counsels were of no avail. Keshub became, I -believe, somewhat too near a “Yogi” (if I rightly understand that word) -and was almost worshipped by his congregation of Brahmos. The marriage -of his daughter—who has since visited England—to the Maharajah of Coosh -Behar, involved very painful discussions about the legal age of the -bride and the ceremonies of a Hindoo marriage, which were insisted on by -the bridegroom’s mother; and the last year or two of Keshub’s life were, -I fear, darkened by the secessions from his church which followed an -event otherwise gratifying. - -Oddly enough this Indian _Saint_ was the only Eastern it has ever been -my chance to meet who could enjoy a joke thoroughly, like one of -ourselves. He came to me in Hereford Square one day bursting with -uncontrollable laughter at his own adventures. Lord Lawrence, when -Governor-General of India, had been particularly friendly to him and had -bidden him come and see him when he should arrive in England. Keshub’s -friends had found a lodging for him in Regent’s Park, and having -resolved to go and pay his respects to Lord Lawrence at once, he sent -for a four-wheeled cab, and simply told the cabman to drive to that -nobleman’s house; fondly imagining that all London must know it, as -Calcutta knew Government House. The cabman set off without the remotest -idea where to go; and after driving hither and thither about town for -three hours, set his fare down again at the door of his lodgings; told -him he could not find Lord Lawrence; and charged him fourteen shillings! -Poor Keshub paid the scandalous charge, and then referred to an old -letter to find Lord Lawrence’s address, “_Queen’s Gate_.” Oh, that was -quite right! No doubt the late Governor-General naturally lived close to -the Queen! “Drive to Queen’s Gate.” The new cabman drove straight enough -to “Queen’s Gate”; but about 185 houses appeared in a row, and there was -nothing to indicate which of them belonged to Lord Lawrence; not even a -solitary sentinel walking before the door! After knocking at many doors -in vain, the cabman had an inspiration! “We will try if the nearest -butcher knows which house it is;” and so they turned into Gloucester -Road, and the excellent butcher there did know which number in Queen’s -Gate belonged to Lord Lawrence, and Keshub was received and warmly -welcomed. But that he should have to seek out a _butcher’s shop_ (in his -Eastern eyes the most degraded of shops) to learn where he could find a -man whom he had last seen as Viceroy of India, was, to his thinking, -exquisitely ridiculous. - -Ex-Governors-General and their wives must certainly find some difficulty -in descending all at once so many steps from the altitude of the -viceregal thrones of our great dependencies to the level of private -citizens, scarcely to be noticed more than others in society, and -dwelling in ordinary London houses unmarked by the “guard of honour” of -even a single policeman! - - -At a later date I had other Oriental visitors, one a gentleman who had -made a translation of the Bhagvat-Gita, and who brought his wife and -children to England, and to my tea-table. The wife wore a lovely, -delicate lilac robe wrapped about her in the most graceful folds, but -the effect was somewhat marred by the vulgar English side-spring boots, -(very short in the leg), which the poor soul had found needful for use -in London! The children sat opposite me at the tea-table, silently -devouring my cakes and bon-bons; staring at me with their large black -eyes, veritable _wells_ of mistrust and hatred, such as only Eastern -eyes can speak! I like dark _men_ and _women_ very well, but when the -little ones are in question, I must confess that a child is scarcely a -child to me unless it be a little Saxon, with golden hair and those -innocent blue eyes which make one think of forget-me-nots in a brook. -Where is the heart which can help growing soft at sight of one of these -little creatures toddling in the spring grass picking daisies and -cowslips, or laughing with sheer ecstacy in the joy of existence? A dark -child may be ten times as handsome, but it has no pretension, to my -mind, to pull one’s heart-strings in the same way as a blonde babykins. - -A Hindoo lady, Ramabai, for whom I have deep respect, came to me before -I left London and impressed me most favourably. She, and a few other -Hindoo women who are striving to secure education and freedom for their -sisters, will be honoured hereafter more than John Howard, for he strove -only to mitigate the too severe punishment of _criminals_ and -delinquents; _they_ are labouring to relieve the quite equally dreadful -lot of millions of _innocent_ women. An American Missionary, Mr. Dall, -long resident in India, told me that thousands of these unhappy beings -_never put their feet to the earth_ or go a step from the house of their -husbands (to which they are carried from their father’s Zenana at 9 or -10 years old) till they were borne away as corpses! All life for them -has been one long imprisonment; its sole interest and concern the -passions of the baser sort of love and jealousy! While writing these -pages I have come across the following frightful testimony by the great -traveller Mrs. Bishop (_née_ Isabella Bird) to the truth of the above -observation concerning the dreadful condition of the women of India:— - - - “I have lived in Zenanas and harems, and have seen the daily life of - the secluded women, and I can speak from bitter experience of what - their lives are; the intellect dwarfed, so that the woman of twenty or - thirty years of age is more like a child of eight intellectually, - while all the worst passions of human nature are stimulated and - developed in a fearful degree; jealousy, envy, murderous hate, - intrigue, running to such an extent that in some countries I have - hardly ever been in a woman’s house or near a woman’s tent without - being asked for drugs with which to disfigure the favourite wife, to - take away her life, or to take away the life of the favourite wife’s - infant son. This request has been made of me nearly two hundred - times.” - - -(_Quoted by Lady Henry Somerset in the Woman’s Signal_, April 12th, -1894). - -I had the pleasure also of visits from several French and Belgian -gentlemen who were good enough to call on me. Several were Protestant -pastors of the _École Moderne_; M. Fontanés, M. Th. Bost, and M. Leblois -being among them. I had long kept up a correspondence with M. Felix -Pécaut, author of a beautiful book “_Le Christ et la Conscience_,” of -whom Dean Stanley told me that he (who knew him well) believed him to be -“the most pious of living men.” I never had the happiness to meet him, -but seeing, some twenty years later, in a Report by Mr. Matthew Arnold -on French Training Schools, enthusiastic praise of M. Pécaut’s school -for female teachers, at Fontenaye-aux-Roses, near Paris, I sent it to my -old friend, and we exchanged a mental handshake across time and space. - -An illustrious neighbour of ours, in South Kensington sometimes came to -see me. Here is a lively complimentary letter from him:— - - - “From M. le Sénateur Victor Schœlcher to Miss Cobbe. - - “Paris, 12, 1883. - - “Dear, honoured Miss Power Cobbe, - - “Je ne vous ai pas oubliée, on ne vous oublie pas quand on a eu - l’honneur et le plaisir de vous connaître. Moi je suis accablé - d’ouvrage et je ne fais pas la moitié de ce que je voudrais faire. Je - ne manque pas toutefois de lire votre _Zoophile_ Français qui aidera - puissamment notre Ligue à combattre les abus de la Vivisection. Tous - ceux qui ont quelque sentiment d’humanité écouteront votre voix en - faveur des pauvres animaux et vous aideront de toutes leur forces à - les protéger contre un genre d’étude veritablement barbare. Quand à - moi, l’activité, la persévérance et le talent que vous montrez dans - votre œuvre de charité m’inspirent le plus vif et le plus respectueux - intérêt. - - “Ne croyez pas ceux qui tentent de vous décourager en prétendant que - votre journal est une substance trop aride pour attacher le lecteur - Français. Je le sais; il est convenu en Angleterre que les Français - sont un peuple léger. Mais c’est là un vieux préjugé que ne gardent - pas les Anglais instruits. Soyez bien assuré que vos efforts ne seront - pas plus peine perdue dans mon noble pays que dans le votre. Notre - Société Protectrice des Animaux a quarante ans d’existence. - - “À mon prochain voyage à Londres je m’empresserai d’aller vous faire - visite pour retrouver le plaisir que j’ai gouté dans votre - conversation et pour vous répéter, Dear Miss Power Cobbe, that I am - your’s most respectfully and faithfully, - - “V. SCHŒLCHER. - - “Permettez moi de vous prier de me rappeler au souvenir de Madame la - Doctoresse, et de M. le Dr. Hoggan.” - - -It was M. Schœlcher who effected in 1848 the abolition of Negro Slavery -in the French Colonies. He was a charming companion and a most excellent -man. I interceded once with him to make interest with the proper -authorities in France for the relaxation of the extremely severe -penalties which Louise Michel had incurred by one of her extravagances. -To my surprise, I learned from him that I had gone to head-quarters, -since the matter would mainly rest in his hands. He was -Vice-President,—practically President—of the Department of Prisons in -France. He repeated with indulgence, “Mais, Madame, elle est folle! elle -est parfaitement folle, et très dangereuse.” I quite agreed, but still -thought she was well-meaning, and that her sentence was excessive. He -promised that when the first year of her imprisonment was over (with -which, he said, they made it a rule never to interfere so as not to -insult the judges,) he would see what could be done to let her off by -degrees. He observed, with more earnestness than I should have expected -from one of his political school, how wrong, dangerous and _wicked_ it -was to go about with a black flag at the head of a mob. Still he agreed -with my view that the length of Louise Michel’s sentence was unjustly -great. Eventually the penalty was actually commuted; I conclude through -the intervention of M. Schœlcher. - -M. Schœlcher was the most attractive Frenchman I ever met. At the time I -knew him, he was old and feeble and had a miserable cough; but he was -most emphatically a gentleman, a tender, even soft-hearted man; and a -brilliantly agreeable talker. He had made a magnificent collection of -9,000 engravings, and told me he was going to present it to the _Beaux -Arts_ in Paris. While sitting talking in my drawing-room his eye -constantly turned to a particularly fine cast which I possess of the -Psyche of Praxiteles, made expressly for Harriet Hosmer and given by her -to me in Rome. When he rose to leave me, he stood under the lovely -creature and _worshipped_ her as she deserves! - -We had also many delightful American visitors, whose visits gave me so -much pleasure and profit that I easily forgave one or two others who -provoked Fanny Kemble’s remark that “if the engineers would _lay on_ -Miss P. or Mr. H. the Alps would be bored through without any trouble!” -Most of my American friendly visitors are, I rejoice to say, still -living, so I will only name them with an expression of my great esteem -for all and affection for several of them. Among them were Col. -Higginson, Mr. George Curtis, Mrs. Howe, Mrs. Livermore, Mr. and Mrs. -Loring-Brace, Rev. J. Freeman Clarke, Rev. W. Alger, Dr. O. W. Holmes, -Mr. Peabody, Miss Harriet Hosmer, Mr. Hazard, Mrs. Lockwood, and my -dearly beloved friends, W. H. Channing, Mrs. Apthorp, Mrs. Wister, Miss -Schuyler and Miss Georgina Schuyler. Sometimes American ladies would -come to me as perfect strangers with a letter from some mutual friend, -and would take me by storm and after a couple of hours’ conversation we -parted as if we had known and loved each other for years. There is -something to my mind unique in the attractiveness of American women, -when they are, as usual, attractive; but they are like the famous little -girl with the “curl in the middle of her forehead,”— - - “When she was good, she was very, very good; - When she was bad, she was horrid”! - -The wholesome horror felt by us, Londoners, of outstaying our welcome -when visiting acquaintances, and of trespassing too long at any hour, -seems to be an unknown sentiment to some Americans, and also to some -Australian ladies; and for my own part I fear that being bored is a kind -of martyrdom which I can never endure in a Christian spirit, or without -beginning to regard the man or woman who bores me with most uncharitable -sentiments. My young Hindoo visitors drove me distracted till I -discovered that they imagined a visit to me to be _an audience_, and -that it was for me to _dismiss_ them! - -I met Longfellow during his last visit to England at the house of Mr. -Wynne-Finch. His large, leonine head, surmounted at that date by a -_nimbus_ of white hair, was very striking indeed. I saw him standing a -few moments alone, and ventured to introduce myself as a friend of his -friends, the Apthorps, of Boston, and when I gave my name he took both -my hands and pressed them with delightful cordiality. We talked for a -good while, but I cannot recall any particular remark he may have made. - -Mr. Wynne-Finch was stepfather of Alice L’Estrange, who, before her -marriage with Laurence Oliphant was for a long time our most assiduous -and affectionate visitor, having taken a young girl’s _engouement_ for -us two elderly women. Never was there a more bewitching young creature, -so sweetly affectionate, so clever and brilliant in every way. It was -quite dazzling to see such youth and brightness flitting about us. An -old letter of hers to my friend which I chance to have fallen on is -alive still with her playfulness and tenderness. It begins thus:— - - - “4, Upper Brook Street, - “London, Oct. 3rd, 1871. - - “O yes! I know! It isn’t so very long since I heard last, and _I am_ - in London, which I am enjoying, and am busy in a thousand little messy - things which amuse me, and I was with Miss Cobbe on Tuesday which was - bliss absolute, and above all I heard about you from her (beside all - the talk on that forbidden subject,—it is _so_ disagreeable of us, - isn’t it?). I felt that ingratitude for mercies received which - characterises our race so strong in me that I want a sight of your - writing, as that is all I can get just now,” &c., &c. - - -Alice was of an extremely sceptical turn of mind (which made her -subsequent fanaticism the more inexplicable), and for months before she -fell in with Mr. Oliphant in Paris I had been labouring with all my -strength to lead her simply _to believe in God_. She did not see her way -to such faith at all, though she was docile enough to read the many -books I gave her, and to come with us and her stepfather to hear Dr. -Martineau’s sermons. She incessantly discussed theological questions, -but always from the point of view of the evil in creation, and, as she -used to say pathetically, of “the insufferableness of the suffering of -others.” She argued that the misery of the world was so great that a -good God if He could not relieve it, ought to hurl it to destruction. In -vain I argued that there is a higher end of creation than Happiness, to -be wrought out through trial and pain. She would never admit the loftier -conception of God’s purposes as they appeared to me, and was to all -intents and purposes an Atheist when she said good-bye to me, before a -short trip to Paris. She came back in a month or six weeks, not merely a -believer in the ordinary orthodox creed, but inspired with the zeal of -an _energumène_ for the doctrines, very much over and above orthodoxy, -of Mr. Harris! Our gentle, caressing, modest young friend was entirely -transformed. She stood upright and walked up and down our rooms, talking -with vehemence about Mr. Harris’ doctrines, and the necessity for -adopting his views, obeying his guidance, and going immediately to live -on the shores of Lake Erie! The transfiguration was, I suppose, _au -fond_, one of the many miracles of the little god with the bow and -arrows and Mr. Oliphant was certainly not unconcerned therein. But still -there was no adequate explanation of this change, or of the boasting -(difficult to hear with patience from a clever and sceptical woman) of -the famous “method” of obtaining fresh supplies of Divine spirit, by the -process of holding one’s breath for some minutes—according to Mr. -Harris’ pneumatology! The whole thing was infinitely distressing, even -revolting to us; and we sympathised much with her stepfather (my -friend’s old friend) who had loved her like a father, and was driven -wild by the insolent pretentions of Mr. Harris to stop the marriage, of -which all London had heard, unless his monstrous demands were previously -obeyed! At last Alice walked by herself one morning to her Bank, and -ordered her whole fortune to be transferred to Mr. Harris; and this -without the simplest settlement or security for her future support! -After this heroic proceeding, the Prophet of Lake Erie graciously -consented, (in a way,) to her marriage; and England saw her and Mr. -Oliphant no more for many years. What that very helpless and -self-indulgent young creature must have gone through in her solitary -cottage on Lake Erie, and subsequently in her poor little school in -California, can scarcely be guessed. When she returned to England she -wrote to us from Hunstanton Hall, (her brother’s house), offering to -come and see us, but we felt that it would cause us more pain than -pleasure to meet her again, and, in a kindly way, we declined the -proposal. Since her sad death, and that of Mr. Oliphant, an American -friend of mine, Dr. Leffingwell, travelling in Syria, wrote me a letter -from her house at Haifa. He found her books still on the shelves where -she had left them; and the first he took down was Parker’s _Discourse of -Religion_ inscribed “From Frances Power Cobbe to Alice L’Estrange.” - -A less tragic _souvenir_ of poor Alice occurs to me as I write. It is so -good an illustration of the difference between English and French -politeness that I must record it. - -Alice was going over to Paris alone, and as I happened to know that a -distinguished and very agreeable old French gentleman of my acquaintance -was crossing by the same train, I wrote and begged him to look after her -on the way. He replied in the kindest and most graceful manner as -follows:— - - - “Chère Mademoiselle, - - “Vraiment vous me comblez de toutes les manières. Après l’aimable - accueil que vous avez bien voulu me faire, vous songez encore à mes - ennuis de voyage seul, et vous voulez bien me procurer la société la - plus agréable. Agréez en tous mes remercîments, quoique je ne puisse - m’empêcher de songer que s’il avait moins neigé sur la montagne (comme - disent les Orientaux) vous seriez moins confiante. Je serai trop - heureux de me mettre au service de votre amie. - - “Agréez, chère Mademoiselle, les hommages respectueux de votre, - - “Dévoué serviteur, - BARON DE T.” - - “1 Déc., 1871. - - -They met at Charing Cross, and no man could be more charming than M. le -Baron de T. made himself in the train and on the boat. But on arrival at -Boulogne it appeared that Alice’s luggage had either gone astray or been -stopped by the custom-house people; and she was in a difficulty, the -train for Paris being ready to start, and the French officials paying no -attention to her entreaty that her trunks should be delivered and put -into the van to take with her. Of course the appearance by her side of a -French gentleman with the _Legion d’Honneur_ in his buttonhole would -have probably decided the case in her favour at once. But M. de T. had -not the least idea of losing his train and getting into an imbroglio for -sake of a damsel in distress,—so, with many assurances that he was quite -_désolé_ to lose the enchanting pleasure of her society up to Paris, he -got into his carriage and was quickly carried out of sight. Meanwhile a -rather ordinary-looking Englishman who had noted Miss L’Estrange’s -awkward situation, went up to her and asked in a gruff fashion; what was -the matter? When he was informed, he let his train go off and ran hither -and thither about the station, till at last the luggage was found and -restored to its owner. Then, when Alice strove naturally, to thank him, -he simply raised his hat,—said, it was of “no consequence,” and -disappeared to trouble her no more. - -“Which, therefore, was neighbour to him that fell among thieves?” - - - POSTSCRIPT, 1898. - -So many recollections of Mr. Gladstone have been published since his -death that it seems hardly worth while to record mine. I saw him only at -intervals and never had the honour of any intimate acquaintance with -him; but one or two glimpses of him may perhaps amuse my readers as -exhibiting his astonishing versatility. - -I first met him, some time in the Sixties, in North Wales when he came -from Hawarden to visit at a house where I was spending a few days, and -joined me in walking to the summit of Penmaen-bach. He talked, I need -not say, delightfully all the way as we sauntered up, but I remember -only his sympathetic rejoinder to my dislike of mules for such mountain -expeditions,—that he had felt quite remorseful on concluding some tour -(I think in the Pyrenees), for hating so much a beast to which he had -often owed his life! - -Some years after this pleasant climb, I was surprised and, of course, -much flattered to receive from him the following note. I know not who -was the friend who sent him my pamphlet. It had not occurred to me to do -so. - - - “4, Carlton Gardens, - “March 1st, 1876. - - “Dear Miss Cobbe, - - “I do not know whom I have to thank for sending me your” (word - illegible) “article on Vivisection, but the obligation is great, for I - seldom read a paper possessed with such a spirit of nobleness from - first to last. - - “It is long since we met on the slopes of Penmaen-bach. Do you ever go - out to breakfast, and could we persuade you to be so kind as to come - to us on Thursday, March 9, at ten? - - “Believe me, faithfully yours, - “W. E. GLADSTONE.” - - -The breakfast in Carlton Gardens was a very interesting one. Before it -began Mr. Gladstone took me into his library, and we talked for a -considerable time on the subject of Vivisection. At the close of our -conversation, finding him apparently agreeing very cordially with me, I -asked, if he would not join the Victoria Street Society which I had then -recently founded? He replied that he would rather not do so; but that if -ever he returned to office, he would help me to the best of his power. -This promise, I may here say, was given very seriously after making the -observation that he was no longer (at that time) in the position of -influence he had occupied in previous years; but he obviously -anticipated his return to power,—which actually followed not long -afterwards. He repeated this promise of help to me four times in -conversation and once on one of his famous post-cards; and again in -writing to Lord Shaftesbury in reply to a Memorial which the latter -presented to him, signed by 100 of the foremost names, as regarded -intellect and character, in England. Always Mr. Gladstone repeated the -same assurance: “All his sympathies were” with us. Here is the letter on -the card, dated April 1st, 1877, in reply to my request that he would -write a few words to be read by Lord Shaftesbury at one of our Meetings. -It ran as follows:— - - - “Dear Miss Cobbe, - - “You are already aware that my sympathies and prepossessions are - greatly with you, nor do I wish this to be a secret, but I am - overwhelmed with occupations, and I cannot overtake my arrears, and my - letters have been so constantly put before the world (often, of - course, without warrant) that I cannot, I am afraid, appear in the - form of an epistle _ad hoc_, more than I can in person. - - “Faithfully yours, - “W. E. GLADSTONE. - - “April 1, 1877.” - - -(Half the words in his apology for _not_ writing would of course have -more than sufficed for the letter desired.) - -Naturally, after all this, I looked to Mr. Gladstone as a most powerful -friend of the Anti-vivisection cause; and though I had no sympathy with -his religious views, and thought his policy very dangerous, I counted on -him as a man who, _since his suffrage had been obtained in a great moral -question_, was sure to give it his support in fitting time and place. -The sequel showed how delusive was my trust. - -To return to the breakfast in Carlton Gardens. There sat down with us, -to my amusement, a gentleman with whom I had already made acquaintance, -an ex-priest of some distinction, Rev. Rudolph Suffield, who had -recently quitted the Church of Rome but retained enough of priestly -looks and manners to be rather antipathetic to me. Mr. Gladstone -ingeniously picked Mr. Suffield’s brains for half-an-hour, eliciting all -manner of information on Romish doctrines and practice, till the -conversation drifted to Pascal’s _Provinciales_, I expressed my -admiration for the book, and recalled Gibbon’s droll confession that he, -whom Byron styled “The Lord of irony, that master spell,” had learned -the _sanglant_ sarcasm of his XV. and XVI. chapters from the pious -author of the _Pensées_. Mr. Gladstone eagerly interposed with some fine -criticisms, and ended with the amazing remark: “I have read all the -Jesuit answers to Pascal (!) to ascertain whether he had misquoted -Suarez and Escobar and the rest, and I found that he had _not_ done so. -You may take my word for it.” - -From this theological discussion there was a diversion when a gentleman -on the other side of the breakfast table handed across to Mr. Gladstone -certain drawings of the legs of horses. They proved to be sketches of -several pairs in the Panathenaic frieze and were produced to settle the -highly interesting question (to Mr. Gladstone) whether Greek horses ever -trotted, or only walked, cantered, and ambled. I forget how the drawings -were supposed finally to settle the controversy, but I made him laugh by -telling him that a party of the servants of one of my Irish friends -having paid a visit to the Elgin Gallery, the lady’s maid told her -mistress next morning that they had been puzzled to understand why all -those men without legs or arms had been stuck up on the wall? At last -the butler had suggested that they were “intended to commemorate the -railway accidents.” - -From that time I met Mr. Gladstone occasionally at the houses of -friends, and was, of course, like all the world, charmed with his -winning manners and brilliant talk, though never, that I can recall, -struck by any thought expressed by him which could be called a “great” -one, or which lifted up one’s spirit. It seemed more as if half a dozen -splendidly cultivated and brilliant intellects—but all of medium -height—had been incarnated in one vivacious body, than a single Mind of -colossal altitude. The religious element in him was in almost feverish -activity, but it always appeared to me that it was not on the greatest -things of Religion that his attention fastened. It was on its fringe, -rather than on its robe. - -That Mr. Gladstone was a sincerely pious man I do not question. But his -piety was of the Sacerdotal rather than of the Puritan type. The “single -eye” was never his. If it had been, he would not have employed the -tortuous and ambiguous oratory which so often left his friends and foes -to interpret his utterances in opposite senses. Neither did he appear—at -all events to his more distant observers—to feel adequately the -tremendous responsibility to God and man which rested on the well-nigh -omnipotent Prime Minister of England, during the years when it was rare -to open a newspaper without reading of some military disaster like the -death of Gordon, or of some Agrarian murder like the assassination of -Lord Frederick Cavendish and of a score of hapless Irish -landlords—calamities which his policy had _failed to prevent_ if it had -not directly occasioned. The gaiety of spirits and the animation of -interest respecting a hundred trivial topics which Mr. Gladstone -exhibited unfailingly through that fearfully anxious period, approached -perhaps sometimes too nearly to levity to accord with our older ideal of -a devout mind loaded with the weight “almost not to be borne” of -world-wide cares. - -The differences between Church and dissent occupied Mr. Gladstone, I -fancy, very much at all times. One day he remarked to me—as if it were a -valuable new light on the subject—that an eminent Nonconformist had just -told him that the Dissenters generally “did not object either to the -_Doctrine_ or the _Discipline_ of the Church of England, but that they -found no warrant in Scripture for the existence of a State Church.” Mr. -Gladstone looked as if he were seeking an answer to this objection to -conformity. I replied that I wondered they did not see that the whole -Old Testament might be taken as the history of a Divinely appointed -State Church. Mr. Gladstone lifted his marvellous, eagle-like eyes with -a quick glance which might be held to signify “That’s an idea!” When the -little incident was told soon after to Dean Stanley he rubbed his hands -and laughingly said, “This may put off disestablishment yet awhile!” - -As a member of society Mr. Gladstone, as everybody knows, was -inexhaustibly interesting. I once heard him after a small dinner party -criticise and describe with astonishing vividness and minuteness the -sermons of at least twenty popular preachers. At last I ventured to -interpose with some impatience and say: “But, Mr. Gladstone, you have -not mentioned the greatest of them all, _my_ pastor, Dr. Martineau?” He -paused, and then said, weighing his words, carefully: “Dr. Martineau is -unquestionably the greatest of living thinkers.” - -Speaking of the Jews, he once afforded the company at a dinner table a -lively and interesting sketch of the ubiquity of the race all over the -globe, _except in Scotland_. The Scotch, he said, knew as well as they -the value of bawbees! There was a general laugh, and some one remarked: -“Why, then, are there so few in Ireland?” Mr. Gladstone answered that he -supposed the Irish were too poor to afford them fair pasture. I said: -“Perhaps so, now, but when _you_, Mr. Gladstone, have given the Irish -farmers fixity of tenure, so that they can give security for loans, we -shall see the Jews flocking over to Ireland.” This observation was made -in 1879; and in the intervening twenty years I am informed that the Jews -have settled down in Ireland like sea-gulls on the land after a storm. -The old “Gombeen man” has been ousted all over the country, and a whole -Jew quarter, (near the Circular Road) and a new synagogue in Dublin, -have verified my prophecy. - -At last the day came when the sympathy of which Mr. Gladstone had so -often assured Lord Shaftesbury and myself, was to be put to the simplest -test. Mr. Reid (now Sir Robert Reid) was to introduce our Bill for the -Prohibition of Vivisection into Parliament (April 4th, 1883). I wrote to -Mr. Gladstone a short note imploring him to lift his hand to help us; -and if it were impossible for him to speak in the House in our favour, -at least to let his friends know that he wished well to our Bill. I do -not remember the words of that note. I know that it was a cry from my -very heart to the man who held it in his power to save the poor brutes -from their tortures for ever; to do what I was spending my life’s last -years in vainly trying to accomplish. - -He _received_ the note; I had a formal acknowledgment of it. But Mr. -Gladstone _did nothing_. He left us to the tender mercies of Sir William -Harcourt, whose audacious (and mendacious) contradiction of Mr. George -Russell, our seconder, I have detailed elsewhere.[23] From that day I -never met, nor ever desired to meet, Mr. Gladstone again. - - * * * * * - -A friend whom I greatly admired and valued, and whose intercourse I -enjoyed during all my residence in London, from first to last, was Mr. -Froude. He died just after the first edition of this book (of which I -had of course sent him a copy) was published; and I was told it supplied -welcome amusement to him in his last days. - -The world, I think, has never done quite justice to Mr. Froude; albeit, -when he was gone the newspapers spoke of him as “the last of the -giants.” He always seemed to me to belong to the loftier race, of whom -there were then not a few living; and though his unhappy _Nemesis of -Faith_ (for which I make no defence whatever) and his _Carlyle_ drew on -him endless blame, and his splendid _History_ equally endless cavil and -criticism, his greatness was to my apprehension something apart from his -books. His Essays,—especially the magnificent one on Job—give, I think, -a better idea of the man than was derivable from any other source, -except personal intimacy. “He touched nothing which he did not” enlarge, -if not “adorn.” Subjects expanded when talked of easily, and even -lightly, with him. There was a background of _space_ always above and -behind him. Though he had no little cause for it, he was not bitter. I -never saw him angry or heard him express resentment, except once when -his benevolent efforts had failed to obtain from Mr. Gladstone’s -Government a pension for a poverty-stricken, meritorious woman of -letters, while far less deserving persons received the bounty. But when -he let the Marah waters of Mr. Carlyle’s private reflexions loose on the -world their bitterness seemed to communicate itself to all the readers -of the book. Even the silver pen of Mrs. Oliphant for once was dipped in -gall; and it was she, if I mistake not, who in her wrath devised the -ferocious adjective “_Froudacious_” to convey her rage and scorn. As for -myself, when that book appeared I frankly told Mr. Froude that I -rejoiced, because I had always deprecated Mr. Carlyle’s influence, and I -thought this revelation of him would do much to destroy it. Mr. Froude -laughed good-humouredly, but naturally showed a little consternation. -His sentiment about the Saturday Reviewers, who at that time buzzed -round his writings and stung him every week, was much that of a St. -Bernard or a Newfoundland towards a pack of snarling terriers. One day a -clergyman very well known in London, wrote to me after one of our little -parties to beg that I would do him the favour, when next Mr. Froude was -coming to me, to invite him also, and permit him to bring his particular -friend Mr. X, who greatly desired to meet his brother historian. I was -very willing to oblige the clergyman in question, and before long we had -a gathering at our house of forty or fifty people, among whom were Mr. -Froude and Mr. X. I knew that the moment for the introduction had -arrived, but of course I was not going to take the liberty of presenting -any stranger to Mr. Froude without asking his consent. That consent was -not so readily granted as I had anticipated. “Who? Mr. X? Let me look at -him first.” “There he is,” I said, pointing to a small figure half -hidden in a group of ladies and gentlemen. “That is he, is it?” said Mr. -Froude. “Oh, No! No! Don’t introduce him to me. _He has the Saturday -Review written all over his face!_” There was nothing to do but to -laugh, and presently, when my clerical friend came up and urged me to -fulfil my promise and make the introduction, to hurry down on some -excuse into the tea room and never reappear till the disappointed Mr. X -had departed. - -I have kept 34 letters received from Mr. Froude during the years in -which I had the good fortune to contribute to _Fraser’s Magazine_ when -he was the Editor, and later, when, as friends and neighbours in South -Kensington, we had the usual little interchange of message and -invitations. Among these, to me precious, letters there are some -passages which I shall venture to copy, assured that his representatives -cannot possibly object to my doing so. I may first as an introduction of -myself, quote one in a letter to my eldest brother, who had invited him -to stay at Newbridge during one of his visits to Ireland. Mr. Froude -wrote to him:— - - - “I knew your brother Henry intimately 30 years ago, and your sister is - one of the most valued friends of my later life.” - - -His affection for Carlyle spoke in this eager refutation of some idle -story in the newspapers: - - - “February 16th. - - “There is hardly a single word in it which is not untrue. Ruskin is as - much attached to Mr. Carlyle as ever. There is not one of his friends - to whom he is not growing dearer as he approaches the end of his time, - nor has the wonderful beauty and noble tenderness of his character - been ever more conspicuous. The only difference visible in him from - what he was in past years is that his wife’s death has broken his - heart. He is gentler and more forbearing to human weakness. He feels - that his own work is finished, and he is waiting hopefully till it - please God to take him away.” - - -Here is evidence of his deep enjoyment of Nature. He writes, October -31st, from Dereen, Kenmare:— - - - “I return to London most reluctantly at the end of the week. The - summer refuses to leave us, and while you are shivering in the North - wind we retain here the still blue cloudlessness of August. This - morning is the loveliest I ever saw here. The woods swarm with - blackbirds and thrushes, the ‘autumn note not all unlike to that of - spring.’ I am so bewitched with the place that (having finished my - History) I mean to spend the winter here and try to throw the story of - the last Desmond into a novel.” - - -In reply to a request that he would attend an Anti-vivisection meeting -at Lord Shaftesbury’s house, he wrote:— - - - “Vivisection is a hateful illustration of the consequences of the - silent supersession of Morality by Utilitarianism. Until men can be - brought back to the old lines, neither this nor any other evil - tendency can be really stemmed. _Till the world learns again to hate - what is in itself evil, in spite of alleged advantages to be derived - from it_, it will never consent to violent legal restrictions.” - - -His last letter from Oxford is pleasant to recall:— - - - “I am strangely placed here. The Dons were shy of me when I first - came, but all is well now, and the undergraduates seem really - interested in what I have to tell them. I am quite free, and tell them - precisely what I think.” - - -I do not think that Mr. Froude was otherwise than a happy man. He was -particularly so as regarded his feminine surroundings, and a most genial -and indulgent husband and father. He had also intense enjoyment both of -Nature and of the great field of Literature into which he delved so -zealously. He once told me that he had visited every spot, _except the -Tower of London_ (!) where the great scenes of his History took place, -and had ransacked every library in Europe likely to contain materials -for his work; not omitting the record chambers of the Inquisition at -Simancas, where he spent many shuddering days which he vividly described -to me. He also greatly enjoyed his long voyages and visits to the West -Indies and to New Zealand; and especially the one he made to America. He -admired almost everything, I think, in America; and more than once -remarked to me (in reference particularly to the subject of mixed -education in which I was interested): “The young men are so nice! What -might be difficult here, is easy there. You have no idea what nice -fellows they are.” There was, however, certainly something in Mr. -Froude’s handsome and noble physiognomy which conveyed the idea of -mournfulness. His eyes were wells of darkness on which, by some -singularity, the light never seemed to fall either in life or when -represented in a photograph; and his laugh, which was not infrequent, -was mirthless. I never heard a laugh which it was so hard to echo, so -little contagious. - -The last time I ever saw Mr. Froude was at the house of our common -friend, Miss Elliot, where he was always to be found at his best. Her -other visitors had departed and we three old friends sat on in the late -and quiet Sunday afternoon, talking of serious things, and at last of -our hopes and beliefs respecting a future life. Mr. Froude startled us -somewhat by saying he did not wish to live again. He felt that his life -had been enough, and would be well content not to awake when it was -over. “But,” said he, in conclusion, with sudden vigour, “I believe -there _is_ another life, you know! I am quite sure there is.” The -clearness and emphasis of this conviction were parallel to those he had -used before to me in talking of the probable extension of Atheism in -coming years. “But, as there _IS_ a God,” said Mr. Froude, “Religion can -never die.” - - - - - CHAPTER - XVIII. - _MY LIFE IN LONDON IN THE SEVENTIES AND EIGHTIES._ - _SOCIAL_ - - -I must not write here any personal sketch however slight of my revered -friend Dr. Martineau, since he is still,—God be thanked for it!—living, -and writing as profoundly and vigorously as ever, in his venerable age -of 89. But the weekly sermons which I had the privilege of hearing from -his lips for many years, down to 1872, beside several courses of his -Lectures on the Gospels and on Ethical Philosophy which I attended, -formed so very important, I might say, vital a part of my “Life” in -London, that I cannot omit some account of them in my story. - -Little Portland Street Chapel is a building of very moderate dimensions, -with no pretensions whatever to ecclesiastical finery; whether of -architecture, or upholstery, or art of any kind. But it was, I always -thought, a fitting, simple place for serious people to meet to _think -in_; not to gaze round them in curiosity or admiration, or to be -intoxicated with colours, lights, incense and music; as would seem to be -the intention of the administrators of a neighbouring fane! Our -services, I suppose, would have been pronounced cold, bare and dull by -an _habitué_ of a Ritualistic or Romanist church; but for my own part I -should prefer even to be “cold,” (which we were _not_) rather than allow -my religious feelings to be excited through the gratification of my -æsthetic sense. - -On this matter, however, each one must speak and choose for himself. For -me I was perfectly satisfied with my seat in the gallery in that simple -chapel, where I could well hear the noblest sermons and see the preacher -of whom they always seemed a part; his “_Word_” in the old sense; not -(like many other men’s sermons) things quite apart from the speaker, as -we know him in his home and in the street. Of all the men with whom I -have ever been acquainted the one who most impressed me with the -sense,—shall I call it of congruity? or homogeneity?—of being, in short, -_the same all through_, was he to whom I listened on those happy -Sundays. - -They were very varied Sermons which Dr. Martineau preached. The general -effect, I used to think, was not that of receiving Lessons from a -Teacher, but of being invited to accompany a Guide on a mountain-walk. -From the upper regions of thought where he led us, we were able,—nay, -compelled,—to look down on our daily cares and duties from a loftier -point of view; and thence to return to them with fresh feelings and -resolutions. Sometimes these ascents were very steep and difficult; and -I have ventured to tell him that the richness of his metaphors and -similes, beautiful and original as they always were, made it harder to -climb after him, and that we sometimes wanted him to hold out to us a -shepherd’s crook, rather than a _jewelled crozier_! But the exercise, if -laborious, was to the last degree mentally healthful, and morally -strengthening. There was a great variety also, in these wonderful -sermons. To hear one of them only, a listener would come away deeming -the preacher _par éminence_ a profound and most discriminating Critic. -To hear another, he would consider him a Philosopher, occupied entirely -with the vastest problems of Science and Theology. Again another would -leave the impression of a Poet, as great in his prose as the author of -_In Memoriam_ in verse. And lastly and above all, there was always the -man filled with devout feeling, who, by his very presence and voice -communicated reverence and the sense of the nearness of an all-seeing -God. - -I could write many pages concerning these Sunday experiences; but I -shall do better, I think, if I give my readers, who have never heard -them, some small samples of what I carried away from time to time of -them, as noted down in letters to my friend. Here are a few of them: - - - “Mr. Martineau preached of aiming at perfection. At the end he drew a - picture of a soul which has made such struggles but has failed. Then - he supposed what must be the feeling of such a soul entering on the - future life, its regrets; and then inquired what influence being - lifted above the things of sense, the nearness to God and holiness - would have on it? Would it then arise? _Yes!_ and the Father would - say, ‘This my son was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is - found for evermore.’ I cannot tell you how beautiful it was, how true - in the sense of those deepest intuitions which I hold to be certainly - true _because_ they bear with them the sense of being absolutely - _highest_, the echo of a higher harmony than belongs to our poor - minds. He seemed, for a moment, to be talking in the old conventional - way about repentance _when too late_; and then burst out in faith and - hope, so far transcending all such ideas that one felt it came from - another source.” - - “Mr. Martineau gave us a magnificent sermon on Sunday. I was in great - luck not to miss it. One point was this. Our moral judgments are - always founded on what we suppose to be the _inward motive_ of the - actor, not on the mere external act itself, which may be mischievous - or beneficent in the highest degree, without, properly-speaking, - affecting our purely _ethical_ judgment—_e.g._, an unintentional - homicide. Now, if, (as our opponents affirm) our Moral Sense came to - us _ab extra_, merely as the current opinion which society has - attached to injurious or beneficial actions, then we should _not_ thus - decide our judgment by the _internal_, but by the external and visible - part of the act, by which alone society is hurt or benefitted. The - fact that our moral judgment regards _internal_ things exclusively, is - evidence that it springs from an _internal_ source; and that we judge - another, because we are compelled to judge ourselves in the same way.” - - -Here is a Note I took after hearing another Sermon:— - - - “Sunday, June 23rd. - - “‘If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our - sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.’ - - “There are two ways of looking at Sin common in our time. One is to - proclaim it so infinitely black that God _cannot_ forgive it except by - a method of Atonement itself the height of injustice. The other is to - treat it as so venial that God may be counted on as certain to pass it - over at the first moment of regret; and all the threats of conscience - may be looked on as those of a nurse to a refractory child, threats - which are never to be executed. The first of these views seems to - honour God most, but really dishonours Him, by representing Him as - governing the world on a principle abhorrent to reason and justice. - The second can never commend itself save to the most shallow minds who - make religion a thing of words, and treat sin and repentance as - trivial things, instead of the most awful. How shall we solve the - mystery? It is equally unjust for God to treat the guilty as if they - were innocent, and the penitent as if they were impenitent. Each fact - has to be taken into account, and the most important practical - consequences follow from the view we take of the matter. First we must - never lose hold of the truth, that, as Cause and Effect are never - severed in the natural world, and the whole order of nature would fall - to ruin were God ever to interfere with them, so likewise Guilt and - Pain are, in His Providence, indissolubly linked; and the order of the - moral world would be destroyed were they to be divided. But beside the - realm of Law, in which the Divine penalties are unalterable, there is - the free world of Spirit wherein our repentance avails. When we can - say to God, ‘Put me to grief—I have deserved it. Only restore me Thy - love,’ the great woe is gone. We shall be the weaker evermore for our - fall, but we shall be restored.” - - -The following remarks were in a letter to Miss Elliot:— - - - “January, 1867. - - “I wish I could write a _résumé_ of a Sermon which Mr. Martineau - preached last Sunday. Just think how many sermons some people would - make of this one sentence of his text (speaking of the longing for - Rest):—‘If Duty become laborious, do it more fervently. If Love become - a source of care and pain, love more nobly and more tenderly. If - Doubts disturb and torture, face them with more earnest thought and - deeper study!’ - - “This was not a _peroration_, but just one phrase of a discourse full - of other such things. - - “It seems to me that the spontaneous response of our inner souls to - such ideas is just the same proof of their truth as the shock we feel - in our nerves when a lecturer has delivered a current of electricity - proves _his_ lesson to be true.” - - “January, 1867. - - “While you were enjoying your Cathedral, I was enjoying Little - Portland Street Chapel, having bravely tramped through miles of snow - on the way, and been rewarded. Mr. Martineau said we were always - taunted with only having a _negative_ creed, and were often foolish - enough to deny it. But all Reformation is a negation of error and - return to the three pure articles of faith—God, Duty, Immortality.... - The distinction was admirably drawn between _extent of creed_ and - _intensity of faith_.” - - -On February 5th, 1871, Mr. Martineau preached:— - - - “Philosophers might and do say that all Religion is only a projection - of Man himself on Nature, lending to Nature his own feelings, - brightened by a supreme Love or shadowed by infinite displeasure. Does - this disprove Religion? Is there no reliance to be placed on the - faculties which connect us with the Infinite? We have two sets of - faculties: our Senses, which reveal the outer world; and a deeper - series, giving us Poetry, Love, Religion. Should we say that these - last are more false than the others? They are true _all round_. In - fact, these are truest. Imagination is true. Affection is true. Do men - say that Affection is blind? No! It is the only thing which truly - sees. Love alone really perceives. The cynic draws over the world a - roof of dark and narrow thoughts and suspicions, and then complains of - the close, unhealthy air. Memory again is more than mere Recollection. - It has the true artist-power of seizing the points which determine the - character and reconstructing the image without details. Suppose there - be a God. By what faculties could we know Him save by those which now - tell us of Him. And why should they deceive us?” - - -Alas! the exercise of preaching every Sunday became too great for Dr. -Martineau to encounter after 1872, and, by his physician’s orders, those -noble sermons came to an end. - -Beside Dr. Martineau, I had the privilege of friendship with three -eminent Unitarian Ministers, now alas! all departed—Rev. Charles Beard, -of Liverpool, for a long time editor of the _Theological Review_; the -venerable and beloved John James Tayler; and Rev. William Henry -Channing, to whom I was gratefully attached, both on account of -religious sympathies, and of his ardent adoption of our Anti-vivisection -cause, which he told me he had at first regarded as somewhat of a “fad” -of mine, but came to recognise as a moral crusade of deep significance. -Among living friends of the same body, I am happy to number Rev. Philip -Wicksteed, the successor of Dr. Martineau in Portland Street and the -exceedingly able President of University Hall, Gordon Square,—an -institution, in the foundation of which I gladly took part on the -invitation of Mrs. Humphry Ward. - -A man in whose books I had felt great interest in my old studies at -Newbridge, and whose intercourse was a real pleasure to me in London, -was Mr. W. R. Greg. I intensely respected the courage which moved him, -in those early days of the Fifties, to publish such a book as the _Creed -of Christendom_. He was then a young man, entering public life with the -natural ambitions which his great abilities justified, and the avowal of -such exorbitant heresies (nothing short of pure Theism) as the book -contained, was enough at that date to spoil any man’s career. He was a -layman, too, and man of the world, “_Que Diable allait il faire_, -writing on theology at all?” That book remains to this day a most -valuable manual of arguments and evidences against the _Creed of -Christendom_; set forth in a grave and reverent spirit and in a clear -and manly style. His _Enigmas of Life_ had, I believe, a larger literary -success. The world had moved much nearer to his standpoint; and the -Enigmas concern the most interesting subjects. We had a little friendly -controversy over one passage in the essay, _Elsewhere_. Mr. Greg had -laid it down that, hereafter, Love must retreat from the discovery of -the sinfulness of the beloved; and that both saint and sinner will -accept as inevitable an eternal separation (_Enigmas_, 1st Edit., p. -263). To this I demurred strenuously in my _Hopes of the Human Race_ (p. -132–6). I said, “The poor self-condemned soul whom Mr. Greg images as -turning away in an agony of shame and hopelessness from the virtuous -friend he loved on earth, and loves still at an immeasurable -distance,—such a soul is not outside the pale of love, divine or human. -Nay, is he not,—even assuming his guilt to be black as night,—only in a -similar relation to the purest of created souls, which that purest soul -holds to the All-holy One above? If God can love _us_, is it not the -acme of moral presumption to think of a human soul being too pure to -love any sinner, so long as in him there remains any vestige of -affection? The whole problem is unreal and impossible. In the first -place, there is a potential moral equality between all souls capable of -equal love, and the one can never reach a height whence it may justly -despise the other. And, in the second place, the higher the virtuous -soul may have risen in the spiritual world, the more it must have -acquired the god-like Insight which beholds the good under the evil, and -not less the god-like Love which embraces the repentant Prodigal. - -In the next edition of his _Enigmas_ (the 7th), after the issue of my -book, Mr. Greg wrote a most generous recantation of his former view. He -said:— - - - “The force of these objections to my delineation cannot be gainsaid, - and ought not to have been overlooked. No doubt a soul that can so - love and so feel its separation from the objects of its love, cannot - be wholly lost. It must still retain elements of recovery and - redemption, and qualities to win and to merit answering affection. The - lovingness of a nature—its capacity for strong and deep - attachment—must constitute, there as here, the most hopeful - characteristic out of which to elicit and foster all other good. No - doubt, again, if the sinful continue to love in spite of their - sinfulness, the blessed will not cease to love in consequence of their - blessedness.” - - -Later on he asks:— - - - “How can the blessed enjoy anything to be called Happiness if the bad - are writhing in hopeless anguish?” “Obviously only in one way. By - _ceasing_ to love, that is, by renouncing the best and purest part of - their nature.... Or, to put it in still bolder language, ‘_How,—given - a hell of torment and despair for millions of his friends and fellow - men—can the good enjoy Heaven_ except _by becoming bad_, and without - being miraculously changed for the worse?’” - - -The following flattering letters are unluckily all which I have kept of -Mr. Greg’s writing:— - - - “Park Lodge, Wimbledon Common, S.W., - “February 19th. - - “My Dear Miss Cobbe, - - “I have been solacing myself this morning, after a month of harrowing - toil, with your paper in the last _Theological_, and I want to tell - you how much it has gratified me. - - “I don’t mean your appreciative cordiality towards myself, nor your - criticisms on a portion of my speculations, which, however (though I - fancy you have rather misread me), I will refer to again and try to - profit by. I daresay you are mainly right, the more so as I see Mr. - Thom in the same number remonstrates in an identical tone. - - “That your paper is, I think, not only beautiful in thought and much - of it original, but singularly full of rich suggestions, and one of - the most real _contributions_ to a further conception of a possible - future that I have met with for long. It is real _thought_—not like - most of mine, mere sentiment and imagination. - - “I don’t know if you are still in town, or have began the villegiatura - you spoke of when I last saw you, but I daresay this note will be - forwarded. - - “When did No. 1 appear? - - “I particularly like your remark about self-_reprobation_, p. 456, and - from 463 onward. By the way, do you know Isaac Taylor’s ‘_Physical - Theory of Another Life_?’ It is very curious and interesting. - - “Yours faithfully, - “W. R. GREG. - - “I have just finished an Introduction (about 100 pp.) to a new edition - of “The Creed of Christendom,” which will be published in the autumn, - and it contains some thoughts very analogous to yours.” - - - “Park Lodge, Wimbledon Common, S.W., - “August 6th. - - “My dear Miss Cobbe, - - “I have read your _Town and Country Mouse_ with much pleasure. I - should have enjoyed your Paper still more if I had not felt that it - was suggested by your intention to cut London, and the desire to put - as good a face upon that regrettable design as you could. However you - have stated the case with remarkable fairness. I, who am a passionate - lover of nature, who have never lived in Town, and should pine away if - I attempted it, still feel in the decline of years the increasing - necessity of creeping _towards_ the world rather than retiring from - it. I feel, as one grows old, the want of external stimulus to stave - off stagnation. The vividness of youthful thought is needed, I think, - to support solitude. - - “I retired to Westmoreland for 15 years in the middle of life when I - was much worn, and it did me good: but I was glad to come back to - active life, and I think my present location—Wimbledon Common for a - cottage, within 5 miles of London, and coming in five days a week—is - perfection. - - “I daresay you may be right; but all your friends will miss you much—I - not the least. - - “Yours faithfully, - “W. R. GREG.” - - -Mr. Greg’s allusion to my _Town and Country Mouse_ reminds me of a -letter which was sent me by some unknown reader on the publication of -that article. It repeats a famous story worth recording as told thus by -an ear-witness who, though anonymous is obviously worthy of credit. - - - “Athenæum Club, - “Pall Mall, S.W. - - “Will Miss Cobbe kindly pardon the liberty taken by a reader of her - delightful ‘Town and Country Mouse’ in venturing to substitute the - true version of Sir George Lewis’ too famous dictum? - - “In the _hearing of the writer_ he was asked (by one of his - subordinates in the Government) as they were getting into the train, - returning to town, - - “‘Well! How do you like life in Herefordshire?’ - - “‘Ah! It would be very tolerable, if it were not for _the - Amusements_’—was his reply. - - “Miss Cobbe has high Authority for the mis-quotation: for the _Times_ - invariably commits it; and the present writer has again and again - intended to correct it, and failed to execute the intention. - - “If they _are_ pleasures, they are _pleasures_; and the paradox is - absurd, instead of amusing; but the oppressive stupidity of many of - the ‘_Amusements_’ (to the Author of ‘Influence of Authority,’ &c.!) - may well call up in the mind the sort of amiable cynicism, which was a - feature of his own character. - - “On arriving late and unexpectedly at home for a fortnight’s _Rest_, - he found his own study occupied by two young ladies (sisters) as a - _Bedroom_—it being the night of Lady Theresa’s Ball! With his - exquisite good nature he simply set about finding some other roost; - and all the complaint he ever made was _that_, which has become - perhaps _not_ too famous!” - - -At the time of the Franco-Prussian war, as will be remembered by -everyone living at the time in London, the cleavage between the -sympathisers with the two contending countries was almost as sharp as it -had previously been during the American War between the partizans of the -North and of the South. Dean Stanley was one of our friends who took -warmly the side of the Germans, and I naturally sent him a letter I had -received from a Frenchman whom we both respected, remonstrating rather -bitterly against the attitude of England. The Dean, in returning M. P.’s -letter wrote as follows[24]:— - - - “Deanery, March 25th, 1871. - - “Dear Miss Cobbe, - - “Although you kindly excuse me from doing so, I cannot but express, - and almost, wish that you could convey to M. P. the melancholy - interest with which we have read his letter. Interesting of course it - is but to us—I know not whether to you—it is deeply sad to see a man - like M. P. so thoroughly blind to the true situation of his country. - Not a word of repentance for the aggressive and unjust war! not a word - of acknowledgment that, had the French, as they wished, invaded - Germany, they would have entered Berlin and seized the Rhenish - provinces without remorse or compunction!—not a spark of appreciation - of the moral superiority by which the Germans achieved their - successes! I do not doubt that excesses may have been committed by the - German troops; but I feel sure that they have been exceeded by those - of the French, and would have been yet more had the French entered - Germany. - - “And how very superfluous to attack us for having done just the same - as in 1848! Our sad crime was not to have prevented the war by - remonstrating with the French Emperor and people in July, 1870, and of - _that_ poor P. takes no account! Alas! for France! - - “Yours sincerely, - “A. P. STANLEY.” - - -The following is a rather important note as recording the Dean’s -sentiments as regarded Cardinal Newman. I cannot recall what was the -paper which I had sent him to which he alludes. I think I had spoken to -him of my friendship with Francis Newman, and of the information given -me by the latter that he could never remember his brother putting his -hand to a single cause of benevolence or moral reform. I had asked him -to solicit his support with that of Cardinal Manning (already obtained) -to the cause for which I was then beginning to work,—on behalf of -animals. - - - “Jan. 15th, 1875. - - “My dear Miss Cobbe, - - “I return this with many thanks. I think you must have sent it to me, - partly as a rebuke for having so nearly sailed in the same boat of - ignorance and inhumanity with Dr. Newman. - - “I have just finished, with a mixture of weariness and nausea, his - letter to the Duke of Norfolk. Even the fierce innuendoes and deadly - thrusts at Manning cannot reconcile me to such a mass of cobwebs and - evasions. When the sum of the theological teaching of the two brothers - is weighed, will not ‘the _Soul_’ of Francis be found to - counterbalance, as a contribution to true, solid, catholic (even in - any sense of the word) Christianity, all the writings of John Henry? - - “I have sent my paper on Vestments to the _Contemporary_. - - “Yours sincerely, - “A. P. STANLEY. - - “Read it in the light of his old letter to B. Ullathorne, published in - (illegible).” - - -The papers on “Vestments,” to which Dean Stanley alludes, had interested -and amused me much when he read it at Sion College, and I had urged him -to send it to one of the Reviews. Here is a report of that evening’s -proceedings which I sent next day to my friend Miss Elliot. - - - “January 14th, 1875. - - “I do so much wish you had been with us last night at Sion College. - Dean Stanley was more delightful than ever. He read a splendid paper, - full of learning, wit, and sense on _Ecclesiastical Vestments_. In the - course of it, he said, referring to the position of the altar, &c., - that on this subject he had nothing to add to the remarks of his - friend, the Dean of Bristol, ‘whose authority on all matters connected - with English ecclesiastical history was universally admitted to be the - best.’ After the reading of his paper, which lasted an hour and a - quarter, that odious Dr. L—— got up, and in his mincing brogue - attacked Dean Stanley very rudely. Then they called on Martineau, and - he made a charming speech, beginning by saying _he_ had nothing to do - with vestments, having received no ordination, and might for his part - repeat the poem “_Nothing to Wear!_” Then he went on to say that if - the Church were ever to regain the Nonconformists, it would certainly - _not_ be by proceeding in the sacerdotal direction. He was much - cheered. Rev. H. White made, I thought, one of the best speeches of - the evening. Altogether, it was exceedingly amusing.” - - -On the occasion of the interment of Sir Charles Lyell in Westminster -Abbey, I sent the Dean, by his request, some hints respecting Sir -Charles’ views and character, and received the following reply: - - - “February 25th, 1875. - - “My dear Miss Cobbe, - - “Your letter is invaluable to me. Long as was my acquaintance with Sir - Charles Lyell, and kind as he was to me, I never knew him intimately, - and therefore most of what you tell me was new. The last time he spoke - to me was in urging me with the greatest earnestness to ask Colenso to - preach. Can you tell me one small point? Had he a turn for music? I - must refer back to the last funeral (when I could not preach) of Sir - Sterndale Bennett, and it would be a convenience for me to know this, - _Yes_ or _No_. - - “You will come (if you come to the sermon) and any friends,—_thro’ the - Deanery_ at 2.45 on Sunday. - - “Yours sincerely, - “A. P. STANLEY.” - - -Some time after this I sent him one of my theological articles on the -Life after Death. He acknowledged it thus kindly:— - - - “Deanery, November 2nd. - - “Dear Miss Cobbe, - - “Many thanks. Your writing on this subject is to me more nearly to the - truth—at least more nearly to my hopes and desires—than almost any - others which are now floating around us. - - “Yours sincerely, - “A. P. STANLEY.” - - -This next letter again referred to one of my books—and to Cardinal -Newman:— - - - “October 12th, 1876. - - “My dear Miss Cobbe, - - “Many thanks for your book. You will see by my letter last night that - I had already made good progress in it; as borrowed from the Library. - I shall much value it. - - Do not trouble yourself about Newman’s letter. I am much more anxious - that the public should see it than that I should. I am amazed at the - impression made upon me by the “Characteristics” of Newman. Most of - the selections I had read before; but the net result is of a farrago - of fanciful, disingenuous nonentities; all except the personal - reminiscences. - - “Yours truly, - “A. P. STANLEY.” - - -One day I had been calling on him at the Deanery, and said to him, after -describing my office in Victoria Street and our frequent Committee -meetings there: “Now Mr. Dean, _do_ you think it right and as it ought -to be, that _I_ should sit at that table as Hon. Sec. with Lord -Shaftesbury on my right, and Cardinal Manning on my left,—and that _you_ -should not sit opposite to complete the “_Reunion of Christendom_?” He -laughed heartily, agreed he certainly ought to be there, and promised to -come. But time failed, and only his honoured name graced our lists. - -The following is the last letter I have preserved of Dean Stanley’s -writing. It is needless to say how much pleasure it gave me:— - - - “October 16th, 1876. - - “Dear Miss Cobbe, - - “I have just finished re-reading with real admiration and consolation - your “_Hopes of the Human Race_.” May I ask these questions: 1. Is it - in, or coming into, a second edition? If the latter, is it too much to - suggest that the note on p. 3 could, if not omitted, be modified? I - appreciate the motive for its insertion, but it makes the lending and - recommending of the book difficult. 2. Who is ‘one of the greatest men - of Science’—p. 20? 3. Where is there an authentic appearance of the - Pope’s reply to Odo Russell—p. 107? - - “Yours sincerely, - “A. P. STANLEY.” - - -I afterwards learned from Dean Stanley, one day when I was visiting him -at the Deanery after his wife’s death, that he had read these Essays to -Lady Augusta in the last weeks of her life, finding them, as he told me, -the most satisfactory treatment of the subject he had met; and that -after her death he read them over again. He gave me with much feeling a -sad photograph of her as a dying woman, after telling me this. Mr. -Motley the historian of the Netherlands, having also lost his wife not -long afterwards, spoke to Dean Stanley of his desire for some book on -the subject which would meet his doubts, and Dean Stanley gave him this -one of mine. - -Dean Stanley, it is needless to say, was the most welcome of guests in -every house which he entered. There was something in his -_high-mindedness_, I can use no other term, his sense of the glory of -England, his love of his church (on extremely Erastian principles!) as -the National Religion, his unfailing courtesy, his unaffected enjoyment -of drollery and gossip, and his almost youthful excitement about each -important subject which cropped up, which made him delightful to -everyone in turn. There was no man in London I think whom it gave me -such pleasure to meet “in the sixties and seventies” as the “Great -Dean”; and he was uniformly most kind to me. The last occasion, I think, -on which I saw him in full spirits was at a house where the pleasantest -people were constantly to be found,—that of Mr. and Mrs. Simpson, in -Cornwall Gardens. Renan and his wife were there, and I was so favoured -as to be seated next to Renan; Dean Stanley being on the other side of -our tactful hostess. The Dean had been showing Renan over the Abbey in -the morning, and they were both in the gayest mood, but I remember Dean -Stanley speaking to Renan with indescribable and concentrated -indignation of the avowal Mr. Gladstone had recently made that the -Clerkenwell explosion had caused him to determine on the -disestablishment of the Irish Church. - -I have found an old letter to my friend describing this dinner:— - - - “I had a most amusing evening yesterday. Kind Mrs. Simpson made me sit - beside Renan; and Dean Stanley was across the corner, so we made, with - nice Mrs. W. R. G. and Mr. M., a very jolly little party at our end of - the table. The Dean began with grace, rather _sotto voce_, with a - blink at Renan, who kept on never minding. His (Renan’s) looks are - even worse than his picture leads one to expect. His face is exactly - like a _hog_, so stupendously broad across the ears and jowl! But he - is very gentlemanly in manner, very winning and full of fun and - _finesse_. We had to talk French with him, but the Dean’s French was - so much worse than mine that I felt quite at ease, and rattled away - about the _Triduos_ at Florence (to appease the wrath of Heaven on - account of his _Vie de Jésus_), and had some private jokes with him - about his malice in calling the Publicans of the Gospels ‘douaniers,’ - and the ass a ‘baudet!’ He said he did it on purpose; and that when he - was last in Italy numbers of poor people came to him, and asked him - for the lucky number for the lotteries, because they thought he was - _so near the Devil_ he must know! I gave him your message about the - Hengwrt MSS., and he apologised for having written about the - ‘mesquines’ considerations which had caused them to be locked up, [to - wit, that several leaves of the _Red Book of Hergest_ had been stolen - by too enthusiastic Welsh scholars!] and solemnly vowed to alter the - passage in the next edition, and thanked you for the promise of - obtaining leave for him to see them. - - “I also talked to M. Renan of his Essay on the _Poésie de la Race - Celtique_, and made him laugh at his own assertion that Irishmen had - such a longing for ‘the Infinite’ that when they could not attain to - it otherwise they sought it through a strong liquor ‘_qui s’appelle le - Whiskey_.’” - - -Sir Mountstuart Grant Duff’s delightful volume on Renan has opened to my -mind many fresh reasons for admiring the great French scholar, whose -works I had falsely imagined I had known pretty well before reading it. -But when all is said, the impression he has left on me (and I should -think on most other people) is one of disappointment and short-falling. - -M. Renan has written of himself the well-known and often laughed-at -boast: “_Seul dans mon siècle j’ai pu comprendre Jésus Christ et St. -François d’Assise!_” I do not know about his comprehension of St. -Francis, though I should think it a very great _tour de force_ for the -brilliant French academician and critic to throw himself into _that_ -typical mediæval mind! But as regarded the former Person I should say -that of all the tens of thousands who have studied and written about him -during these last nineteen centuries, Renan was in some respects the -_least_ able to “comprehend” him. The man who could describe the story -of the Prodigal as a “_délicieuse parabole_,” is as far out of Christ’s -latitude as the pole from the equator. One abhors æsthetics when things -too sacred to be measured by their standard are commended in their name. -Renan seems to me to have been for practical purposes a Pantheist -without a glimmer of that sense of moral and personal relation to God -which was the supreme characteristic of Christ. When he translates -Christ’s pity for the Magdalenes as jealousy “_pour la gloire de son -Père dans ces belles créatures_;” and introduces the term “_femmes d’une -vie équivoque_” as a rendering for “sinners,” he strikes a note so false -that no praise lavished afterwards can restore harmony. - -The late Lord Houghton was one of the men of note who I met occasionally -at the houses of friends. I had known him in Italy and he was always -kind to me and invited me to his Christmas parties at Frystone, which -were said to be delightful, but to which I did not go. For a poet he had -an extraordinarily rough exterior and blunt manner. One day we had a -regular set-to argument lasting a long time. He attacked the order of -things with the usual pessimist observations on all the evil in the -world, and implied that I had no reasonable right to my faith. I -answered as best I could, with some earnestness, and he finally -concluded the discussion by remarking with concentrated contempt: “You -might almost as well be a Christian!” Next day I went to Westminster -Abbey and was sitting in the Dean’s pew, when, to my amusement Lord -Houghton came in just below, with a party of ladies and took a seat -exactly opposite me. He behaved of course with edifying propriety, but I -could not help reflecting with a smile on our argument of the night -before, and wondering how many members of that and similar congregations -who were naturally counted by outsiders as faithful supporters of the -orthodox creed, were as little so, _au fond_, as either Lord Houghton or -I. - -With Carlyle, though I saw him very frequently, I never interchanged -more than a few _banal_ words of civility. When his biography -appeared, I was, (as I frankly told the illustrious biographer) -exceedingly glad that I had never given him the chance of attaching -one of his pungent epigrams to my poor person. I had been introduced -to him by a lady at whose house he happened to call one afternoon when -I was sitting with her, and where he showed himself (as it seems to me -the roughest men invariably do in the society of amiable -Countesses),—extremely _apprivoisé_. Also I continually met him out -walking with one or other of his great historian friends, who were -also mine, but I avoided trespassing on their good nature; or -addressing him when he walked up and down alone daily before our door -in Cheyne Walk,—till one day when he had been very ill, I ventured to -express my satisfaction in seeing him out of doors again. He then -answered me kindly. I never shared the admiration felt for him by so -many able men who knew him personally, and therefore had means which I -did not possess, of estimating him aright. To me his books and himself -represented an anomalous sort of human Fruit. The original stock was a -hard and thorny Scotch peasant-character, with a splendid intellect -superadded. The graft was not wholly successful. A flavour of the old -acrid sloe was always perceptible in the plum. - -The following letter was received by Dr. Hoggan in reply to a letter to -Mr. Carlyle concerning Vivisection: - - - “Keston Lodge, Beckenham, - “28th August, 1875. - - “Dear Sir, - - “Mr. Carlyle has received your letter, and has read it carefully. He - bids me say, that ever since he was a boy when he read the account of - Majendie’s atrocities, he has never thought of the practice of - vivisecting animals but with horror. I may mention that I have heard - him speak of it in the strongest terms of disgust long before there - was any speech about public agitation on the subject. He believes that - the reports about the good results said to be obtained from the - practice of vivisection to be immensely exaggerated; with the - exception of certain experiments by Harvey and certain others by Sir - Charles Bell, he is not aware of any conspicuous good that has - resulted from it. But even supposing the good results to be much - greater than Mr. Carlyle believes they are, and apart too from the - shocking pain inflicted on the helpless animals operated upon, he - would still think the practice so brutalising to the operators that he - would earnestly wish the law on the subject to be altered, so as to - make Vivisection even in Institutions like that with which you are - connected a most rare occurrence, and when practised by private - individuals an indictable offence. - - “You are not sure that the operators on living animals ‘can be counted - on your fingers.’ Mr. Carlyle with an equal share of certainty - believes Vivisection and other kindred experiments on living animals - to be much more largely practised, and that they are by no means - uncommonly undertaken by doctors’ apprentices and ‘other miserable - persons.’ - - “You are mistaken if you look upon the _Times_ as a mirror of virtue; - on this very subject when it at first began to be publicly discussed - last winter, it printed a letter from ... which your letter itself - would prove to be altogether composed of falsehoods. - - “With Mr. Carlyle’s compliments and good wishes, - - “I remain, dear Sir, - “Yours truly, - “MARY CARLYLE AITKEN.” - - -Mr. Carlyle supported our Anti-vivisection Society from the outset, for -which I was very grateful to him; but having promised to join our first -important deputation to the Home Office, to urge the Government to bring -in a Bill in accordance with the recommendations of the Royal -Commission, he failed at the last moment to put in an appearance, having -learned that Cardinal Manning was to be also present. I was told that he -said he would not appear in public with the Cardinal, who was, he -thought, “the chief emissary of Beelzebub in England!” When this was -repeated to me, my remark was:—“Infidels _is riz_! Time was, when -Cardinals would not appear in public with infidels!” - -Nothing has surprised me more in reading the memoirs and letters of -Mr. and Mrs. Carlyle than the small interest either of them seems to -have felt in the great subjects which formed the life-work of their -many illustrious visitors. While humbler folk who touched the same -circles were vehemently attracted, or else repelled, by the -political, philosophical and theological theories and labours of -such men as Mazzini, Mill, Colenso, Jowett, Martineau and Darwin, -and every conversation and almost every letter contained new facts, -or animated discussions regarding them, the Carlyles received visits -from these great men continually, with (it would seem) little or no -interest in their aims or views one way or the other, in approval or -disapproval; and wrote and talked much more seriously about the -delinquencies of their own maidservants, and the great and -never-to-be-sufficiently-appealed-against cock and hen nuisance. - -I had known Cardinal Manning in Rome about 1861 or 1863 when he was -“Monsignor Manning,” and went a little into English society, resplendent -in a beautiful violet robe. He was very busy in those days making -converts among English young ladies, and one with whom we were -acquainted, the daughter of a celebrated authoress, fell into his net. -He had, at all times, a gentle way of ridiculing English doings and -prejudices which was no doubt telling. One of the stories he told me was -of an Italian sacristan asking him “what was the _Red Prayer Book_ which -all the English tourists carried about and read so devoutly in the -churches?” (of course Murray’s _Hand-books_).[25] - -A few years afterwards when he had returned to England as Archbishop of -Westminster, I met him pretty frequently at Miss Stanley’s house in -Grosvenor Crescent. He there attacked me cheerfully one evening: “Miss -Cobbe I have found out something against you. I have discovered that -Voltaire was part-owner of a Slave-ship!” - -“I beg you to believe,” said I, “that I have no responsibility whatever -respecting Voltaire! But I would ask your Grace, whether it be not true -that Las Casas, the saintly Dominican, _founded_ Negro Slavery in -America?” A Church of England friend coming up and laughing, I -discharged a second barrel: “And was not the Protestant Saint, Newton of -Olney,—much worse than all,—the _Captain_ of a Slave-ship?”[26] - -One evening at this pleasant house I was standing on the rug in one of -the rooms talking to Mr. Matthew Arnold and two or three other -acquaintances of the same set. The Archbishop, on entering shook hands -with each of us, and we were all talking in the usual easy, -sub-humorous, London way when a tall military-looking man, a Major G., -came in, and seeing Manning, walked straight up to him, went down on one -knee and kissed his ring! A bomb falling amongst us would scarcely have -been more startling; and Manning, Englishman as he was to the backbone -under his fine Roman feathers, was obviously disconcerted, though -dignified as ever. - -In a letter to a friend dated Feb. 19th, 1867, I find I said: - - - “I had an amusing conversation with Archbishop Manning the other night - at Miss Stanley’s. He was most good-humoured, coming up to me as I was - talking to Sir C. Trevelyan, about Rome, and saying ‘I am glad you - think of going to Rome next winter, Miss Cobbe. It proves you expect - the Pope to be firmly established there still.’ We had rather a long - talk about Passaglia who he says _has_ recanted,—[a fact I heard - strongly contradicted later.] Mr. J. (now Sir H. J.) came behind him - in the midst of our talk and almost pitched the Archbishop on me, with - such a push as I never saw given in a drawing-room! The Dean and Lady - Augusta came in later, and she asked eagerly: ‘Where was Manning?’ - having never seen him. He had gone away, so I told her of the - enthusiastic meeting which had afforded a spectacle to us all an hour - before, between him and Archdeacon Denison. It was quite a scene of - ecclesiastical reconciliation; a ‘Reunion of Christendom!’ (They had - been told each that the other was in the adjoining room, and - Archdeacon Denison literally rushed with both hands outspread to meet - the Cardinal, whom he had not seen since his conversion.)” - - -In later years, I received at least half-a-dozen notes from time to time -from his Eminence asking for details of our Anti-vivisection work, and -exhibiting his anxiety to master the facts on which he proposed to speak -at our Meetings. Here are some of these notes:— - - - “Archbishop’s House, Westminster, S.W., - “June 12th, 1882. - - “Dear Miss Cobbe, - - “I should be much obliged if you would send me some recent facts or - utterances of the Mantegazza kind, for the meeting at Lord - Shaftesbury’s. I have for a long time lost all reckoning from - overwork, and need to be posted up. - - “Believe me, always faithfully yours, - “_Henry E._, Card. Archbp.” - - - “Cardinal Manning to Miss F. P. C. - “Eastern Road, Brighton. - - “Dear Miss Cobbe, - - “I can assure you that my slowness in answering your letter has not - arisen from any diminution of care on Vivisection. I was never better - able to understand it, for I have been for nearly three weeks in pain - day and night from neuralgia in the right arm, which makes writing - difficult. - - “I have not seen Mr. Holt’s Bill, and I do not know what it aims at. - - “Before I can say anything, I wish to be fully informed. The Bill of - last year does not content me. - - “But we must take care not to weaken what we have gained. I hope to - stay here over Sunday, and should be much obliged if you could desire - someone to send me a copy of Mr. Holt’s Bill. - - “Has sufficient organised effort been made to enforce Mr. Cross’s Act? - - “Believe me, always yours very truly, - “HENRY E., Card. Archbp.” - - - “Archbishop’s House, Westminster, S.W., - “June 22nd, 1884. - - “Dear Miss Cobbe, - - “I will attend the meeting of the 26th unless hindered by some - unforeseen necessity, but I must ask you to send me a brief. I am so - driven by work that for some time I have fallen behind your - proceedings. Send me one or two points marked and I will read them up. - - “My mind is more than ever fixed on this subject. - - “Believe me, yours faithfully, - “HENRY E., Card. Archbp.” - - - “Archbishop’s House, Westminster, S.W., - “January 27th, 1887. - - “My dear Miss Cobbe, - - “For the last three weeks I have been kept to the house by one of my - yearly colds; but if possible I will be present at the Meeting of the - Society. If I should be unable to be there I will write a letter. - - “I clearly see that the proposed Physiological and Pathological - Institute would be centre and sanction of ever advancing Vivisection. - - “I hope you are recovering health and strength by your rest in the - country? - - “Believe me, always faithfully yours, - “HENRY E., Card. Archbp.” - - - “Archbishop’s House, Westminster, S.W., - “July 31st, 1889. - - “My dear Miss Cobbe, - - “My last days have been so full that I have not been able to write. I - thank you for your letter, and for the contents of it. The highest - counsel is always the safest and best, cost us what it may. We may - take the cost as the test of its rectitude. - - “I hope you will go on writing against this inflation of vain glory - calling itself Science. - - “Believe me, always, very truly yours, - “HENRY E., Card. Archbishop.” - - -At no less than seven of our annual Meetings (at one of which he -presided) did Cardinal Manning make speeches. All these I have myself -reprinted in an ornamental pamphlet to be obtained at 20, Victoria -Street. The reasons for his adoption of our Anti-vivisection cause, -were, I am sure, mainly moral and humane; but I think an incident which -occurred in Rome not long before our campaign began may have impressed -on his mind a regret that the Catholic Church had hitherto done nothing -on behalf of the lower animals, and a desire to take part himself in a -humane crusade and so rectify its position before the Protestant world. - -Pope Pio IX. had been addressed by the English in Rome through Lord -Ampthill, (then Mr. Odo Russell, our representative there)—with a -request for permission to found a Society for Prevention of Cruelty to -Animals in Rome; where, (as all the world knows) it was almost as -deplorably needed as at Naples. After a considerable delay, the formal -reply through the proper Office, was sent to Mr. Russell _refusing_ the -(indispensable) permission. The document conveying this refusal -expressly stated that “a Society for such a purpose could not be -sanctioned in Rome. Man owed duties to his fellow men; but he owed no -duties to the lower animals therefore, though such societies might exist -in Protestant countries they could not be allowed to be established in -Rome.” - -The late Lord Arthur Russell, coming back from Italy to England just -after this event, told me of it with great detail, and assured me that -he had seen the Papal document in his brother’s possession; and that if -I chose to publish the matter in England, he would guarantee the truth -of the story at any time. I _did_ very much choose to publish it, -thinking it was a thing which ought to be proclaimed on the housetops; -and I repeated it in seven or eight different publications, ranging from -the _Quarterly Review_ to the _Echo_. Soon after this, if I remember -rightly, began the Anti-vivisection movement, and almost immediately -when the Society for Protection of Animals from Vivisection (afterwards -called the Victoria Street Society) was founded, by Dr. Hoggan and -myself, Cardinal Manning gave us his name and active support. He took -part in our first Deputation to the Home Office, and spoke at our first -meeting, which was held on the 10th June, 1876, at the Westminster -Palace Hotel. On that occasion, when it came to the Cardinal’s turn to -speak, he began at once to say that “Much misapprehension existed as to -the attitude of his Church on the subject of duty to animals.” [As he -said this, with his usual clear, calm, deliberate enunciation, he looked -me straight in the face and I looked at him!] He proceeded to say: “It -was true that man owed no duty _directly_ to the brutes, but he owed it -to God, whose creatures they are, to treat them mercifully.” - -This was, I considered a very good way of reconciling adhesion to the -Pope’s doctrine, with humane principles; and I greatly rejoiced that -such a _mezzo-termine_ could be put forward on authority. Of course in -my private opinion the Cardinal’s ethics were theoretically untenable, -seeing that if it were possible to conceive of such a thing as a -creature made by a man, (as people in the thirteenth century believed -that Arnaldus de Villa-Nova had made a living man), or even such a thing -as a creature made by the Devil,—that most wretched being would still -have a right to be spared pain if _he were sensitive to pain_; and would -assuredly be a proper object of measureless compassion. That a dog or -horse is a creature of God; that its love and service to us come of -God’s gracious provisions for us; that the animal is unoffending to its -Creator, while we are suppliants for forgiveness for our offences; all -these are true and tender reasons for _additional_ kindness and care for -these our dumb fellow-creatures. But they are not (as the Cardinal’s -argument would seem to imply) the _only_ reasons for showing mercy -towards them. - -Nevertheless it was a great step,—I may say an historical event,—that a -principle practically including universal humanity to the lower animals, -should have been enunciated publicly and formally by a “Prince of the -Church” of Rome. That Cardinal Manning was not only the first great -Roman prelate to lay down any such principle, but that he far outran -many of his contemporaries and co-religionists in so doing, has become -painfully manifest this year (1894) from the numerous letters from -priests which have appeared in the _Tablet_ and _Catholic Times_, -bearing a very different complexion. Cardinal Manning repeated almost -_verbatim_ the same explanation of his own standpoint in his speech on -March 9th, 1887, when he occupied the chair at our Annual Meeting. He -said: - - - “It is perfectly true that obligations and duties are between moral - persons, and therefore the lower animals are not susceptible of those - moral obligations which we owe to one another; but we owe a seven-fold - obligation to the Creator of those animals. Our obligation and moral - duty is to Him who made them, and, if we wish to know the limit and - the broad outline of our obligation, I say at once it is His Nature - and His perfections; and, among those perfections, one is most - profoundly that of eternal mercy. (Hear, hear.) And, therefore, - although a poor mule or a poor horse is not indeed a moral person, yet - the Lord and Maker of that mule and that horse is the highest - law-giver, and His Nature is a law to Himself. And, in giving a - dominion over His creatures to man, He gave them subject to the - condition that they should be used in conformity to His own - perfections, which is His own law, and, therefore, our law.” - - -On the first occasion a generous Roman Catholic nobleman present gave me -£20 to have the Cardinal’s speech translated into Italian and widely -circulated in Italy. - -I have good reason to believe that when Cardinal Manning went to Rome -after the election of Leo XIII., he spoke earnestly to his Holiness on -the subject of cruelty to animals generally in Italy, and especially -concerning Vivisection, and that he understood the Pope to agree with -him and sanction his attitude. I learned this from a private source, but -his Eminence referred to it quite unmistakeably in his speech at Lord -Shaftesbury’s house on the 21st June, 1882, as follows:— - - - “I am somewhat concerned to say it, but I know that an impression has - been made that those whom I represent look, if not with approbation, - at least with great indulgence, at the practice of Vivisection. I - grieve to say that abroad there are a great many (whom I beg to say I - do not represent) who do favour the practice; but this I do protest, - that there is not a religious instinct in nature, nor a religion of - nature, nor is there a word in revelation, either in the Old Testament - or the New Testament, nor is there to be found in the great theology - which I do represent, no, nor in any Act of the Church of which I am a - member; no, nor in the lives and utterances of any one of those great - servants of that Church who stand as examples, nor is there an - authoritative utterance anywhere to be found in favour of Vivisection. - There may be the chatter, the prating, and the talk of those who know - nothing about it. And I know what I have stated to be the fact, for - some years ago I took a step known to our excellent secretary, and - brought the subject under the notice and authority where alone I could - bring it. And those before whom it was laid soon proved to have been - profoundly ignorant of the outlines of the alphabet even of - Vivisection. They believed entirely that the practice of surgery and - the science of anatomy owed everything to the discoveries of - vivisectors. They were filled to the full with every false impression, - but when the facts were made known to them, they experienced a - revulsion of feeling.” - - -Cardinal Manning also, (as I happen likewise to know) made a great -effort about 1878 or 1879, to induce the then General of the -Franciscans, to support the Anti-vivisection movement _for love of St. -Francis_, and his tenderness to animals. In this attempt, however, -Cardinal Manning must have been entirely unsuccessful, as no modern -Franciscan that ever I have heard of, has stirred a finger on behalf of -animals anywhere, or given his name to any Society for protecting them, -either from vulgar or from scientific cruelty. Knowing this, I confess -to feeling some impatience when the name of St. Francis and his amiable -fondness for birds and beasts is perpetually flaunted whenever the lack -of common humanity to animals visible in Catholic countries happens to -be mentioned. It is a very small matter that a Saint, six hundred years -ago, sang with nightingales and fed wolves, if the monks of his own -Order and the priests of the Church which has canonised him, never warn -their flocks that to torment God’s creatures is even a venial sin, and -when forced to notice barbarous cruelties to a brute, invariably reply, -“_Non è Cristiano_,” as if all claims to compassion were dismissed by -that consideration! - -The answer of the General of the Franciscans to Cardinal Manning’s -touching appeal was,—“that he had consulted his doctor and that his -doctor assured him that _no such thing as Vivisection was ever practised -in Italy_!” - -I was kindly permitted to call at Archbishop’s House and see Cardinal -Manning several times; and I find the following little record of one of -my first visits in a letter to my friend, written the same, or next -day:— - - - “I had a very interesting interview with the Cardinal. I was shown - into a vast, dreary dining-room quite monastic in its whitey-brown - walls, poverty-stricken furniture, crucifix, and pictures of - half-a-dozen Bishops who did not exhibit the ‘Beauty of Holiness.’ The - Cardinal received me most kindly, and said he was so glad to see me, - and that he was much better in health after a long illness. He is not - much changed. It was droll to sit talking _tête-à-tête_ with a man - with a pink _octagon_ on his venerable head, and various little scraps - of scarlet showing here and there to remind one that ‘_Grattez_’ the - English gentleman and you will find the Roman Cardinal! He told me, - really with effusion, that his heart was in our work; and he promised - to go to the Meeting to-morrow.... I told him we all wished _him_ to - take the chair. He said it would be much better for a layman like Lord - Coleridge to do so. I said, ‘I don’t think you know the place you hold - in English, (I paused and added _avec intention_,) _Protestant_ - estimation’! He laughed very good-humouredly and said: ‘I think I do, - very well.’” - - -At the Meeting on the following day when he _did_ take the chair, I had -opportunities as Hon. Sec., of which I did not fail to avail myself, of -a little quiet conversation with his Eminence before the proceedings. - -I spoke of the moral results of Darwinism on the character and remarked -how paralyzing was the idea that Conscience was merely an hereditary -instinct fixed in the brain by the interests of the tribe, and in no -sense the voice of God in the heart or His law graven on the “fleshly -tablets.” He abounded in my sense, and augured immeasurable evils from -the general adoption of such a philosophy. I asked him what was the -Catholic doctrine of the origin of Souls? He answered, promptly and -emphatically: “O, that each one is a distinct creation of God.” - -The last day on which His Eminence attended a Committee Meeting in -Victoria Street I had a little conversation with him as usual, after -business was over; and reminded him that on every occasion when he had -previously attended, we had had our beloved President, Lord Shaftesbury -present. “Shall I tell your Eminence,” I asked, “what Mrs. F.” (now Lady -B.) “told me Lord Shaftesbury said to her shortly before he died, about -our Committees here? He said that ‘if our Society had done nothing else -but bring you and him together, and make you sit and work at the same -table for the same object, it would have been well worth while to have -founded it!’” “_Did_ Lord Shaftesbury say that?” said the Cardinal, with -a moisture in his eyes, “_Did_ he say that? I _loved_ Lord Shaftesbury!” - -And _these_, I reflected, were the men whom narrow bigots of both -creeds, looked on as the very chiefs of opposing camps and bitter -enemies! The one rejoiced at an _excuse_ for meeting the other in -friendly co-operation! The other said as his last word: “I _loved_ him!” - -I was greatly touched by this little scene, and going straight from it -to the house of the friend who had told me of Lord Shaftesbury’s remark, -I naturally described it to her and to Mr. Lowell, who was taking tea -with us. “Ah, yes!” Lady B. said,—“I remember it well, and I could show -you the very tree in the park where we were sitting when Lord -Shaftesbury made that remark. But” (she added) “why did you not tell the -Cardinal that he included _you_? What Lord Shaftesbury said was, that -‘the Society had brought the Cardinal and you and himself to work -together.’” Mr. Lowell was interested in all this, and the evidence it -afforded of the width of mind of the great philanthropist, so often -supposed to be “a narrow Evangelical.” - -Alas! he also has “gone over to the majority.” I met him often and liked -him (as every one did) extremely. Though in so many ways different, he -had some of Mr. Gladstone’s peculiar power of making every conversation -wherein he took part interesting; of turning it off dusty roads into -pleasant paths. He had not in the smallest degree that tiresome habit of -_giving information_ instead of _conveying impressions_, which makes -some worthy people so unspeakably fatiguing as companions. I had once -the privilege of sitting between him and Lord Tennyson when they carried -on an animated conversation, and I could see how much the great Poet was -delighted with the lesser one; who was also a large-hearted Statesman; a -silver link between two great nations. - -I shall account it one of the chief honours which have fallen to my lot -that Tennyson asked leave, through his son, to pay me a visit. Needless -to say I accepted the offer with gratitude and, fortunately, I was at -home, in our little house in Cheyne Walk, when he called on me. He sat -for a long time over my fire, and talked of poetry; of the share -melodious words ought to have in it; of the hatefulness of scientific -cruelty, against which he was going to write again; and of the new and -dangerous phases of thought then apparent. Much that he said on the -latter subject was, I think, crystallised in his _Locksley Hall Sixty -Years Later_. After he had risen to go and I had followed him to the -stairs, I returned to my room and said from my heart, “_Thank God!_” The -great poem which had been so much to me for half a lifetime, was not -spoiled; the Man and the Poet were one. Nothing that I had now seen and -heard of him in the flesh jarred with what I had known of him in the -spirit. - -After this first visit I had the pleasure of meeting Lord Tennyson -several times and of making Lady Tennyson’s charming acquaintance; the -present Lord Tennyson being exceedingly kind and friendly to me in -welcoming me to their house. On one occasion when I met Lord Tennyson at -the house of a mutual friend, he told me, (with an innocent surprise -which I could not but find diverting,) that a certain great Professor -had been positively angry and rude to him about his lines in the -_Children’s Hospital_ concerning those who “carve the living hound”! I -tried to explain to him the fury of the whole _clique_ at the discovery -that the consciences of the rest of mankind has considerably outstepped -theirs in the matter of humanity and that while they fancied themselves, -(in his words,) “the heirs of all the ages, in the foremost files of -Time,” it was really in the Dark Ages, as regarded humane sentiment,—or -at least one or two centuries past,—in which they lingered; practising -the Art of Torture on beasts, as men did on men in the sixteenth -century. I also tried to explain to him that his ideal of a Vivisector -with red face and coarse hands was quite wrong, and as false as the -representation of Lady Macbeth as a tall and masculine woman. Lady -Macbeth _must_ have been small, thin and concentrated, not a big, bony, -conscientious Scotch woman; and Vivisectors (some of them at all events) -are polished and handsome gentlemen, with peculiarly delicate fingers -(for drawing out nerves, &c., as Cyon describes). - -Lord Tennyson from the very first beginning of our Anti-vivisection -movement, in 1874, to the hour of his death, never once failed to append -his name to every successive Memorial and Petition,—and they were -many,—which I, and my successors, sent to him; and he accepted and held -our Hon. Membership and afterwards the Vice-Presidency of our Society -from first to last. - -The last time I saw Lord Tennyson was one day in London after I had -taken luncheon at his house. When I rose to leave the table, and he -shook hands with me at the door as we were parting, as we supposed, for -that season; he said to me: “Good-Bye, Miss Cobbe—Fight the good Fight. -Go on! Fight the good Fight.” I saw him no more; but I shall do his -bidding, please God, to the end. - -I shall insert here two letters which I received from Lord Tennyson -which, though trifling in themselves, I prize as testimonies of his -sympathy and goodwill. I am fortunately able to add to them two papers -of some real interest,—the contemporary estimate of Tennyson’s first -poems by his friends, the Kembles; and the announcement of the death of -Arthur Hallam by his friend John Mitchell Kemble to Fanny Kemble. They -have come into my possession with a vast mass of family and other papers -given me by Mrs. Kemble several years ago, and belong to a series of -letters, marvellously long and closely written, by John Kemble, during -and after his romantic expedition to Spain along with the future -Archbishop Trench and the other young enthusiasts of 1830. The way in -which John Mitchell Kemble speaks of his friend Alfred Tennyson’s Poems -is satisfactory, but much more so is the beautiful testimony he renders -to the character of Hallam. It is touching, and uplifting too, to read -the rather singular words “of a holier heart,” applied to the subject of -“_In Memoriam_,” by his young companion. - - - “Farringford, Freshwater, - “Isle of Wight, - “June 4th, 1880. - - “Dear Miss Cobbe, - - “I have subscribed my name, and I hope that it may be of some use to - your cause. - - “My wife is grateful to you for remembrance of her, and - - “I am, ever yours, - “A. TENNYSON.” - - - “Aldworth, Haslemere, - “Surrey, January 9th, 1882. - - “My dear Miss Cobbe, - - “I thank you for your essay, which I found very interesting, though - perhaps somewhat too vehement to serve your purpose. Have you seen - that terrible book by a Swiss (reviewed in the _Spectator_) _Ayez - Pitié_? Pray pardon my not answering you before. I am so harried with - letters and poems from all parts of the world, that my friends often - have to wait for an answer. - - “Yours ever, - “A. TENNYSON.” - - - “Farringford, Freshwater, - “Isle of Wight, June 12th, 1882. - - “Dear Miss Cobbe, - - “I am sorry to say that I shall not be in London the 21st, so that I - cannot be present at your meeting. Many thanks for asking me. My - father has been suffering from a bad attack of gout, and does not feel - inclined to _write_ more about Vivisection. You have, as you know, his - warmest good wishes in all your great struggle. When are we to see you - again? Can you not pay us a visit at Haslemere this summer? - - “With our kindest regards, - “Yours very sincerely, - “HALLAM TENNYSON.” - - -Extract from letter from John M. Kemble to Fanny Kemble. No date. In -packet of 1830–1833:— - - - “I am very glad that you like Tennyson’s Poems; if you had any poetry - in you, you could not help it; for the general system of criticism, - and the notion that a poet is to be appreciated by everybody, if he be - a poet, are mighty fallacies. It was only the High Priest who was - privileged to enter the Holy of Holies; and so it is with that other - Holy of Holies, no less sacred and replete with divinity, a great - poet’s mind: therein no vulgar foot may tread. To meet this objection, - it is often said that all men appreciate, &c., &c., Shakespeare and - Milton, &c. To this I answer by a direct denial. Not one man in a - hundred thousand cares three straws for Milton; and though from being - a _dramatic_ Poet Shakespeare must be better understood, I believe I - may say that not one in a hundred thousand feels all that is to be - felt in him. There is no man who has done so much as Tennyson to - express poetical feeling by _sound_; Titian has done as much with - colours. Indeed, I believe no poet to have lived since Milton, so - perfect in his form, except Göthe. In this matter, Shelley and Keats - and Byron, even Wordsworth, have been found wanting. Coleridge - expresses the greatest admiration for Charles Tennyson’s sonnets; we - have sent him Alfred’s poems, which, I am sure, will delight him.” - - -Extract from letter from John Mitchell Kemble to Fanny Kemble:— - - - “It is with feelings of inexpressible pain that I announce to you the - death of poor Arthur Hallam, who expired suddenly from an attack of - apoplexy at Vienna, on the 15th of last month. Though this was always - feared by us as likely to occur, the shock has been a bitter one to - bear: and most of all so to the Tennysons, whose sister Emily he was - to have married. I have not yet had the courage to write to Alfred. - This is a loss which will most assuredly be felt by this age, for if - ever man was born for great things he was. Never was a more powerful - intellect joined to a purer and holier heart; and the whole - illuminated with the richest imagination, the most sparkling yet the - kindest wit. One cannot lament for him that he is gone to a far better - life, but we weep over his coffin and wonder that we cannot be - consoled. The Roman epitaph on two young children: _Sibi met ipsis - dolorem abstulerunt, suis reliquere_ (from themselves they took away - pain, to their friends they left it!) is always present to my mind, - and somehow the miserable feeling of loneliness comes over one even - though one knows that the dead are happier than the living. His poor - father was with him only. They had been travelling together in Hungary - and were on their return to England; but there had been nothing - whatever to announce the fatal termination of their journey; indeed, - bating fatigue, Arthur had been unusually well. Our other friends, - though all mourning for him as if he had been our brother, are well.” - - -In my chapter on Italy I have written some pages concerning Mr. and Mrs. -Browning, and printed two or three kind letters from him to me. It is a -great privilege, I now feel, to have known, even in such slight measure -these two great poets. But what an unspeakable blessing and honour it -has been for England all through the Victorian Age to have for her -representatives and teachers in the high realm of poetry, two such men -as Tennyson and Browning; men of immaculate honour, blameless and -beautiful lives, and lofty and pure inspiration! Not one word which -either has ever published need be blotted out by any recording angel, -and, widely different as they were, their high doctrine was the same. -The one tells us that “good” will be “the final goal of ill”; the other -that— - - “God’s in His Heaven! - All’s right with the world!” - -I have had also the good fortune to find other English poets ready to -sympathise with me on the subject of Vivisection. Sir Henry Taylor wrote -many letters to me upon it and called my attention to his own lines -which go so deep into the philosophy of the question, and which I have -since quoted so often; - - “Pain in Man - Bears the high mission of the flail and fan, - In brutes ’tis purely piteous.” - -Here is one of his notes to me:— - - - “The Roost, Bournemouth, - “November 25th, 1875. - - “Dear Miss Cobbe, - - “I return your papers that they may not be wasted. I wish you all the - success you deserve, which is all you can desire. But I can do - nothing. My hands are full here, and my pockets are empty. - - “Two months ago I succeeded in forming a local Society for the - Prevention of Cruelty in this place. - - “We have ordered prosecutions every week since, and have obtained - convictions in every case. And these local operations are all that I - can undertake or assist. - - “Believe me, yours sincerely, - “HENRY TAYLOR.” - - -He was also actively interested in an effort to improve the method of -slaughtering cattle by using a mask with a fixed hole in the centre, -through which a long nail may be easily driven, straight through the -exact suture of the skull to the brain, causing instant death. Sir Henry -specially approved the masks for this purpose, made, I believe, under -his own direction at Bournemouth, by Mr. Mendon, a saddler at Lansdowne. - -Mr. Lewis Morris has also written some beautiful and striking poems -touching on the subject of scientific cruelty, and I have reason to hope -that a younger man, who many of us look upon as the poet of the future -in England, Mr. William Watson, is entirely on the same side. In short, -if the _Priests_ of Science are against us, the _Prophets_ of Humanity, -the Poets, are with us in this controversy, almost to a man. - -It will be seen that we had Politicians, Historians, and thinkers of -various parties among our friends in London; but there were no Novelists -except that very agreeable woman Miss Jewsbury and the two Misses Betham -Edwards. Mr. Anthony Trollope I knew but slightly. I had also some -acquaintance with a very popular novelist, then a young man, who was -introduced in the full flush of his success to Mr. Carlyle, whereon the -“Sage of Chelsea” greeted him with the _encouraging_ question, “Well, -Mr. —— when do you intend to _begin to do something sairious_?” - -With Mr. Wilkie Collins I exchanged several friendly letters concerning -some information he wanted for one of his books. The following letter -from him exhibits the “Sairius” spirit, at all events (as Mr. Carlyle -might admit), in which he set about spinning the elaborate web of his -exciting tales. - - - “90, Gloucester Place, Portman Square, W., - “23rd June, 1882. - - “Dear Madam, - - “I most sincerely thank you for your kind letter and for the pamphlets - which preceded it. The ‘Address’ seems to me to possess the very rare - merit of forcible statement combined with a moderation of judgment - which sets a valuable example, not only to our enemies, but to some of - our friends. As to the ‘Portrait,’ I feel such a strong universal - interest in it that I must not venture on criticism. You have given me - exactly what I most wanted for the purpose that I have in view—and you - have spared me time and trouble in the best and kindest of ways. If I - require further help, you shall see that I am gratefully sensible of - the help that has been already given. - - “I am writing to a very large public both at home and abroad; and it - is quite needless (when I am writing to _you_) to dwell on the - importance of producing the right impression by means which keep clear - of terrifying and revolting the ordinary reader. I shall leave the - detestable cruelties of the laboratory to be merely inferred, and, in - tracing the moral influence of those cruelties on the nature of the - man who practices them, and the result as to his social relations with - the persons about him, I shall be careful to present him to the reader - as a man _not_ infinitely wicked and cruel, and to show the efforts - made by his better instincts to resist the inevitable hardening of the - heart, the fatal stupefying of all the finer sensibilities, produced - by the deliberately merciless occupations of his life. If I can - succeed in making him, in some degree, an object of compassion as well - as of horror, my experience of readers of fiction tells me that the - right effect will be produced by the right means. - - “Believe me, very truly yours, - “WILKIE COLLINS.” - - -Of another order of acquaintances was that excellent man Mr. James -Spedding; also Mr. Babbage, (in whose horror of street music I devoutly -sympathised); and Mr. James Fergusson the architect, in whose books and -ideas generally I found great interest. He avowed to me his opinion that -the ancient Jews were never builders of stone edifices, and that all the -relics of stone buildings in Palestine were the work either of Tyrians -or of the Idumean Herod, or of other non-Jewish rulers. His conversation -was always most instructive to me, and I rejoiced when I had the -opportunity of writing a long review (for _Fraser_ I think) of his _Tree -and Serpent Worship_; with which he was so well pleased that he made me -a present of the magnificent volume, of which I believe only a hundred -copies were printed. Mr. Fergusson taught me to see that the whole -civilization of a country has depended historically on the stones with -which it happens naturally to be furnished. If these stones be large and -hard and durable like those of Egypt, we find grand, everlasting -monuments and statues made of them. If they be delicate and beautiful -like Pentelic marble, we have the Parthenon. If they be plain limestone -or freestone as in our northern climes, richness of form and detail take -the place of greater simplicity, and we have the great cathedrals of -England, France and Germany. Where there is no good stone, only brick, -we may have fine mansions, but not great temples, and where there is -neither clay for bricks, nor good stone for building, the natives can -erect no durable edifices, and consequently have no places to be adorned -with statues and paintings and all the arts which go with them. I do not -know whether I do justice to Mr. Fergusson in giving this _résumé_ of -his lesson, but it is my recollection of it, and to my thinking worth -recording. - -One of the friends of whom we saw most in London was Sir William Boxall, -whose exquisite artistic taste was specially congenial to my friend, and -his varied conversation and love of his poor, dear, old dog “Garry,” to -me. After Lord Coleridge’s charming obituary of him nothing need be -added in the way of tribute to his character and gifts, or to the -refined feeling which inspired him always. I may add, however (what the -Lord Chief Justice naturally would not say on his own account), namely, -that Boxall, in his latter years of weakness and almost constant -confinement to the house, frequently told us when we went to visit him -how Lord Coleridge had found time from all his labours to come -frequently to sit with him and cheer him; and after a whole day spent in -the hot Law Courts would dine on his old friend’s chops, and spend the -evening in his dingy rooms in Welbeck Street. Here is a letter from Sir -William which I happen to have preserved. It refers to an article I had -written in the _Echo_ on the death of Landseer:— - - - “My dear Miss Cobbe, - - “Your sympathetic notice of my old friend Landseer and his friends has - delighted me—a grain of such feeling is worth a newspaper load of - worn-out criticism. I thank you very sincerely for it. - - “I should have called upon you, but I have been shut up with the cold - which threatened me when I last saw you. - - “Yours very sincerely, - “W. BOXALL. - - “October 6th, 1879. - - “There is no hope of my getting to Dolgelly. It will be a great escape - for Miss Lloyd, for I am utterly worn out.” - - -I find that the most common opinion about Lord Shaftesbury is, that he -was an excellent and most disinterested man, who did a vast amount of -good in his time among the poor, and in the factories and on behalf of -the climbing-boy sweeps, but that he was somewhat narrowminded; and dry, -if not stern in character. Perhaps some would add that his extreme -Evangelicalism had in it a tinge of Calvinistic bigotry. I shared very -much such ideas about him till one day in 1875, when I had gone to -Stanhope Street to consult Lord and Lady Mount-Temple, my unfailing -helpers and advisers, about some matter connected with Lord Henniker’s -Bill then before Parliament,—for the restriction of Vivisection. After -explaining my difficulty, Lady Mount-Temple said, “We must consult Lord -Shaftesbury about this matter. Come with me now to his house.” I yielded -to my kind friend, but not without hesitation, fearing that Lord -Shaftesbury would, in the first place, be too much absorbed in his great -philanthropic undertakings to spare attention to the wrongs of the -brutes; and, in the second, that his religious views were too strict to -allow him to co-operate with such a heretic as I, even if (as I was -assured) he would tolerate my intrusion. How widely astray from the -truth I was as regarded his sentiments in both ways, the sequel proved. -He had already, it appeared, taken great interest in the -Anti-vivisection controversy then beginning, and entered into it with -all the warmth of his heart; not as something _taking him off_ from -service to mankind, but _as apart of his philanthropy_. He always -emphatically endorsed my view; that, if we could save Vivisectors from -persisting in the sin of Cruelty, we should be doing them a moral -service greater than to save them from becoming pickpockets or -drunkards. He also felt what I may call passionate pity for the tortured -brutes. He loved dogs, and always had a large beautiful Collie lying -under his writing-table; and was full of tenderness to his daughters’ -Siamese cat, and spoke of all animals with intimate knowledge and -sympathy. As to my heresies, though he knew of them from the first, they -never interfered with his kindness and consideration for me, which were -such as I can never remember without emotion. - -I shall speak in its place in another chapter of the share he took as -leader and champion of our party in all the subsequent events connected -with the Anti-vivisection agitation. I wish here only to give, (if it -may be possible for me), some small idea to the reader of what that good -man really was, and to remove some of the absurd misconceptions current -concerning him. For example. He was no bigot as to Sabbatarian -observances. I told him once that I belonged to the Society for opening -Museums on Sundays. He said: “I think you are mistaken—the working men -do not wish it. See! I have here the result of a large enquiry among -their Trades Unions and clubs. Nearly all of them deprecate the change. -But I am on this point not at all of the same opinion as most of my -friends. I have told them (and they have often been a little shocked at -it), that I think if a lawyer has a brief for a case on Monday and has -had no time to study it on Saturday, he is quite justified in reading it -up on Sunday after church.” - -Neither did he share the very common bigotry of teetotalism. He said to -me, “The teetotallers have added an Eleventh Commandment, and think more -of it than of all the rest.” Again, when (as is well known) Lord -Palmerston left the choice of Bishops for many years practically in his -hands (I believe that seven owed their sees to him), and he, of course, -selected Evangelical clergymen who would uphold what he considered to be -vital religious truth, he was yet able to concur heartily in the -appointment of Arthur Stanley to the Deanery of Westminster. He told me -that Lord Palmerston had written to him before inviting Dr. Stanley, and -said that he would not do it if he, (Lord Shaftesbury) disapproved; and -that he had answered that he was well aware that Dr. Stanley’s -theological views differed widely from his own, but that he was an -admirable man and a gentleman, with special suitability for this post -and a claim to some such high office; and that he cordially approved -Lord Palmerston’s choice. I do not suppose that Dean Stanley ever knew -of this possible _veto_ in Lord Shaftesbury’s hands, but he entertained -the profoundest respect for him, and expressed it in the little poem -which he wrote about him (of which Lord Shaftesbury gave me an MS. -copy), which appears in Dean Stanley’s biography. He compares the aged -philanthropist to “a great rock’s shadow in a weary land.” - -It was a charge against Howard and some other great philanthropists -that, while exhibiting the enthusiasm of humanity on the _largest_ scale -they failed to show it on a small one, and were scantily kind to those -immediately around them. Nothing could be less true of Lord Shaftesbury. -While the direction of a score of great charitable undertakings rested -on him, and his study was flooded with reports, Bills before Parliament -and letters by the hundred,—he would remember to perform all sorts of -little kindnesses to individuals having no special claim on him; and -never by any chance did he omit an act of courtesy. No more perfectly -high-bred gentleman ever graced the old school; and no young man, I may -add, ever had a fresher or warmer heart. Indeed, I know not where I -should look among old or young for such ready and full response of -feeling to each call for pity, for sympathy, for indignation, and, I may -add, for the enjoyment of humour, the least gleam of which caught his -eye a moment. He was always particularly tickled with the absurdities -involved in the doctrine of Apostolic Succession, and whenever a -clergyman or a bishop did anything he much disapproved, he was sure to -stigmatize it from that point of view. One day he was giving me a rather -long account of some Deputation which had waited on him and endeavoured -to bully him. As he described the scene: “There they stood in a crowd in -the room, and I said to them; Gentlemen! I’ll see you.”... (Good -Heavens! I thought: _Where_ did he say he would see them?)—“I’ll see you -_at the bottom of the Red Sea_ before I’ll do it!” The revulsion was so -ludicrous and the allusion to the “Red Sea” instead of “another place,” -so characteristic, that I broke into a peal of laughter which, when -explained, made him also laugh heartily. Another day I remember his -great amusement at a story not reported, I believe, in the _Times_, but -told me by an M.P. who was present in the House when Sir P. O. had -outdone Sir Boyle Roche. He spoke of “the ingratitude of the Irish to -Mr. Gladstone _who had broken down the bridges which divided them from -England_!” - -A lady whose reputation was less unblemished than might have been -wished, and of whom I fought very shy in consequence, went to call on -him about some business. When I saw him next he told me of her visit, -and said, “When she left my study, I said to myself; ‘there goes a -_dashing Cyprian_!’” One needed to go back a century to recall this -droll old phrase. More than once he repeated, chuckling with amusement, -the speech of an old beggar woman to whom he had refused alms, and who -called after him, “You withered specimen of bygone philanthropy!” On -another occasion when he was in the Chair at a small meeting, one of the -speakers persisted in expressing over and over again his conviction that -the venerable Chairman could not be expected to live long. Lord -Shaftesbury turned aside to me and said _sotto voce_, “I declare he’s -telling me I’m going to die immediately!” “There he is saying it again! -Was there ever such a man?” Nobody was more awake than he to the -“dodges” of interested people trying to make capital out of his -religious party. A most ridiculous instance of this he described to me -with great glee. At the time of the excitement (now long forgotten) -about the Madiai family, Barnum actually called upon him (Lord -Shaftesbury) and entreated him to allow of the Madiai being taken over -to be _exhibited_ in New York! “It would be such an affecting sight,” -said Barnum, “to see _real_ Christian Martyrs!” - -As an instance of his thoughtfulness, I may mention that having one day -just received a ticket for the Private View of the Academy, he offered -it to me and I accepted it gladly, observing that since the recent death -of Boxall I feared we should not have one given to us, and that my -friend would be pleased to use it. “O, I am so glad!” said Lord -Shaftesbury; and from that day every year till he died he never once -failed to send her, addressed by himself, his tickets for each of the -two annual exhibitions. When one thinks of how men who do not do in a -year as much as he did in a week, would have scoffed at the idea of -taking such trouble, one may estimate the good nature which prompted -this over-worked man to remember such a trifle, unfailingly. - -The most touching interview I ever had with him, was one of the last, in -his study in Grosvenor Square, not long before his death. Our -conversation had fallen on the woes and wrongs of seduced girls and -ruined women; and he told me many facts which he had learned by personal -investigation and visits to dreadful haunts in London. He described all -he saw and heard with a compassion for the victims and yet a horror of -vice and impurity, which somehow made me think of Christ and the Woman -taken in adultery. After a few moments’ silence, during which we were -both rather overcome, he said, “When I feel age creeping on me, and know -I must soon die, I hope it is not wrong to say it, but I _cannot bear to -leave the world with all the misery in it_.” No words can describe how -this simple expression revealed to me the man, in his inmost spirit. He -had long passed the stage of moral effort which does good _as a duty_, -and had ascended to that wherein even the enjoyment of Heaven itself, -(which of course, his creed taught him to expect immediately after -death) had less attractions for him than the labour of mitigating the -sorrows of earth. - -I possess 280 letters and notes from Lord Shaftesbury written to me -during the ten years which elapsed from 1875, when I first saw him, till -his last illness in 1885. Many of them are merely brief notes, giving me -information or advice about my work as Hon. Sec. of the Victoria Street -Society, of which he was President. But many are long and interesting -letters. The editor of his excellent Biography probably did not know I -possessed these letters, nor did I know he was preparing Lord -Shaftesbury’s _Life_ or I should have placed them at his disposal. I can -only here quote a few as characteristic, or otherwise specially -interesting to me. - - - “Castle Wemyss, Wemyss Bay, N.B., - “September 3rd, 1878. - - “Dear Miss Cobbe, - - “Your letter is very cheering. We were right to make the experiment. - We were right to test the man and the law: Cross, and his - administration of it. Both have failed us, and we are bound in duty, I - think, to leap over all limitations, and go in for the total abolition - of this vile and cruel form of Idolatry; for idolatry it is, and, like - all idolatry, brutal, degrading, and deceptive.... - - “May God prosper us! These ill-used and tortured animals are as much - His Creatures as we are, and to say the truth, I had, in some - instances, rather be the animal tortured than the man who tortured it. - I should believe myself to have higher hopes, and a happier future. - - “Yours truly, - “SHAFTESBURY.” - - - “July 10th, 1879. - - “Dear Miss Cobbe, - - “I have sent your letter to Judas of X——. I find no fault in it, but - that of too much courtesy to one so lost to every consideration of - feeling and truth. - - “Did you know him, as I know him, you would find it difficult to - restrain your pen and your tongue.”... - - * * * * * - - “Some good will come out of the discussion. - - “I have unmistakable evidence that many were deeply impressed, but - adhesion to political leaders is a higher law with most Politicians - than obedience to the law of truth. - - “What do you think now of the Doctrine of ‘Apostolic Succession’? - - “Would St. Peter, St. Paul, and St. John have made such a speech as - that of my Lord of P——? - - “Yours truly, - “SHAFTESBURY.” - - - “Castle Wemyss, Wemyss Bay, N.B., - “September 16th, 1879. - - “Dear Miss Cobbe, - - “You do that Bishop too much honour. He is not worth notice. - - “It is frightful to see that the open champions of Vivisection are not - Bradlaugh and Mrs. B. but Bishops, ‘_Fathers in God_,’ and ‘Pastors’ - of the People! - - “We shall soon have Bradlaugh and his company claiming the Apostolical - Succession; and if that succession be founded on truth, mercy, and - love, with as good a right as Dr. G., Dr. M. or D.D. anything else. - - “Your letter has crushed (if such a hard substance can be crushed) his - Lordship of C.... - - “Yours truly, - “SHAFTESBURY.” - - -The next letter is in acknowledgment of the following verses which I had -sent to him on his Eightieth Birthday. They were repeated by the late -Chamberlain of the City of London, Sir Benjamin Scott, in his oration on -the presentation of the Freedom of the City to Lord Shaftesbury. I print -the letter, (though all too kind in its expression about my poor -verses,) on account of the deeply interesting review of his own life -which it contains:— - - A BIRTHDAY ADDRESS - - TO ANTHONY ASHLEY COOPER, 7TH EARL OF SHAFTESBURY, K.G. - APRIL 28TH, 1881. - - For eighty years! Many will count them over, - But none save He who knoweth all may guess - What those long years have held of high endeavour, - Of world-wide blessing and of blessedness. - - For eighty years the champion of the right - Of hapless child neglected and forlorn; - Of maniac dungeon’d in his double night; - Of woman overtasked and labour-worn; - - Of homeless boy in streets with peril rife; - Of workman sickening in his airless den; - Of Indian parching for the streams of life, - Of Negro slave in bonds of cruel men; - - O! Friend of all the friendless ‘neath the sun, - Whose hand hath wiped away a thousand tears, - Whose fervent lips and clear strong brain have done - God’s holy service, lo! these eighty years,— - - How meet it seems thy grand and vigorous age - Should find beyond man’s race fresh pangs to spare - And for the wrong’d and tortured brutes engage - In yet fresh labours and ungrudging care! - - O tarry long amongst us! Live, we pray, - Hasten not yet to hear thy Lord’s “Well done!” - Let this world still seem better while it may - Contain one soul like thine amid its throng. - - Whilst thou art here our inmost hearts confess, - Truth spake the kingly Seer of old who said— - “Found in the way of God and righteousness, - A crown of glory is the hoary head.” - - - “Lord Shaftesbury to Miss F. P. C. - “24, Grosvenor Square, W., - “April 30th, 1881. - - “Dear Miss Cobbe, - - “Had I not known your handwriting, I should never have guessed, either - that you were the writer of the verses, or that I was the subject of - them. - - “Had I judged them simply by their ability and force, I might have - ascribed them to the true Author; but it required the envelope, and - the ominous word ‘eighty,’ to justify me in applying them to myself. - - “They both touched and gratified me, but I will tell you the origin of - my public career, which you have been so kind as to commend. It arose - while I was a boy at Harrow School, about, I should think, fourteen - years of age—an event occurred (the details of which I may give you - some other day), which brought painfully before me the scorn and - neglect manifested towards the Poor and helpless. I was deeply - affected; but, for many years afterwards, I acted only on feeling and - sentiment. As I advanced in life, all this grew up to a sense of duty; - and I was convinced that God had called me to devote whatever - advantages He might have bestowed upon me, to the cause of the weak, - the helpless, both man and beast, and those who had none to help them. - - “I entered Parliament in 1826, and I commenced operations in 1828, - with an effort to ameliorate the conditions of lunatics, and then I - passed on in a succession of attempts to grapple with other evils, and - such has been my trade for more than half a century. - - “Do not think for a moment that I claim any merit. If there be any - doctrine that I dislike and fear more than another, it is the - ‘Doctrine of Works.’ Whatever I have done has been given to me; what I - have done I was enabled to do; and all happy results (if any there be) - must be credited, not to the servant, but to the great Master, who led - and sustained him. - - “My course, however, has raised up for me many enemies, and very few - friends, but among those friends I hope that you may be numbered. - - “Yours truly, - “SHAFTESBURY.” - - -I sent him another little _souvenir_ two years later:— - - TO LORD SHAFTESBURY ON HIS 82ND BIRTHDAY. - - WITH A CHINA TABLET. - - The Lord of Rome, historians say, - Lamented he had “lost a day,” - When no good deed was done. - Scarce one such day, methinks, appears - In the long record of the years - Of England’s worthier son. - - If on this tablet’s surface light - His hourly toils should Shaftesbury write - All may be soon effaced: - But in our grateful memories graven - And in the registers of Heaven - They will not be erased. - - _London, April 28th, 1883._ - -The next letter refers to my Lectures on the _Duties of Women_ which I -had just delivered. - - - “24, Grosvenor Square, W., - “May 14th, 1880. - - “Dear Miss Cobbe, - - “... I admire your Lectures. But do you not try to make, ‘the sex’ a - little too pugnacious? And why do you give ‘truth’ to the men, and - deny it to the women? - - “If you mean by ‘truth’ abstinence from fibs, I think that the females - are as good as the males. But if you mean steadiness of friendship, - adherence to principles, conscientiously not superficially - entertained, and sincerity in a good cause, why, the women are far - superior. - - “Yours truly, - “SHAFTESBURY.” - - - “24, Grosvenor Square, W., - “May 21st, 1880. - - “Dear Miss Cobbe, - - “... Your lecture on Vivisection was admirable—we must be ‘mealy - mouthed’ no longer. - - “Shall you and I have a conversation on your lectures and the ‘Duties - of Women’? We shall not, I believe, have much difference of opinion; - perhaps none. I approve them heartily, but there are one or two - expressions which, though intelligible to myself, would be greatly - misconstrued by a certain portion of Englishmen. - - “I could give you instances by the hundred of the wonderful success - that, by a merciful Providence, has followed with our Ragged children, - male and female.[27] In fact, though after long intervals we have lost - sight of a good many, we have very few cases, indeed, of the failure - of our hopes and efforts. - - “In thirty years we took off the streets of London, and sent to - service, or provided with means of honest livelihood more than two - hundred and twenty thousand ‘waifs and strays.’ - - “Yours truly, - “SHAFTESBURY.” - - - “July 23rd, 1880. - - “Dear Miss Cobbe, - - “I have had a very friendly letter from Gladstone; but on reference to - him for permission to publish it, he seems unwilling to assent. - - “Our testimony, thank God, is cumulative for good. We may hope, and we - must pray, for better things. - - “I send you Gladstone’s letter. Pray return it to me, and take care - that it does not appear in print.[28] - - - “I am glad that you liked the ‘Dinner.’ It was, I think, a success in - showing civility to foreign friends. - - “Yours truly, - “SHAFTESBURY.” - - -Lord Shaftesbury made the following remarks about the Future State of -Animals, in a very sympathizing reply to a letter I had written to him -in which I mentioned to him that my dog had died:— - - - “September 29th, 1883. - - “I have ever believed in a happy future for animals; I cannot say or - conjecture how or where; but sure I am that the love, so manifested, - by dogs especially, is an emanation from the Divine essence, and, as - such, it can, or rather it _will_ never be extinguished.”[29] - - - “24, Grosvenor Square, W., - “May 14th, 1885. - - “My dear Miss Cobbe, - - “You must not suppose that because I did not answer your letter, at - the moment, I am indifferent to you or your correspondence. - - “Far from it, but when I have little to do, being almost confined to - the house, I have much to write, and to get through my work, I must - frequently be relieved by a recumbent posture. - - “Nevertheless, by God’s mercy, I am certainly better; and I think that - were we blessed with some warm, genial, weather, I should recover more - rapidly. - - “Bryan[30] is a good man, he is able, diligent, zealous and has an - excellent judgment. I have not been able to attend his Committee, but - his reports to me show attention and good sense. - - “I have left, as perhaps you have seen, the Lunacy Commission. It was - at the close of 56 years of service that I did so. I dare say that you - have had time to read my letter of resignation in the _Times_ of the - 8th. - - “I am very glad that Miss Lloyd is determined to print those lines. - They are very beautiful; and you must be sure to send a copy to Miss - Marsh. She admires them as much as I do. - - “The thought of Calvary[31] is the strength that has governed all the - sentiments and actions of my manhood and later life; and you can well - believe that I greatly rejoice to find that one, whom I prize so - highly, has kindred sympathies.... - - “May God prosper you. - - “Yours truly, - - “SHAFTESBURY.” - - -The most remarkable woman I have known, not excepting Mrs. Somerville -(described in my chapter on Italy), Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Mrs. -Beecher Stowe, was, beyond any doubt or question, my dear friend, Fanny -Kemble. I have told of the droll circumstances of our first meeting at -Newbridge in the early Fifties. From that time till her death in 1892, -her brilliant, iridescent genius, her wit, her spirit, her tenderness, -the immense “go” and momentum of her whole nature, were sources of -endless pleasure to me. When I was lame, I used to feel that for days -after talking with her I could almost dispense with my crutches, so much -did she, literally, lift me up! - -Mrs. Kemble paid us several visits here in Wales, and was perhaps even -more delightful in our quiet country quarters than in London. She would -sit out for many hours at a time in our beautiful old garden, which she -said was to her “an idyll;” and talk of all things in heaven and earth; -touching in turn every note in the gamut of emotion from sorrowful to -joyous. One summer she came to us early, and thus sat daily under a -great cherry tree “in the midst of the garden,” which was at the time a -mass of odorous and snowy blossoms. Alas! the blossoms have returned and -are blooming as I write;—but the friend sleeps under the sod in Kensal -Green. - -Mr. Henry James’ obituary article and Mr. Bentley’s generous-hearted -letter concerning her in the _Times_—in rebuke of the mean and grudging -notice of her which that paper had published,—seem to me to have been by -far the most truthful sketches which appeared of the “grand old -lioness;” as Thackeray called her. Everybody could admire, and most -people a little feared her; but it needed to come very close to her and -brush past her formidable thorns of irony and sarcasm, to know and -_love_ her, as she most truly deserved to be loved. - -There is always something startling and perhaps the reverse of -attractive to those of us who have been brought up in the usual English -way to _repress_ our emotions, in women who have been trained reversely -by histrionic life, to give all possible outwardness and vividness of -expression to those same emotions. It is only when we get below both the -extreme demonstrativeness on one hand, and the conventional reserve and -self-restraint on the other, and meet on common ground of deep -sympathies, that real friendship is established; a friendship which in -my case was at once an honour and a delight. - -Mrs. Kemble in her generous affection made a present to me of the MSS. -of her Memoirs, which subsequently I induced her to take back, and -publish herself, as her “_Old Woman’s Gossip_,” her _Records of a -Girlhood_ and _Records of Later Life_. Beside these, which, as I have -said, I returned to her one after another, she gave me, and I still -possess, an immense packet of her own old letters to her beloved H. S. -(Harriet St. Leger) and others; and the materials of five large and -thick volumes of autograph letters addressed to her, extending over more -than 50 years. They include whole correspondences with W. Donne, Edward -Fitzgerald, Henry Greville, Mrs. Jameson, John Mitchell Kemble, George -Combe, and several others; and besides these there are either one or -half-a-dozen letters from almost every man and woman of eminence in -England in her time. Mr. Bentley has very liberally purchased from me -for publication about 100 letters from Edward Fitzgerald to Mrs. Kemble. -The rest of the Mrs. Kemble’s correspondence I have, as I have -mentioned, bound together in five volumes, and I do not intend to -publish them. Had any of Mrs. Kemble’s “_Records_” remained inedited at -the time of her death I should have undertaken, (as she no doubt -intended me to do) the task of writing her biography. The work was, -however, so fully done by herself in her long series of volumes that -there was neither need nor room for more. I am happy to add, in -conclusion, that in the arrangements I have made regarding my dear old -friend’s literary remains, I have the consent and approval of her -daughters. - - -I knew Mrs. Gaskell a little, but not enough to harmonize in my mind the -woman I saw in the flesh with the books I liked so well as _Mary Barton_ -and _Libbie Marsh’s Three Eras_. Of Mrs. Stowe’s delightful conversation -on the terrace of our villa on Bellosguardo, I have written my -recollections, and recorded the glimpses I had of Mrs. Browning. I have -also described Harriet Hosmer and Rosa Bonheur; our sculptor and painter -friends, from the latter of whom I have just (1898) received the kindest -letters and her impressive photograph; and Mary Carpenter, my leader and -fellow-worker at Bristol. I must not speak here of the affection and -admiration I entertain for my dear, living friend Anna Swanwick, the -translator of Æschylus and Faust; and for Louisa Lee Schuyler, one of -the leaders in the organization of relief in the great Civil War of -America and who founded and carried to its present marvellous extent of -power and usefulness the _State Charities Aid Association_ of New York. -Again, I have known in England Mdme. Bodichon (who furnished Girton with -its first thousand pounds); Mrs. Josephine Butler; Mrs. Webster the -classic poetess; and Mrs. Emily Pfeiffer, another poetess and very -beautiful woman at whose house I once witnessed an interesting scene,—a -large party of ladies and gentlemen dressed in the attire of Athenians -of the Periclean age. Miss Swanwick and I, who were alone permitted to -attend in English costume, were immensely impressed by the _ennobling_ -effect of the classic dress, not only on young and graceful people, but -on those who were quite the reverse. - -I never saw Harriet Martineau; but was so desirous of doing it that I -intended to make a journey to Ambleside for the purpose, and with that -view begged our mutual friend, the late Mrs. Hensleigh Wedgwood, to ask -leave to introduce me to her. It was an unfortunate moment, and I only -received the following kind message:— - - - “I need not say how happy I should have been to become acquainted with - Miss Cobbe; but the time is past and I am only fit for old friends who - can excuse my shortcomings. I have lost ground so much of late that - the case is clear. I must give up all hopes of so great a pleasure. - Will you say this to her and ask her to receive my kind and thankful - regards, I venture to send on the grounds of our common friendships?” - - -Of my living, beloved and honoured friends, Mrs. William Grey, Lady -Mount-Temple, Miss Shirreff, Mrs. Fawcett, Miss Caroline Stephen, Miss -Julia Wedgwood, Lady Battersea, and Miss Florence Davenport Hill, I must -not here speak. I have had the pleasure also of meeting that very fine -woman-worker Miss Octavia Hill. - -George Eliot I did not know, nor, as I have just said, did I ever meet -Harriet Martineau. But with those two great exceptions I think I may -boast of having come into contact with nearly all the more gifted -Englishwomen of the Victorian era; and thus when I speak, as I shall do -in the next chapter, of my efforts to put the claims of my sex fairly -before the world, I may boast of writing with practical personal -knowledge of what women are and can be, both as to character and -ability. - - -The decade which began in 1880 brought me many sorrows. The first was -the death of my second brother, Thomas Cobbe, of Easton Lyss. I loved -him much for his own sweet and affectionate nature; and much, too, for -the love of our mother which he shared especially with me. I was also -warmly attached to his beautiful and good Scotch wife, who survived him -only a few years; and to his dear children, who were my pets in infancy -and have been almost like my own daughters ever since. My brother ought -to have been a very successful and brilliant barrister, but his life was -broken by the faults of others, and when in advanced years he wrote, -with immense patience and research, a really valuable _History of the -Norman Kings_ (thought to be so by such competent judges as Mr. William -Longman, and the Historical Society of Normandy, which asked leave to -translate it), the book was practically _killed_ by a cruel and most -unfair review which attributed to him mistakes which he had not made, -and refused to publish his refutation of the charge. If this review were -written (as we could not but surmise) by an eminent historian, now dead, -whose own book my brother had, very unwisely, ignored, I can only say it -was a malicious and spiteful deed. My brother’s ambition was not strong -enough to carry him over such a disappointment, and he never attempted -to write again for the press, but spent his later years in the solitary -study of his favourite old chronicles and his Shakespeare. A little -later my eldest brother also died, leaving no children. I must be -thankful at my age that the youngest, the Rector of Maulden, though five -years older than I, still survives in health and vigour, rejoicing in -his happy home and family of affectionate daughters. I trust yet to -welcome him into the brotherhood of the pen when his great monograph on -LUTON CHURCH, HISTORICAL AND DESCRIPTIVE, sees the light this year. - -I lost also in this same decade, my earliest friend Harriet St. Leger; -and a younger, very dear one, Emily Shaen. Mrs. Shaen and her admirable -husband had been much drawn to me by religious sympathies; and I -regarded her with more heartfelt respect, I might say reverence, than I -can well express. She endured twenty years of seclusion and suffering, -with the spirit at once of a saint and of a philosopher. Had her health -enabled her to take her natural place in the world, I have always felt -assured she would have been recognised as one of the ablest as well as -one of the best women of the day, and more than the equal of her two -gifted sisters; Catharine and Susanna Winkworth. The friendship between -us was of the closest kind. I often said that I _went to church_ to her -sick-room. In her last days, when utterly crushed by incessant suffering -and by the death of her beloved husband and her favourite son, she bore -in whispers, to me, (she could scarcely speak for mortal weakness,) this -testimony to our common faith: “I sent for you,—to tell you,—_I am more -sure than ever that God is Good_.” - - -All these deaths and the heart-wearing Anti-vivisection work combined -with my own increasing years to make my life in London less and less a -source of enjoyment and more of strain than I could bear. In 1884 Miss -Lloyd, with my entire concurrence, let our dear little house in Hereford -Square to our friend, Mrs. Kemble, and we left London altogether and -came to live in Wales. - - - - - CHAPTER - XIX. - _CLAIMS OF WOMEN._ - - -It was not till I was actively engaged in the work of Mary Carpenter at -Bristol, and had begun to desire earnestly various changes of law -relating to young criminals and paupers, that I became an advocate of -“Women’s Rights.” It was good old Rev. Samuel J. May, of Syracuse, New -York, who, when paying us a visit, pressed on my attention the question: -“_Why should you not have a vote?_ Why should not women be enabled to -influence the making of the laws in which they have as great an interest -as men?” - -My experience probably explains largely the indifference of thousands of -women, not deficient in intelligence, in England and America to the -possession of political rights. They have much anxiety to fulfil their -home duties, and the notion of undertaking others, requiring (as they -fully understand) conscientious enquiry and reflection, rather alarms -than attracts them. But the time comes to every woman worth her salt to -take ardent interest in some question which touches legislation. Then -she begins to ask herself, as Mr. May asked me; “Why should the fact of -being a woman, close to me the use of the plain, direct means, of -helping to achieve some large public good or stopping some evil?” The -timid, the indolent, the conventional will here retreat, and try to -believe that it concerns men only to right the wrongs of the world in -some more effectual way than by single-handed personal efforts in -special cases. Others again,—and of their number was I—become deeply -impressed with the need of woman’s voice in public affairs, and -thenceforth attach themselves to the “Woman’s Cause” more or less -earnestly. For my own part I confess I have been chiefly moved by -reflection on the sufferings and wrongs borne by women, in great measure -owing to the _deconsideration_ they endure consequent on their political -and civil disabilities. Whilst I and other happily circumstanced women, -have had no immediate wrongs of our own to gall us, we should still have -been very poor creatures had we not felt bitterly those of our less -fortunate sisters, the robbed and trampled wives, the mothers whose -children were torn from them at the bidding of a dead or living father, -the daughters kept in ignorance and poverty while their brothers were -educated in costly schools and fitted for honourable professions. Such -wrongs as these have inspired me with the persistent resolution to do -everything in my power to protect the property, the persons and the -parental rights of women. - -I do not think that this resolve has any necessary connection with -theories concerning the equality of the sexes; and I am sure that a -great deal of our force has been wasted on fruitless discussions such -as: “Why has there never been a female Shakespeare?” A Celt claiming -equal representation with a Saxon, _or any representation at all_, might -just as fairly be challenged to explain why there has never been a -Celtic Shakespeare, or a Celtic Tennyson? My own opinion is, that women -_en masse_ are by no means the intellectual equals of men _en -masse_;—and whether this inequality arise from irremediable causes or -from alterable circumstances of education and heredity, is not worth -debating. If the nation had established an intellectual test for -political equality, and admission to the franchise were confined to -persons passing a given Standard; well and good. Then, no doubt, there -would be (as things now stand) fifty per cent. of men who would win -votes, and perhaps only thirty per cent. of women. So much may be freely -admitted. But then that thirty per cent. of females _would_ obtain -political rights; and those who failed, would be debarred by a natural -and real, not an arbitrary inferiority. Such a state of things would not -present such ludicrous injustice as that which obtains,—for example,—in -a parish not a hundred miles from my present abode. There is in the -village in question a man universally known therein as “The _Idiot_;” a -poor slouching, squinting fellow, who yet rents a house and can do rough -field work, though he can scarcely speak intelligibly. _He_ has a vote, -of course. The owner of his house and of half the parish, who holds also -the advowson of the living, is a lady who has travelled widely, -understands three or four languages, and studies the political news of -Europe daily in the columns of the _Times_. That lady, equally of -course, has _no_ vote, no power whatever to keep the representation of -her county out of the hands of the demagogues naturally admired by the -Idiot and his compeers. Under the regulations which create inequalities -of this kind is it not rather absurd to insist perpetually, (as is the -practise of our opponents,) on the _intellectual_ inferiority of -women,—as if it were really in question? - -I hold, however, that whatever be our real mental rank,—to be tested -thoroughly only in future generations, under changed conditions of -training and heredity,—we women are the _equivalents_, though not the -_equals_, of men. And to refuse a share in the law-making of a nation to -the most law-abiding half of it; to exclude on all largest questions the -votes of the most conscientious, temperate, religious and (above all) -most merciful and tender-hearted moiety, is a mistake which cannot fail, -and _has_ not failed, to entail great evil and loss. - -I wrote, as I have mentioned in Chapter XV., a great many articles, -(chiefly in _Fraser_ and _Macmillan_,) on women’s concerns about the -years 1861–2–3: “_What shall we do with our Old Maids?_”; “_Female -Charity, Lay and Monastic_;” “_Women in Italy in 1862_;” “_The Education -of Women_;” “_Social Science Congress and Women’s Part in them_;” and, -later, “_The Fitness of Women for the Ministry of Religion_.” These made -me known to many women who were fighting in the woman’s cause; Miss -Bessie Parkes (now Madame Belloc), Madame Bodichon, Mrs. Grey, Miss -Shirreff, Mrs. Peter Taylor, Miss Becker, and others; and when -Committees were formed for promoting Woman Suffrage, I was invited to -join them. I did so; and frequently attended the meetings, though not -regularly. We had several Members of Parliament and other gentlemen -(notably Mr. Frederick Hill, brother of my old friend Recorder Hill and -of Sir Rowland), who generally helped our deliberations; and many able -women, among others Mrs. Augusta Webster, the poetess; and Lady Anna -Gore Langton, an exceedingly sensible woman, who also held Drawing-Room -Suffrage Meetings (at which I spoke) in her house. We had for secretary -Miss Lydia Becker; a woman of singular political ability, for whom I had -a sincere respect. Her premature death has been an incalculable loss to -the women of England. She gave me the impression of one of those -ill-fated people whose outward persons do not represent their inward -selves. I am sure she had a large element of softness and sensitiveness -in her nature, unsuspected by most of those with whom she laboured. She -was a most courageous and straightforward woman, with a single eye to -the great political work which she had undertaken, and which I think no -one has understood so well as she. - -After Miss Becker’s lamented death the great schism between Unionists -and Home Rulers extended far enough to split even our Committee, (which -was avowedly of no party,) into two bodies. I naturally followed my -fellow-Unionist, Mrs. Fawcett when she re-organized the moiety of the -Society and established an office for it in College Street, Westminster. -Believing her to be quite the ablest woman-economist and politician in -England, I entertain the hope that she may at last carry a Woman -Suffrage Bill and live to see qualified single women recording their -votes at Parliamentary elections. When that time arrives every one will -scoff at the objections which have so long closed the “right of way,” to -us of the “weaker sex.” - -Beside the Committee of the Society for _Woman Suffrage_, I also joined -for a time the Committee which,—long afterwards,—effected the splendid -achievement of procuring the passage of the _Married Women’s Property -Act_; the greatest step gained up to the present time for women in -England. I can claim no part of that real honour, which is due in -greatest measure to Mrs. Jacob Bright. - -The question of granting University Degrees to women, was opened as far -back as 1862. In that year I read, in the Guildhall in London at the -Social Science Congress, a paper, pleading for the privilege. Dean -Milman, who occupied the Chair, was very kind in praising my crude -address, and enjoyed the little jokes wherewith it was sprinkled; but -next morning every daily paper in London laughed at my demand, and for a -week or two I was the butt of universal ridicule. Nevertheless, just 17 -years afterwards, I was invited to join a Deputation headed by Lady -Stanley of Alderley, to thank Lord Granville for having (as President of -London University) conceded those degrees to women, precisely as I had -demanded! I took occasion at the close of the pleasant interview, to -present him with one of the very few remaining copies of my original and -much ridiculed appeal. - -From this time I wrote and spoke not unfrequently on behalf of women’s -political and civil claims. One article of mine in _Fraser_, 1868, was -reprinted more than once. It was headed “_Criminals, Idiots, Women and -Minors_;” and enquired “Whether the classification should be counted -sound?” I hope that the discussion it involved on the laws relating to -the property of married women was of some service in helping on the -great measure of justice afterwards granted. - -Another paper of mine, circulated by the _London National Society for -Women’s Suffrage_, for whom I wrote it, was entitled “_Our Policy_.” It -was, in effect, an address to women concerning the best way to secure -the suffrage. I began this pamphlet by the following remarks:— - - - “There is an instructive story, told by Herodotus, of an African - nation which went to war with the South Wind. The wind had greatly - annoyed these Psyllians by drying up their cisterns, so they organised - a campaign and set off to attack the enemy at head-quarters—somewhere, - I presume, about the Sahara. The army was admirably equipped with all - the military engines of those days; swords and spears, darts and - javelins, battering rams and catapults. It happened that the South - Wind did not, however, suffer much from these weapons, but got up one - fine morning and blew!—The sands of the desert have lain for a great - many ages over those unfortunate Psyllians; and, as Herodotus placidly - concludes the story, ‘The Nasamones possess the territory of those who - thus perished.’ - - “It seems to me that we, women, who have been fighting for the - Suffrage with logical arguments—syllogisms, analogies, demonstrations, - and reductions-to-the-absurd of our antagonists’ position, in short, - all the weapons of ratiocinative warfare—have been behaving very much - like those poor Psyllians, who imagined that darts, and swords, and - catapults would avail against the Simoom. The obvious fact is, that it - is _Sentiment_ we have to contend against, not Reason; Feeling and - Prepossession, not intellectual Conviction. Had Logic been the only - obstacle in our way, we should long ago have been polling our votes - for Parliamentary as well as for Municipal and School Board elections. - To those who hold that Property is the thing intended to be - represented by the Constitution of England, we have shown that we - possess such property. To those who say that Tax-paying and - Representation should go together, we have pointed to the - tax-gatherers’ papers, which, alas! lie on our hall-tables wholly - irrespective of the touching fact that we belong to the ‘protected - sex.’ Where Intelligence, Education, and freedom from crime are - considered enough to confer rights of citizenship, we have remarked - that we are quite ready to challenge rivalry in such particulars with - those Illiterates for whose exercise of political functions our Senate - has taken such exemplary care. Finally, to the ever-recurring charge - that we cannot fight, and therefore ought not to vote, we have replied - that the logic of the exclusion will be manifest when all the men too - weak, too short, or too old for the military standard be likewise - disfranchised, and when the actual soldiers of our army are accorded - the suffrage. - - “But it is Sentiment, not Logic, against which we have to struggle; - and we shall best do so, I think, by endeavouring to understand and - make full allowance for it; and then by steady working, shoulder to - shoulder so as to conquer, or rather _win_ it over to our side.” - - -In 1876, May 13th, I made a rather long and elaborate speech on the -subject of women’s suffrage in a meeting in St. George’s Hall, at which -Mr. Russell Gurney, the Recorder of London, took the chair. John Bright -had spoken against our Bill in the House, and though I had not intended -to speak at our meeting, I was spurred by indignation to reply to him. -In this address I spoke chiefly of the wrongs of mothers whose children -are taken from them at the will of a living or dead father. I ended by -saying:— - - - “I advocate Woman Suffrage as the natural and needful constitutional - means of protection for the rights of the weaker half of the nation. I - do this as a woman pleading for women. But I do it also, and none the - less confidently, as a citizen, and for the sake of the whole - community, because it is my conviction that such a measure is no less - expedient for men than just for women; and that it will redound in - coming years ever more and more to the happiness, the virtue and the - honour of our country.” - - -Several years after this, I wrote a letter which was printed in the -(American) _Woman’s Tribune_, May 1st, 1884. It expresses so exactly -what I feel still on the subject that I shall redeem it if possible from -oblivion. The following are the passages for which I should like to ask -the reader’s attention: - - - “If I may presume to offer an old woman’s counsel to the younger - workers in our cause, it would be that they should adopt the point of - view—that it is before all things our _Duty_ to obtain the franchise. - If we undertake the work in this spirit, and with the object of using - the power it confers, whenever we gain it, for the promotion of - justice and mercy and the kingdom of God upon earth, we shall carry on - all our agitation in a corresponding manner, firmly and bravely, and - also calmly and with generous good temper. And when our opponents come - to understand that this is the motive underlying our efforts, they, on - their part, will cease to feel bitterly and scornfully toward us, even - when they think we are altogether mistaken. - - “That people MAY conscientiously consider that we are mistaken in - asking for woman suffrage, is another point which it surely behoves us - to carry in mind. - - “We naturally think almost exclusively of many advantages which would - follow to our sex and to both sexes from the entrance of woman into - political life. But that there are some ‘lions in the way,’ and rather - formidable lions, too, ought not to be forgotten. - - “For myself, I would far rather that women should remain without - political rights to the end of time than that they should lose those - qualities which we comprise in the word ‘womanliness;’ and I think - nearly every one of the leaders of our party in America and in England - agrees with me in this feeling. - - “The idea that the possession of political rights will destroy - ‘womanliness,’ absurd as it may seem to us, is very deeply rooted in - the minds of men; and when they oppose our demands, it is only just to - give them credit for doing so on grounds which we should recognize as - valid, _if their premises were true_. It is not so much that our - opponents (at least the better part of them) despise women, as that - they really prize what women _now are_ in the home and in society so - highly that they cannot bear to risk losing it by any serious change - in their condition. These fears are futile and faithless, but there is - nothing in them to affront us. To remove them, we must not use violent - words, for every such violent word confirms their fears; but, on the - contrary, show the world that while the revolutions wrought by men - have been full of bitterness and rancour, and stormy passions, if not - of bloodshed, we women will at least strive to accomplish our great - emancipation calmly and by persuasion and reason.” - - -I was honoured about this time by several friendly advances from -American ladies and gentlemen interested like myself in woman’s -advancement. The astronomer, Prof. Maria Mitchell, wrote me a charming -letter, which I exceedingly regret should have been lost, as I felt -particular interest in her great achievements. I had the pleasure of -receiving Mrs. Julia Ward Howe in Hereford Square, and also Mrs. -Livermore, whose speech at one of our Suffrage Meetings realised my -highest ideal of a woman’s public address. Her noble face and figure -like that of a Roman Matron, her sweet manners and playful humour -without a scintilla of bitterness in it,—as if she were a mother -remonstrating with a foolish, school-boy son,—were all delightful to me. - -Col. J. W. Higginson, who has been so good a friend and adviser to -women, also came to see me, and gave me some bright hours of -conversation on his wonderful experiences in the war, during which he -commanded a coloured regiment, which fought valiantly under his -leadership. Finally I had the privilege of being elected a member of the -famous _Sorosis_ Club of New York, and of receiving the following very -pleasant letter conveying the gift of a pretty gold and enamel brooch, -the badge of the Sisterhood. - - - “Dear Madam, - - “The ladies of _Sorosis_—The Woman’s Club of New York—beg your - acceptance of the accompanying Pin, the insignia of their - organization, which they send by the hand of their foreign - correspondent, Mrs. Laura Curtis Ballard. - - “Trifling as is this testimonial in itself, they feel that if you knew - the genuine appreciation of you and your work that goes with it—the - gratitude with which each one regards you as a faithful worker for - women—you would not consider it unworthy your acceptance. With best - wishes for your continued health, which in your case means continued - usefulness, - - “I am, dear Madam, - “With great respect and esteem, - “Your obedient Servant, - “CELIA BURLEIGH, - “Cor. Sec. Sorosis. - - “37, Huntingdon Street, Brooklyn, New York, - “June 21st, 1869.” - - -The part of my work for women, however, to which I look back with most -satisfaction was that in which I laboured to obtain protection for -unhappy wives, beaten, mangled, mutilated or trampled on by brutal -husbands. One day in 1878 I was by chance reading a newspaper in which a -whole series of frightful cases of this kind were recorded, here and -there, among the ordinary news of the time. I got up out of my armchair, -half dazed, and said to myself: “I will never rest till I have tried -what I can do to stop this.” - -I thought anxiously what was the sort of remedy I ought to endeavour to -put forward. A Parliamentary Blue Book had been printed in 1875 -entitled: “Reports on the State _of the law relating to Brutal -Assaults_,” and the following is a summary of the results. There was a -large consensus of opinion that the law as it now stands is insufficient -for its purpose. Lord Chief Justice Cockburn, Mr. Justice Lush, Mr. -Justice Mellor, Chief Baron Kelly, Barons Bramwell, Pigott and Pollock, -all expressed the same judgment (pp. 7–19). The following gave their -opinion in favour of flogging offenders in cases of brutal assaults. -Lord Chief Justice Cockburn, Mr. Justices Blackburn, Mellor, Lush, -Quain, Archibald, Brett, Grove, Chief Baron Kelly, Barons Bramwell, -Pigott, Pollock, Charles, and Amphlett. Only Lord Coleridge and Lord -Denman hesitated, and Mr. Justice Keating opposed flogging. Of Chairmen -of Quarter Sessions 64 (out of 68, whose answers were sent to the Home -Office,) and the Recorders of 41 towns, were in favour of flogging. -After all this testimony of the opinions of experts (collected of course -at the public expense), _three years_ elapsed during which absolutely -nothing was done to make any practical use of it! During the interval, -scores of Bills, _interesting to the represented sex_, passed through -Parliament; but _this_ question on which the lives of women literally -hung, was never mooted! Something like 5,000 women, judging by the -published judicial statistics, were in those years “brutally assaulted;” -_i.e._, not merely struck, but maimed, blinded, burned, trampled on by -strong men in heavy shoes, and, in many cases, murdered outright; and -thousands of children were brought up to witness scenes which (as -Colonel Leigh said) “infernalise a whole generation.” Where lay the -fault? Scarcely with the Government, or even with Parliament, but with -the simple fact that, under our present constitution, Women, having no -votes, can only exceptionally and through favour, bring pressure to bear -to force attention even to the most crying of injustices under which -they suffer. The Home Office _must_ attend first to the claims of those -who can bring pressure to bear on it; and Members of Parliament _must_ -bring in the measures pressed by their constituents; and thus the -unrepresented _must_ go to the wall. - -The cases of cruelty of which I obtained statistics, furnished to me -mainly by the kindness of Miss A. Shore, almost surpassed belief. It -appeared that about 1,500 cases of aggravated (over and above ordinary) -assaults on wives took place every year in England; on an average about -four a day. Many of them were of truly incredible savagery; and the -victims were, in the vast majority of cases, not drunken viragos (who -usually escape violence or give as good as they receive), but poor, -pale, shrinking creatures, who strove to earn bread for their children -and to keep together their miserable homes; and whose very tears and -pallor were reproaches which provoked the _heteropathy_ and cruelty of -their tyrants. - -After much reflection I came to the conclusion that in spite of all the -authority in favour of flogging the delinquents, it was _not_ expedient -on the women’s behalf that they should be so punished, since after they -had undergone such chastisement, however well merited, the ruffians -would inevitably return more brutalised and infuriated than ever; and -again have their wives at their mercy. The only thing really effective, -I considered, was to give the wife the power of separating herself and -her children from her tyrant. Of course in the upper ranks, where people -could afford to pay for a suit in the Divorce Court, the law had for -some years opened to the assaulted wife this door of escape. But among -the working classes, where the assaults were ten-fold as numerous and -twenty times more cruel, no legal means whatever existed of escaping -from the husband returning after punishment to beat and torture his wife -again. I thought the thing to be desired was the extension of the -privilege of rich women to their poorer sisters, to be effected by an -Act of Parliament which should give a wife whose husband had been -convicted of an aggravated assault on her, the power to obtain a -Separation Order under Summary Jurisdiction. - -Mr. Alfred Hill, J.P., of Birmingham, son of my old friend Recorder -Hill, most kindly interested himself in my project, and drafted a Bill -to be presented to Parliament embodying my wishes. Meanwhile; I set -about writing an article setting forth the extent of the evil, the -failure of the measures hitherto taken in various Acts of Parliament, -and, finally, the remedy I proposed. This article my friend Mr. Percy -Bunting was good enough to publish in the _Contemporary Review_ in the -spring of 1878. I also wrote an article in _Truth_ on _Wife Torture_, -afterwards reprinted. Meanwhile, I had obtained the most cordial -assistance from Mr. Frederick Pennington and Mr. Hopwood, both of whom -were then in Parliament, and it was agreed that I should beg Mr. Russell -Gurney to take charge of the Bill which these gentlemen would support. I -went accordingly, armed with the draft Bill, to the Recorder’s house in -Kensington Palace Gardens, and, as I anxiously desired to find him at -home, I ventured to call as early as 10.30. Mr. Gurney read the draft -Bill carefully, and entirely approved it. “Then,” I said, “you will take -charge of it, I earnestly hope?” “No,” said Mr. Gurney, “I cannot do -that; I am too old and over-worked to undertake all the watching and -labour which may be necessary; but I will put my name on the back of it, -with pleasure.” - -I knew, of course, that his name would give the measure great importance -and also help me to find some other M.P. to take charge of it, so I -could not but thank him gratefully. At that moment of our interview, his -charming wife entered the room leading a little boy; I believe his -nephew. Naturally I apologized to Mrs. Gurney for my presence at that -unholy hour of the morning; and said, “I came to Mr. Gurney in my -anxiety, as the Friend of Women.” Mr. Gurney, hearing me, put his hands -on the little lad’s shoulder and said to him, “Do you hear that, my boy? -I hope that when you are an old man, as I am, some lady like Miss Cobbe -may call you _the Friend of Women_!” - -At last, the Bill embodying precisely the purport of that drawn up for -me by Mr. Hill, and subsequently published in the _Contemporary Review_, -was read a first time, the names of Mr. Herschell (now Lord Herschell) -and Sir Henry Holland (afterwards Lord Knutsford) being on the back of -it. Every arrangement was made for the second Reading; and for avoiding -the opposition which we expected to meet from a party which seems always -to think that by _calling_ certain unions “Holy” a Church can sanctify -that which has become a bond of savage cruelty on one side, and -soul-degrading slavery on the other. Just at this crisis, Lord Penzance, -who was bringing a Bill into the House of Lords to remedy some defects -concerning the costs of the intervention of the Queen’s Proctor in -Matrimonial causes, introduced into it a clause dealing with the case of -the assaulted wives, and giving them precisely the benefit contemplated -in our Bill and in my article; namely, that of Separation Orders to be -granted by the same magistrates who have convicted the husband of -aggravated assaults upon them. That Lord Penzance had seen our Bill, -then before the Lower House, (it was ordered to be printed February -14th) and had had his attention called to the subject, either by it, or -by my article in the _Contemporary Review_, I have taken as probable, -but have no exact knowledge. I went at once to call on him and thank him -from my heart for undertaking to do this great service of mercy to -women; and also to pray him to consider certain points about the custody -of the children of such assaulted wives. Lord Penzance received me with -the utmost kindness and likewise gave favourable consideration to a -letter or two which I ventured to address to him. It is needless to say -that his advocacy of the measure carried it through the House of Lords -without opposition. I believe that in speaking for it he said that if -any noble Lord needed proof of the grievous want of such protection for -wives they would find it in my article, which he held in his hand. - -There was still, we feared, an ordeal to go through in the House of -Commons; but the fates and hours were propitious, and the Bill, coming -in late one night as already passed by the House of Lords and with Lord -Penzance’s great name on it,—escaped opposition and was accepted without -debate. By the 27th May, 1878, it had become the law of the land, and -has since taken its place as Chapter 19 of the 41st Vict. _An Act to -amend the Matrimonial Causes Acts._ The following are the clauses which -concern the assaulted Wives:— - - - 4. If a husband shall be convicted summarily or otherwise of an - aggravated assault within the meaning of the statute twenty-fourth and - twenty-fifth Victoria, chapter one hundred, section forty-three, upon - his wife, the Court or magistrate before whom he shall be so convicted - may, if satisfied that the future safety of the wife is in peril, - order that the wife shall be no longer bound to cohabit with her - husband; and such order shall have the force and effect in all - respects of a decree of judicial separation on the ground of cruelty; - and such order may further provide, - - 1. That the husband shall pay to his wife such weekly sum as the Court - or magistrate may consider to be in accordance with his means, and - with any means which the wife may have for her support, and the - payment of any sum of money so ordered shall be enforceable and - enforced against the husband in the same manner as the payment of - money is enforced under an order of affiliation; and the Court or - magistrate by whom any such order for payment of money shall be made - shall have power from time to time to vary the same on the - application of either the husband or the wife, upon proof that the - means of the husband or wife have been altered in amount since the - original order or any subsequent order varying it shall have been - made. - - 2. That the legal custody of any children of the marriage under the - age of ten years shall, in the discretion of the Court or - magistrate, be given to the wife. - - -At first the magistrates were very chary of granting the Separation -Orders. One London Police Magistrate had said that the House of Commons -would never put such power in the hands of one of the body, and he was, -I suppose, proportionately startled when just six weeks later, it -actually lay in his own. By degrees, however, the practice of granting -the Orders on proper occasions became common, and appears now to be -almost a matter of course. I hope that at least a hundred poor souls -each year thus obtain release from their tormentors, and probably the -deterrent effect of witnessing such manumission of ill-treated slaves -may have still more largely served to protect women from the violence of -brutal husbands. - -Six years after the Act had passed in 1884, I received a letter from a -very energetic and prominent woman-worker with whom I had a slight -acquaintance, in which the following passages occur. I quote them here -(though with some hesitation on the score of vanity) for they have -comforted me much and deeply, and will do so to my life’s end. - - - “On Wednesday last I was two hours with a widow,—of O——, near W——; one - of those persons who _make_ a country so good, brave, loving and - hardworking! For 33 long years she lived with a fiend of a husband, - and suffered furious blows, kicks, and attacks with ropes, hot water, - and crockery; was hurled down cellar-steps, &c., starved and insulted. - All the time, up early and at work managing a large shop and - superintending 35 girls.... - - “I wish you could have been there to hear her tell me that ‘the law - was altered now,’ and how her niece had got a separation for brutal - treatment; and (best of all) ‘her two bairns’ (children). As for the - 8s. a week ordered,—the wife never ‘bothers after that.’ ‘The Lord has - stopped that villain’s ways, and she wants no more.’ I could not help - crying, as I looked at the exquisitely clean person and home,—the - determined face, and thought of the diabolical horrors this good, - clever woman had gone through. I told her how you had got the law - altered—and she kept saying ‘She’s a lady—she’s a lady. Bring her to - O——, Missis! and we’ll _percession_ her down t’ street!’... - - “You have love and gratitude from our hearts, I assure you; we live - wider lives and better for your presence. I have ventured to write - freely on a subject some would find wearisome, but your heart is big - and will sympathise; and I am always longing for you to know the - active result of your achieved work. This! that poor battered, bruised - women are relieved—are safer—and bless you, and so do I, from a full - heart. - - “I am, dear Miss Cobbe, - “Yours faithfully, - “A. S.” - - -If I could hear before I die that I had been able to do as much for -tortured brutes, I should say “_Nunc Dimittis_,” and wish no more. - -Some time after this (I have kept no copy or record of date) I delivered -a Lecture, which was a good deal noticed at the time, on the _Little -Health of Ladies_. It was an exposure of the evils resulting to families -from the state of semi-invalidism in which so many women live, usually -gently lapped therein by interested advisers. I exhorted women to do, as -a duty to God and man, everything possible to avoid falling into this -wretched condition, with the self-indulgence and neglect of home and -social duties leading to it or consequent on it. I did not then know as -much as I subsequently learned of the inner history of a great deal of -this misery, or I might have added to my warning some remarkable -denunciations by honourable doctors of the practices of their -colleagues.[32] - -A singular incident followed the publication of this address in one of -the Magazines. - -There was a lady, whose husband was a wealthy manufacturer in the North -of England, who came to London once or twice a year, and for several -years called on me; having much sympathy with my various interests. She -appeared to be a confirmed invalid, crawling with great difficulty out -of her carriage into our dining-room, and lying on a sofa during her -visits. One day I was told she had come, and I was hastening to receive -her downstairs, when a tall, elegant woman, whom I scarcely recognized, -walked firmly and lightly, into my drawing-room, and greeted me -cordially with laughter in her eyes at my astonishment. - -“So glad to see you so well!” I exclaimed, “but what has happened to -you?” - -“It is _you_ who have effected the cure!” she answered. - -“Good gracious! How?” - -“Why, I read your _Little Health of Ladies_, and I resolved to set my -doctor at naught and go about like other people. And you see how well I -am! There was really nothing the matter with me but want of exercise!” - -I saw her several times afterwards in good health; and once she brought -me a beautiful gold bracelet with clasp of diamonds set in black enamel, -which she had had made for me, and which she forced me to accept as a -token of her gratitude. I am fond of wearing it still. - -Another incident strongly confirmed my belief in the source of much of -the evil and misery arising from the _Little Health of Ladies_. -Travelling one day from Brighton I fell into conversation with a -nice-looking, well-bred woman the only other occupant of the railway -carriage. Speaking of the salubrity of Brighton, she said, “I am sure I -have reason enough to bless it. I was for fourteen years a miserable -invalid on my sofa in London; my doctor telling me I must never go out -or move. At last I said to my husband, ‘It is better to die than to go -on thus;’ and, in defiance of our Doctor, he brought me away to -Brighton, and there I soon grew, as you see, quite strong; and—and,—I -must tell you, _I have a little baby_, and my husband is so happy!” - -That clever Gynæcologist lost, I daresay, a hundred, or perhaps two -hundred, a year by the escape of his patient from his assiduous -visitations; but the lady gained health and happiness; her husband his -wife’s companionship; and both of them a child! How much of the miseries -and ill-health, and, in many cases, death of women (of the poorer -classes especially) lies at the door of medical practitioners and -operators, too fond by half of the knife, is known to those who have -read the recent articles and correspondence respecting the Women’s -Hospitals and “Human Vivisection” therein in the _Daily Chronicle_ (May, -1894) and in the _Homœopathic World_ for June. - -Quite apart from the doctors, however, a great deal of the sickliness of -women is undoubtedly due to wretched fashions of tight-lacing, and -wearing long and heavy skirts, and tight, thin boots, which render free -exercise of their limbs impossible. Nothing makes me really despair of -my sex, except looking at fashion-plates; or seeing (what is much worse -still, being wicked, as well as foolish) the adornments so many women -use of dead birds, stuck on their empty heads and heartless breasts. -These things are a disgrace to women for which I have often felt they -_deserve_ to be despised and swept aside by men as soulless creatures -unworthy of freedom. But alas! it is precisely the women who adopt these -idiotic fashions in dress, and wear (abominable cruelty!) Egrets as -ornaments, who are _not_ despised but admired by men, who reserve their -indifference and contempt for their homely and sensible sisters. Men in -these respects are as silly as the fish in the river caught by a gaudy -artificial fly on a hook, or enticed into a net by a scrap of scarlet -cloth, and a glittering morsel of brass. I often wonder whether women -are generally, as little capable of forming a discriminating judgment of -men? - -Lastly, there is a cause of female ill-health which always impresses me -with profoundest pity, and which has never, I think, been fairly brought -to the front as the origin of a large part of feminine feebleness. I -mean the common want, among women who earn their livelihood, of -sufficiently brain-nourishing and stimulating food. Let any man, the -strongest in the land in body and mind, subsist for one week on tea -without milk, and bread and butter, and at the end of that time, he -will, I venture to predict, have lost half his superiority. His nervous -excitability and cheerfulness may remain, or even be enhanced, but the -faculty of largely grasping and strongly dealing with the subjects -presented to him, and of doing thorough and complete work, nay even the -_desire_ of such perfection and finish, will have abated; and the fatal -_slovenliness_ of women’s work will probably have begun to show itself. -The physical conditions under which the human spirit can alone (in this -life) carry out its purpose and attain its maximum of vigour, are more -or less lacking to half the women even in our country; and almost -completely wanting to the poor prisoners of the Zenanas of India and the -cripples of China. Exercise in the open air, wholesome and sufficient -food, plenty of sleep at night,—every one of these _sine qua non_ -elements of real Health of Mind, as well as of Body, are out of reach of -one woman out of every two; yet we remark, curiously, on the inferiority -of their work! It is a vicious circle in which they are caught. They -take lower wages because they can live more cheaply than men; and they -necessarily live on those low wages too poorly to do anything but poor -work;—and again their wages are paltry because their work is so poor! - -I confess, however, that—on the other hand—the spectacle of feminine -feebleness and futility when (as continually happens) it is exhibited -without the smallest excuse from inadequate food supply, is -indescribably irritating, nay, to me, humiliating and exasperating. -Watch (for example of what I mean by “feminine futility”) a woman asked -to open a just-arrived box, or a bottle of champagne or of soda-water. -She has been given a cold-chisel for opening the box, and a hammer; but -they are invariably “astray” when required, or she does not think it -worth while to fetch them from up or downstairs, so she kneels down -before the box and begins by fumbling with her fingers at the knots in -the cord. After five minutes’ efforts and broken nails, she gives this -up in despair, and “thinks she must cut it.” But how? She never by any -chance has a knife in her pocket; so she first tries her scissors, which -she _does_ keep there, but which, being always quite blunt, fail to -sever the rope; and then she fetches a dinner-knife, and gives one -cut,—when the feminine passion for economy suggests to her that she can -save the rest of the cord by pushing it (with immense effort) an inch or -two along the box, first at one side and then at the other. Then she -hopes by breaking open the top of the box at one end only, to get out -the contents without dealing further with the recalcitrant rope; and she -endeavours to pull it open where the nails seem least firm. Alas! those -nails will never yield to her weak hands; so her scissors are in -requisition again, and being inserted and used as a wedge, immediately -break off at the points, and are hastily withdrawn with an exclamation -of agonising regret for the blunt, but precious, instrument. Something -must be thrust in, however, to prize open the box. The cold-chisel and -hammer having been at last sought, but sought in vain, the kitchen -cleaver, covered with the fat of the last joint it has cut, is brought -into play; or, happy thought! she knows where her master keeps a fine -sharp chisel, and this is pushed in,—of course against a nail which -breaks the edge and makes it useless for ever. The poker serves -sufficiently well as a hammer to knock in the chisel, or the cleaver, -and to bang up the protruding lid of the box; and at last one plank of -the top is loosened, and she tears it off triumphantly, with a cry of -rejoicing: “There! Now, we shall get at everything in the box!” The -goods, however, stubbornly refuse to be extricated through the hole on -any terms; and eventually all the planks have to be successively broken -up, and the long-cared-for cord (for the preservation of which so much -trouble has been undergone) is cut into little pieces of a foot or two -in length, each attached to a hopelessly entangled knot, while the box -itself is entirely wrecked. - -The case of the soda-water, or champagne bottle is worse again; so much -so that experience warns the wise to forbear from calling for -effervescent drinks where parlour-maids prevail. The preliminary -ineffectual attempt to loosen the wires with the fingers (the proper -pliers being, of course, missing); the resort to a steel carving-fork to -open them, and, in default of the steel fork, to a silver one, which is, -of course, bent immediately; the endeavour to cut the hempen cord with -the bread knife with the result of blunting that tool against the wire; -the struggle to cause the cork to fly by wobbling it with the right -hand, while clasping the neck of the bottle till it and the contents are -hot in the left; then (on the failure of this bold attempt) the cutting -off the head of the cork with a carving knife, and at the same time a -small slice of the operator’s hand, which, of course, bleeds profusely; -the consequent hasty transference of the bottle and the job to a second -attendant; the hurried search of the same in the side-table drawer for -the corkscrew; her rush to the kitchen to fetch that instrument where it -has been nefariously borrowed and where the point of the screw has been -broken off; the difficult (and crooked) insertion of the broken screw -into the cork; the repeated frantic tugs at the bottle, held tight -between the knees, finally the climax, when the cork bursts out and the -champagne along with it, up in the reddening face and over the white -muslin apron of the poor anxious woman, who hurries nervously to wipe it -off, and then pours the small quantity of liquor which remains bubbling -over the glasses, till the table-cloth is swamped;—such in brief is -Feminine Futility, as exhibited in the drawing of corks! Luckily it is -possible to find parlour-maids who know how to use, and will keep at -hand, both cold-chisels and corkscrews. But they are exceptions. The -normal woman, in the presence of a nailed-down box or a champagne -bottle, behaves as I have depicted from careful study; and the -irritation she produces in me is past words, especially if a man be -waiting for his beverage and observing the spectacle of the helplessness -of my sex. If “Man” be “a tool-making animal,” I am afraid that “Woman” -is a “tool-breaking” one. I think every girl, as well as every boy, -ought to be given a month’s training in a carpenter’s shop to teach her -how to strike a nail straight; what is the difference between the proper -insertion and extraction of nails and of screws; why chisels should not -be employed as screw-drivers; how far preferable for making holes are -gimlets to hairpins or the points of scissors; and, finally, the general -superiority of glue over paste or gum for sticking wooden furniture when -broken by her besom of destruction! - -My dear friend Emily Shaen wrote an excellent tract which I should like -to see republished, urging that it is absurd to go on talking of the -House being the proper sphere of a woman, while we neglect to teach her -the very rudiments of a _Hausfrau’s_ duties, and leave her to find them -all out, at her husband’s expense, when she marries. The nature of gas -and of gasometers, and how _not_ to cause explosions nor be cheated in -the bill; the arrangements of water-works in houses, pipes, drains, -cisterns, ball-cocks and all the rest, for hot and cold water; the -choice of properly morticed, not merely glued, furniture; what -constitutes a good kitchen range, and how coal should be economised in -it; how to choose fresh meat, &c., such should be her lessons. To this -might be usefully added an inkling of the laws relating to masters and -servants, debts, bills, &c., &c., and of the elementary arrangements of -banking and investing money. It was once discovered at my school that a -very clever young lady, who could speak four languages and play two -instruments well, _could not read the clock_! I think there are many -grown up women, well-educated according to the ordinary standard of -their class, whose ignorance concerning the simplest matters of -household duty is not a whit less absurd. - -In 1881—I prepared and delivered to an audience of about 150 ladies, in -the Westminster Palace Hotel, a course of six Lectures on the _Duties of -Women_. My dear friend, Miss Anna Swanwick took the chair for me on -these occasions, and performed her part with such tact and geniality as -to give me every advantage. My auditors were very attentive and -sympathetic, and altogether the task was made very pleasant to me. I -repeated the course again at Clifton the same year, Mrs. Beddoe, the -wife of Dr. John Beddoe the anthropologist who was then living at that -place, most obligingly lending me her large drawing-rooms. - -These Lectures when printed, went through three editions in England and, -I think, eight in America, the last being brought out by Miss Willard, -who adopted the little book as the first of a series on women’s -concerns, published by her vast and wonderful organisation, the W.C.T.U. - -My object in giving these Lectures was to impress women as strongly as -might be in my power, with the unspeakable importance of adding to our -claims for just _Rights_ of all kinds, the adoption of the highest -standard of _Duty_; and the strict preservation amongst us of all -womanly virtues, while adding to them those others to the growth of -which our conditions have hitherto been unfavourable,—namely, Truth and -Courage. I desired also to discuss the new views current amongst us -respecting filial and conjugal “obedience;” the proper attitude to be -held towards (unrepentant) vice, and many other topics. Finally I wished -to place the efforts to obtain political freedom on what I deem to be -their proper ground. I ask: - - - “What ought we to do at present, as concerns all public work wherein - it is possible for us to obtain a share? - - “The question seems to answer itself in its mere statement. We are - bound to do all we can to promote the virtue and happiness of our - fellow-men and women, and _therefore_ we must accept and seize every - instrument of power, every vote, every influence which we can obtain, - to enable us to promote virtue and happiness. - - “... Why are we not to wish and strive to be allowed to place our - hands on that vast machinery whereby, in a constitutional realm, the - great work of the world is carried on, and which achieves by its - enormous power, ten-fold either the good or the harm which any - individual can reach; which may be turned to good or turned to harm - according to the hands which touch it? In almost every case it is only - by legislation that the roots of great evils can be reached at all, - and that the social diseases of pauperism, vice and crime can be - brought within hope of cure. - - “You will judge from these remarks the ground on which, as a matter of - duty, I place the demand for woman’s political emancipation. I think - we are bound to seek it, in the first place, as a means,—a very great - means,—of fulfilling our Social Duty, of contributing to the virtue - and happiness of mankind, and advancing the Kingdom of God. There are - many other reasons, viewed from the point of Expediency; but this is - the view from that of Duty. We know too well that men who possess - political rights do not always, or often, regard them in this fashion; - but this is no reason why we should not do so. We also know that the - individual power of one vote at any election seems rarely to effect - any appreciable difference; but this also need not trouble us, for, - little or great, if we can obtain any influence at all, we ought to - seek for it, and the multiplication of the votes of women bent on - securing conscientious candidates, would soon make it not only - appreciable, but weighty. Nay, further, the direct influence of a vote - is but a small part of the power which the possession of the political - franchise confers. Its indirect influence is far more important. In a - government like ours, where the basis of representation is so - immensely extensive the whole business of legislation is carried on by - pressure—the pressure of each represented class and party to get its - grievances redressed, to make its interests prevail.... It is one of - the sore grievances of women that, not possessing representation, the - measures which concern them are for ever postponed to the bills - promoted by the represented classes (_e.g._, the Married Woman’s - Property Bill, was, if I mistake not, six times set down for reading - in one Session in vain, the House being counted out on every - occasion). - - “Thus, in asking for the Parliamentary Franchise, we are asking, as I - understand it, for the power to influence legislation generally; and - in every other kind of franchise, municipal, parochial, or otherwise, - for similar power to bring our sense of justice and righteousness to - bear on public affairs.... - - “What is this, after all, my friends, but _Public Spirit_; in one - shape called Patriotism, in another Philanthropy; the extension of our - sympathies beyond the narrow bounds of our homes, and disinterested - enthusiasm for every good and sacred cause? As I said at first, all - the world has recognised from the earliest times how good and noble - and wholesome a thing it is for men to have their breasts filled with - such public spirit; and we look upon them when they exhibit it as - glorified thereby. Do you think it is not equally an ennobling thing - for a _woman’s_ soul to be likewise filled with these large and - generous and unselfish emotions?” - - -I draw the Lectures to a conclusion thus:— - - - “None of us, I am sure, realise how blessed a thing we might make of - our lives if we would but give ourselves, heart and soul, to fulfil - _all_ the obligations, personal, social and religious which rest upon - us; to gain the strength— - - ‘To think, to feel, to do, only the holy Right, - To yield no step in the awful race, no blow in the fearful fight,’ - - to live, in purity and truth and courage, a life of love to God and to - man; striving to make every spot where we dwell, every region to which - our influence can extend GOD’S KINGDOM, where His Will shall be done - on earth as it is done in heaven.” - - -Some time after the delivery of these addresses when the Primrose League -was in full activity I wrote at the request of the Committee of the -Women’s Suffrage Association a circular-letter to the “Dames” (of whom I -am one) begging them to endeavour to make the granting of votes to women -a “plank” in their platform. I received many friendly letters in -reply—but the men who influenced the League, apparently finding that -they could make the Dames do their political work for them _without -votes_, discouraged all movement in the desired direction, and I do not -suppose that anything was gained by my attempt. - -My last effort on behalf of women was to read a paper on _Women’s Duty -to Women_ at the Conference of Women workers held at Birmingham in Nov., -1890. This address was received with such exceeding kindness and -sympathy by my audience that the little event has left very tender -recollections which I am glad to carry with me. - -I will record here two paragraphs which I should like to leave as my -last appeal on behalf of my sex. - - - “It may be an open question whether any individual woman suffers more - severely in body or mind than any individual man. There are some who - say that all our passions matched with theirs - - ‘Are as moonlight is to sunlight, and as water is to wine.’ - - A sentiment, which I am happy to tell you, Lord Tennyson has angrily - disclaimed as his own, declaring that he only ‘put it into the mouth - of an impatient fool.’ But that our _whole sex together_ suffers more - physical pain, more want, more grief, than the other, is not, I think, - open to doubt. Even if we put aside the poor Chinese women maimed from - infancy, the Hindoo women against whose cruel wrongs their noble - countryman, Malabari, has just been pleading so eloquently in - London,—if we put these and all the other prisoners of Eastern Harems, - and miserable wives of African and Australian savages out of question, - and think only of the comparatively free and happy women of - Christendom, how much more _liable to suffering_, if not always - actually condemned to suffer, is the life of women! ‘To be weak is to - be miserable,’ and we _are_ weak; always comparatively to our - companions, and weak often, absolutely, and in reference to the wants - we must supply, the duties we must perform. Now, it seems to me that - just in proportion as any one is possessed of strength of mind or of - body, or of wealth or influence, so far it behoves him, or her, to - turn with sympathy and tender helpfulness to the weakest and most - forlorn of God’s creatures, whether it be man or woman or child, or - even brute. The weight of the claim is in exact ratio of the - feebleness and helplessness and misery of the claimant. - - * * * * * - - “Thus, then, I would sum up the counsels which I am presuming to offer - to you. You will all remember the famous line of Terence, at which the - old Roman audience rose in a tumult of applause: ‘I am a _Man_—nothing - human is alien to me.’ I would have each of you add to this in an - emphatic way. ‘_Mulier sum. Nihil muliebre a me alienum puto._’ ‘I am - a _woman_. Nothing concerning the interests of women is alien to me.’ - Take the sorrows, the wants, the dangers (above all the dangers) of - our sisters closely to heart, and, without ceasing to interest - yourself in charities having men and boys for their objects, recognise - that your earlier care should be for the weakest, the poorest, those - whose dangers are worst of all—for, (after all) ruin can only drive a - _Man_ to the workhouse; it may drive a woman to perdition! Think of - all the weak, the helpless, the wronged women and little children, and - the harmless brutes; and save and shield them as best you can; even as - the mother-bird will shelter and fight for her little helpless - fledgelings. This is the natural field of feminine courage. Then, when - you have found your work, whatever it be, give yourself to it with all - your heart, and make the resolution in God’s sight never to go to your - rest leaving a stone unturned which may help your aims. Half-and-half - charity does very little good to the objects; and is a miserable, - slovenly affair for the workers. And when the end comes and the night - closes in, the long, last night of earth, when no man can work any - more in this world, your milk-and-water, half-hearted charities will - bring no memories of comfort to you. They are not so many ‘good works’ - which you can place on the credit side of your account, in the mean, - commercial spirit taught by some of the churches. Nay, rather they are - only solemn evidences that you _knew your duty_, knew you _might_ do - good, and did it not, or did it half-heartedly! What a thought for - those last days when we know ourselves to be going home to God, - God—whom at bottom after all, we have loved and shall love for - ever;—that we _might_ have served Him here, _might_ have blessed his - creatures, _might_ have done His will on earth as it is done in - Heaven, but we have let the glorious chance slip by us for ever.” - - - - - CHAPTER - XX. - _CLAIMS OF BRUTES._ - - -Readers who have reached this twentieth Chapter of my Life will smile -(as I have often done of late years) at the ascription to me in sundry -not very friendly publications, of exclusive sympathy for animals and -total indifference to human interests. I have seen myself frequently -described as a woman “who would sacrifice any number of men, women and -children, sooner than that a few rabbits should be inconvenienced.” Many -good people apparently suppose me to represent a personal survival of -Totemism in England; and to worship Dogs and Cats, while ready to -consign the human race generally to destruction. - -The foregoing pages, describing my life in old days in Ireland and the -years which I spent afterwards working in the slums in Bristol, ought, I -think, to suffice to dissipate this fancy picture. As a matter of fact, -it has only been of late years and since their wrongs have appealed -alike to my feelings of pity and to my moral sense, that I have come to -bestow any peculiar attention on animals; or have been concerned with -them more than is common with the daughters of country squires to whom -dogs, horses and cattle are familiar subjects of interest from -childhood. I have indeed always felt much affection for dogs: that is to -say, for those who exhibit the true Dog-character,—which is far from -being the case of every canine creature! Their eagerness, their -joyousness, their transparent little wiles, their caressing and devoted -affection, are to me more winning, even I may say, more really and -intensely _human_ (in the sense in which a child is human), than the -artificial, cold and selfish characters one meets too often in the guise -of ladies and gentlemen. It is not the four legs, nor the silky or -shaggy coat of the dog which should prevent us from discerning his inner -nature of Thought and Love; limited Thought, it is true; but quite -unlimited Love. That he is dumb, is, to me, only another claim (as it -would be in a human child) on my consideration. But because I love good -dogs, and, in their measure also, good horses and cats and birds, (I had -once a dear and lovely white pea-hen), I am not therefore a morbid -_Zoophilist_. I should be very sorry indeed to say or think like Byron -when my dog dies, that I “had but one true friend, and here he lies!” I -have,—thank God!—known many men and women, who have all a dog’s merits -of honesty and single-hearted devotion _plus_ the virtues which can only -flourish on the high level of humanity; and to them I give a friendship -which the best of dogs cannot share. - -That there are some Timons in the world whose hearts, embittered by -human ingratitude, have turned with relief to the faithful love of a -dog, I am very well aware. Surely the fact makes one appeal the more on -behalf of the creatures who thus by their humble devotion heal the -wounds of disappointed or betrayed affection; and who come to cheer the -lonely, the unloved, the dull-witted, the blind, the poverty-stricken -whom the world forsakes? I think Lamartine was right to treat this love -of the Dog for Man as a special provision of Divine mercy, and to -marvel,— - - “Par quelle pitié pour nos cœurs Il vous donne - Pour aimer celui que n’aime plus personne!” - -Not a few deep thanksgivings, I believe, have gone up to the Maker of -man and brute for the silent sympathy,—expressed perhaps in no nobler -way than by the gentle licking of a passive hand,—which has yet saved a -human heart from the sense of utter abandonment. - -But _I_ have no such sorrowful or embittering experience of human -affection. I do not say, “The more I know of men the more I love dogs”; -but, “The more I know of dogs the more I love _them_,” without any -invidious comparisons with men, women, or children. As regards the -children, indeed, I have been always fond of those which came in my way; -and if the Tenth Commandment had gone on to forbid coveting one’s -neighbour’s “_child_,” I am not sure that I should not have had to plead -guilty to breaking it many times. - -In my old home I possessed a dear Pomeranian dog of whom I was very -fond, who, being lame, used constantly to ensconce herself (though -forbidden by my father) in my mother’s carriage under the seat, and -never showed her little pointed nose till the britzska had got so far -from home that she knew no one would put her down on the road. Then she -would peer out and lie against my mother’s dress and be fondled. Later -on I had the companionship of another beautiful, mouse-coloured -Pomeranian, brought as a puppy from Switzerland. In my hardworking life -in Bristol in the schools and workhouse she followed me and ingratiated -herself everywhere, and my solitary evenings were much the happier for -dear Hajjin’s company. Many years afterwards she was laid under the sod -of our garden in Hereford Square. Another dog of the same breed whom I -sent away at one year old to live in the country, was returned to me -_eight years_ afterwards, old and diseased. The poor beast recognized me -after a few moments’ eager examination, and uttered an actual scream of -joy when I called her by name; exhibiting every token of tender -affection for me ever afterwards. When one reflects what eight years -signify in the life of a dog,—almost equivalent to the distance between -sixteen and sixty in a human being,—some measure is afforded by this -incident of the durability of a dog’s attachment. Happily, kind Dr. -Hoggan cured poor Dee of her malady, and she and I enjoyed five happy -years of companionship ere she died here in Hengwrt. I have dedicated my -_Friend of Man_ to her memory. - -Among my smaller literary tasks in London I wrote an article for which -Mr. Leslie Stephen (then editing the _Cornhill Magazine_ in which it -appeared) was kind enough to express particular liking. It was called -“_Dogs whom I have met_;” and gave an account of many canine -individualities of my acquaintance. I also wrote an article in the -_Quarterly Review_ on the _Consciousness of Dogs_ of which I have given -above (p. 127) Mr. Darwin’s favourable opinion. Both of these papers are -reprinted in my _False Beasts and True_. Such has been the sum total, I -may say, of my personal concern with animals before and apart from my -endeavours to deliver them from their scientific tormentors. - -It was, as I have stated, the abominable wrongs endured by animals which -first aroused, and has permanently maintained, my special interest in -them. My great-grandfather had an office in the yard at Newbridge for -his magisterial work, and over his own seat he caused to be inscribed -the text: “_Deliver him that is oppressed from the hand of the -adversary_.” I know not whether it were a juvenile impression, but I -have felt all my life an irresistible impulse to rush in wherever anyone -is “oppressed” and try to “deliver” him, her, or _it_, as the case may -be, from the “adversary!” In the case of beasts, their helplessness and -speechlessness appeal, I think, to every spark of generosity in one’s -heart; and the command, “Open thy mouth for the dumb,” seems the very -echo of our consciences. Everything in us, manly or womanly, (and the -best in us all is _both_) answers it back. - -When I was a little child, living in a house where hunting, coursing, -shooting, and fishing, were carried on by all the men and boys, I took -such field sports as part of the order of things, and learned with -delight from my father to fish in our ponds on my own account. Somehow -it came to pass that when, at sixteen, my mind went through that strange -process which Evangelicals call “Conversion,” among the first things -which my freshly-awakened moral sense pointed out was,—that I must give -up fishing! I reflected that the poor fishes were happy in their way in -their proper element; that we did not in the least need, or indeed often -use them for food; and that I must no longer take pleasure in giving -pain to any creature of God. It was a little effort to me to relinquish -this amusement in my very quiet, uneventful life; but, as the good -Quaker’s say, it was “borne in on me,” that I had to do it, and from -that time I have never held a rod or line (though I have been out in -boats where large quantities of fish were caught on the Atlantic coast), -and I freely admit that angling scarcely comes under the head of cruelty -at all, and is perfectly right and justifiable when the fish are wanted -for food and are killed quickly. I used to stand sometimes after I had -ceased to fish, over one of the ponds in our park and watch the bright -creatures dart hither and thither, and say in my heart a little -thanksgiving on their behalf instead of trying to catch them. - -Fifty years after this incident, I read in John Woolman’s, (the Quaker -Saint’s,) _Journal_, Chap. XI., this remark:— - - - “I believe, where the love of God is verily perfected and the true - spirit of government watchfully attended, a tenderness towards all - creatures made subject to us will be experienced, and a care felt in - us that we do not lessen that sweetness of life in the animal creation - which the great Creator intends for them under our government.” - - -To me as I have said it was almost the _first_, and not an _advanced_, -much less “perfected,” religious impulse, which led me to begin to -recognise the claims of the lower animals on our compassion. Of course, -I disliked then, and always, hunting, coursing and shooting; but as a -woman I was not expected to join in such pursuits, and I did not take on -myself to blame those who followed them. I do not now allow of any -comparison between the cruelty of such _Field Sports_ and the deliberate -_Chamber-Sport_ of Vivisection. - -I shall now relate as succinctly as possible the history of the -Anti-vivisection Movement, so far as I have had to do with it. Of course -an immense amount of work for the same end has been carried on all these -twenty years by other Zoophilists with whom I have had no immediate -connection, or perhaps cognizance of their labours, but without whose -assistance the Society which I helped to found certainly could not have -made as much way as it has done. I only presume here to tell the story -of the Victoria Street Society, and the occurrences which led to its -formation. - - -In the year 1863, there appeared in several English newspapers -complaints of the cruelties practised in the Veterinary Schools at -Alfort near Paris. The students were taught there, as in most other -continental veterinary schools, to perform operations on _living_ -animals, and so to acquire, (at the cost, of course, of untold suffering -to the victims,) the same manipulative skill which English students gain -equally well by practising on dead carcases. Living horses were supplied -to the Alfort students on which, at the time I speak of, they performed -sixty operations apiece, including every one in common use, and many -which were purely academic, being never employed in actual practice -because the horse, after enduring them, becomes necessarily useless. -These operations lasted eight hours, and the aspect of the mangled -creatures, hoofless, eyeless, burned, gashed, eviscerated, skinned, -mutilated in every conceivable way, appalled the visitors, who reported -the facts, while it afforded, they said, a subject of merriment to the -horde of students. The English _Society for Prevention of Cruelty to -Animals_ laudably exerted itself to stop these atrocities, and appealed -to the Emperor to interfere; not, perhaps, very hopefully, since, as I -have heard, Napoleon III. was in the habit of attending these hideous -spectacles in his own imperial person on the Thursdays on which they -took place. This circumstance, taken in connection with the Empress’ -patronage of Bull-Fights, has made Sedan seem to me an event on which -the animal world, at all events, has to be congratulated. - -Some years later Mr. James Cowie took over to France an Appeal, signed -by 500 English Veterinarians entreating their French colleagues to adopt -the English practice of using only dead carcases for the exercises of -students. Through this and other good offices it is understood that the -number and severity of the operations performed at Alfort, and elsewhere -in France, were then greatly reduced. Unhappily the humane regulations -made in 1878 are now evaded, and the dreadful cruelties above described -have been actually witnessed by Mr. Peabody and Dr. Baudry, in 1895. - -On reading of these cruelties I wrote an article, _The Rights of Man and -the Claims of Brutes_, which I hoped might help to direct public -attention to them. In this paper I endeavoured to work out as best I -could the ethical problem (which I at once perceived to be beset with -difficulties) of a definition of the limits of human rights over -animals. My article was published by Mr. Froude in _Fraser’s Magazine_ -for Nov., 1863, and was subsequently reprinted in my _Studies Ethical -and Social_. It was, so far as I know the first effort made to deal with -the moral questions involved in the torture of animals either for sake -of scientific and therapeutic research, or for the acquirement of -manipulative skill. In the 30 years which have elapsed since I wrote it -I have seen reason to raise considerably the “claims” which I then urged -on behalf of the brutes, but I observe that new recruits to our -Anti-vivisection party usually begin exactly where I stood at that time, -and announce their ideas to me as their mature conclusions. - -The same month of November, 1863, in which my article, (written some -weeks before, while I was ill and lame at Aix-les-Bains), appeared in -_Fraser_, I was living near Florence, and was startled by hearing of -similar cruelties practised at the _Specola_, where Prof. Schiff had his -laboratory. My friend Miss Blagden and I were holding our usual weekly -reception in Villa Brichieri on Bellosguardo, and we learned that many -of our guests had been shocked by the rumours which had reached them. In -particular the American physician who had accompanied Theodore Parker to -Florence and attended him in his last days,—Dr. Appleton, of Harvard -University,—told us that he himself had gone over Prof. Schiff’s -laboratory, and had seen dogs, pigeons and other animals in a -frightfully mangled and suffering state. A Tuscan officer had seen a cat -so tortured that he forced Schiff to kill it. Some 50 or 60 letters had -been (or were afterwards) lodged at the Mairie from neighbours -complaining of the disturbance caused by the cries and moans of the -victims in the _Specola_. After much conversation I asked, What could be -done to check these systematic cruelties, which no Tuscan law could then -touch in any way? It was suggested that a Memorial should be addressed -to Prof. Schiff himself, urging him to spare his victims as much as -possible. This Memorial I drafted at once, and it was translated into -Italian and sent round Florence for signatures. Mrs. Somerville placed -her name at the head of it; and through her earnest exertions and those -of her daughters and of several other friends, the list of supporters -soon became very weighty. Among the English signatures was those of -Walter Savage Landor (who added some words so violent that I was obliged -to suppress them!); and among the Italians almost the whole historic -aristocracy of old Florence,—Corsi’s and Corsini’s, and Aldobrandini’s -and Strozzi’s, and a hundred more, the reading of whose names recalled -Medicean times. In all, there were 783 signatories. Very few of them -were of the _mezzo-ceto_ class, and _none_ belonged to the (Red) -Republican party. Schiff was himself a “Red,” and, as such, he might, -apparently, commit any cruelty he thought fit, inasmuch as he and the -other vivisectors (we were told by a lady prominent in that party) were -seeking “the religion of the future”—in the brains and entrails of the -tortured beasts! The same lady expressed to me her wish that “every -animal in creation should be immolated, if only to discover a single -fact of science.” Another Englishwoman (also married to a foreigner) -wrote to the _Daily News_ to praise Schiff for “actively pursuing -Vivisection.” - -The Memorial, as often happens, did no _direct_ good; Professor Schiff -tossing it aside, and politely qualifying the signatories, (in the -_Nazione_ newspaper,) as “_un tas de Marquis_.” But it certainly caused -the subject to be much discussed, and doubtless prepared the way for the -complaints and lawsuits concerning the “nuisances” of the moaning dogs, -which eventually made Florence an unpleasant abode for Professor Schiff. -He retreated thence to Geneva in 1877. The Florentine _Società -Protettrice degli Animali_ was founded by Countess Baldelli in 1873, and -has led the agitation there against Vivisection ever since. - -Meanwhile on the presentation of the Memorial, Professor Schiff wrote a -letter in the _Nazione_ (the chief newspaper of Florence) denying the -facts mentioned in the letter of the official Correspondent of the -_Daily News_, and challenging the said correspondent to come forward and -make good the statement. I instantly wrote a letter saying that I was -the _Daily News’_ Correspondent in Florence; that the letter complained -of was mine; and that for verification of my assertions therein I -appended a full and signed statement by Dr. Appleton of what he had -himself witnessed in the _Specola_. - -It was rather difficult for me then to believe that this letter of mine -(in Italian of course) duly signed and authenticated with name, date and -place, was refused publication in the paper wherein I had been -challenged to come forward! On learning this amazing fact, I requested -Dr. Appleton to go down again to Florence and ask the editor of the -_Nazione_ to publish my letter if in no other way, at least _as a paid -advertisement_. The answer made by the editor to Dr. Appleton was, that -it might be inserted, but only among the advertisements in certain -columns of the paper where no decent reader would look for it. N.B.—the -_Nazione_ replenished its exchequer by the help of that class of notices -which are declined by every reputable English newspaper. After this Dr. -Appleton went in despair to Professor Schiff himself, and told him he -was bound in honour, (seeing he had made the challenge to us,) to compel -the editor to print our answer. The learned and scientific gentleman -shrugged his shoulders and laughed in the face of the American who could -imagine him to be so simple! - -I left Florence soon after this first brush with the demon of -Vivisection, but retained (as will easily be understood) very strong -feelings on the subject. - -At a meeting of the British Association in Liverpool in 1870 a Committee -was appointed to consider the subject of “Physiological -Experimentation,” and their Report was published in the _Medical Times -and Gazette_, Feb. 25th, 1871; and in _British Assoc. Reports_, 1871, p. -144. It consists of the following four Rules or Recommendations on the -subject of Vivisection:— - - - “(I.) No experiment which can be performed under the influence of an - anæsthetic ought to be done without it. (II.) No painful experiment is - justifiable for the mere purpose of illustrating a law or fact already - demonstrated; in other words, experimentation without the employment - of anæsthetics is not a fitting exhibition for teaching purposes. - (III.) Whenever, for the investigation of new truth, it is necessary - to make a painful experiment, every effort should be made to ensure - success, in order that the sufferings inflicted may not be wasted. For - this reason, no painful experiment ought to be performed by an - unskilled person, with insufficient instruments and assistants, or in - places not suitable to the purpose; that is to say, anywhere except in - physiological and pathological laboratories, under proper regulations. - (IV.) In the scientific preparation for veterinary practice, - operations ought not to be performed upon living animals for the mere - purpose of obtaining greater operative dexterity.” - - -These four Rules were countersigned by _M. A. Lawson_, _G. M. Humphry_ -(now Sir George Humphry), _J. H. Balfour_, _Arthur Gamgee_, _William -Flower_, _J. Burdon-Sanderson_, and _George Rolleston_. Of course we, -who attended that celebrated Liverpool Meeting of the British -Association and had heard the President laud Dr. Brown-Séquard -enthusiastically, greatly rejoiced at this humane Ukase of autocratic -Science. - -But as time passed we were surprised to find that nothing was done to -enforce these rules in any way or at any place; and that the particular -practice which they most distinctly condemn, namely, the use of -vivisections as Illustrations of recognised facts,—was flourishing more -than ever without let or hindrance. The prospectuses of _University -College_ for 1874–5, of _Guy’s Hospital Medical School 1874–5_, of _St. -Thomas’s Hospital_, of _Westminster Hospital Medical School_, etc., all -mentioned among their attractions: “Demonstrations on living animals;” -“Gentlemen will themselves perform the experiments;” &c., and quite as -if nothing whatever had been said against them. - -But worse remained. One of the signatories of the above Rules (or as -perhaps we may more properly call them, these “_Pious Opinions_”?),—the -most eminent of English physiologists, Prof. Burdon-Sanderson himself, -edited and brought out in 1873, the _Handbook of the Physiological -Laboratory_, to which he, Dr. Lauder-Brunton, Dr. Klein, and Dr. Foster -were joint contributors. This celebrated work is a Manual of Exercises -in Vivisection, intended (as the _Preface_ says) “for beginners in -Physiological work.” The following are observations on this book -furnished to the Royal Commission by Mr. Colam, and printed in Appendix -iv., p. 379, of their _Report_ and _Minutes_ of Evidence:— - - - “That the object of the editor and his coadjutors was to induce young - persons to perform experiments on their own account and without - adequate surveillance is manifest throughout the work, by the supply - of elementary knowledge and elaborate data. Not only are the names and - quantities of necessary chemicals given, but the most careful - description is provided in letter-press and plates of implements for - holding animals during their struggles, so that a novice may learn at - home without a teacher. Besides, the editor’s preface states, that the - book is ‘intended for beginners,’ and that ‘difficult and complicated’ - experiments consequently have been omitted; and that of Dr. Foster - allures the student by assurances of inexpensive as well as easy - manipulation.... Very seldom indeed is the student told to - anæsthetise, and then only during an operation. It cannot be alleged - that ‘beginners’ know when to narcotise, and when not; but if they do - then the few directions to use chloral, &c., are unnecessary. No doubt - should have been left on this point in a Handbook designed ‘for - beginners.’ Besides, where will students find cautions against the - infliction of unnecessary pain, and wanton experimentation? On the - contrary, the student is encouraged to repeat the torture ‘any number - of times.’ These facts are significant.” - - -In the _Minutes of Evidence_ of the Royal Commission we find that the -late Prof. Rolleston, of Oxford, being under examination, was asked by -Mr. Hutton: “Then I understand that your opinion about the _Handbook_ -is, that it is a dangerous book to society, and that it has warranted to -some extent the feeling of anxiety in the public which its publication -has created?” Prof. Rolleston: “_I am sorry to have to say that I do -think it is so_” (1351). In his own examination Prof. Burdon-Sanderson -admitted that the use of anæsthetics whenever possible “ought to have -been stated much more distinctly at the beginning of his book” (2265), -and agreed to Lord Cardwell’s suggestion, “Then I may assume that in any -future communication with ‘beginners’ _greater pains will be taken to -make them distinctly understand how animals may be saved from suffering -than has been taken in this book_?” “Yes,” said Dr. B.-S., “I am quite -willing to say that” (2266). - -Esoteric Vivisection it will be observed, as revealed in _Handbooks_ for -“Beginners,” is a very different thing from Exoteric Vivisection, -described for the benefit of the outside public as if regulated by the -_Four Rules_ above quoted! - -The following year, 1874, certain experiments were performed before a -Medical Congress at Norwich. They consisted in the injection of alcohol -and of absinthe into the veins of dogs; and were done by M. Magnan, an -eminent French physiologist, who has in recent years described sympathy -for animals as a special form of insanity. Mr. Colam, on behalf of the -R.S.P.C.A., very properly instituted a prosecution against M. Magnan, -under the Act 12 and 13 Vict., c. 92; and brought Sir William Fergusson, -and Dr. Tufnell (the President of the Irish College of Surgeons) to -swear that his experiments were useless. M. Magnan withdrew speedily to -his own country or a conviction would certainly have been obtained -against him. But it was not merely on proof of the _infliction of -torture_ that Mr. Colam’s Society relied to obtain such conviction, but -on the high scientific authority which they were able to bring to prove -that the torture was _scientifically useless_. Failing such testimony, -which would generally be unattainable, it was recognised that the -application of the Act in question (Martin’s Act amended) to -_scientific_ cruelties, which it had not been framed to meet, would -always be beset with difficulties. It became thenceforth apparent to the -friends of animals that some new legislation, calculated to reach -offenders pleading scientific purpose for barbarous experiments was -urgently needed; and the existence of the _Handbook_, with minute -directions for performing hundreds of operations,—many of them of -extreme severity,—proved that the danger was not remote or theoretical; -but already present and at our doors. - -A few weeks after this trial at Norwich had taken place, and had justly -gained great applause for Mr. Colam and the R.S.P.C.A., Mrs. Luther -Holden, wife of the eminent surgeon, then Senior Surgeon of St. -Bartholomew’s Hospital, called on me in Hereford Square to talk over the -matter and take counsel as to what could be done to strengthen the law -in the desired direction. The great and wealthy R.S.P.C.A. was obviously -the body with which it properly lay to promote the needed legislation; -and it only seemed necessary to give the Committee of that Society proof -that public opinion would strongly support them in calling for it, to -induce them to bring a suitable Bill, into Parliament backed by their -abundant influence. I agreed to draft a _Memorial_ to the Committee of -the R.S.P.C.A. praying it to undertake this task; after learning from -Mr. Colam that such an appeal would be altogether welcome; and I may add -that I received cordial assistance from him in arranging for its -presentation. - -It was a difficult task for me to draw up that Memorial, but, such as it -was, it acted as a spark to tinder, showing how much latent feeling -existed on the subject. Many ladies and gentlemen: notably the Countess -of Camperdown, the Countess of Portsmouth (now the Dowager Countess), -General Colin Mackenzie, Col. Wood (now Sir Evelyn) and others, exerted -themselves most earnestly to obtain influential signatures in their -circles, and distributed in all directions copies of the _Memorial_ and -of two pamphlets I wrote to accompany it—“_Reasons for Interference_” -and “_Need of a Bill_.” With their help in the course of about six -weeks, (without advertisements or paid agency of any kind), we obtained -600 signatures; every one of which represented a man or woman of some -social importance. The first to sign it was my neighbour and friend, -Rev. Gerald Blunt, rector of Chelsea. After him came Mr. Carlyle, -Tennyson, Browning, Mr. Lecky, Sir Arthur Helps, Sir W. Fergusson, John -Bright, Mr. Jowett, the Archbishop of York (Dr. Thomson), Sir Edwin -Arnold, the Primate of Ireland (Marcus Beresford), Cardinal Manning -(then Archbishop of Westminster), the Duke and Duchess of -Northumberland, John Ruskin, James Martineau, the Duke of Rutland, the -Duke of Wellington, Lord Coleridge, Lord Selborne, Sir Fitzroy Kelly, -the Bishops of Winchester, Exeter, Salisbury, Manchester, Bath and -Wells, Hereford, St. Asaph, and Derry, Lord Russell, and many other -peers and M.P.’s, and no less than 78 medical men, several of whom were -eminent in the profession. - -I shall insert here a few of the replies, favourable and otherwise, -which I received to my invitations to sign the Memorial. - - - “Bishopthorpe, York, - “Dec. 28th, 1874. - - “The Archbishop of York presents his compliments to Miss Cobbe and - begs to enclose the Memorial signed by him. - - “‘Exception to suggestion 3rd,’ on the prohibition of publishing, - which he thinks unworkable, and therefore (illegible) to the Memorial. - If however it is too late to alter it, he will not stand out even on - that point. - - “He thinks the practices in question detestable. The Norwich case was - a disgrace to the country. - - “The Archbishop thanks Miss Cobbe for inviting him to sign.” - - - “A. B. Beresford-Hope to Miss F. P. C. - “Bedgebury Park, Cranbrook, - “Jan. 26th, 1875. - - “Dear Madam, - - “Lady Mildred and myself trust that it is not too late to enclose to - you the accompanying signatures to the Memorial against Vivisection, - although the day fixed for its return has unfortunately been allowed - to elapse. We can assure you of our very hearty sympathy in the cause; - the delay has wholly come of oversight. - - “In regard to the details of the suggestions, I must be allowed to - express my doubt as to the feasibility of the 3rd suggestion. Its - stringency would I fear defeat its own object. I sympathise too much - with the question in itself to decline signing on account of this - proposal, but I must request to be considered as a dissentient on that - head. - - “Believe me, dear Madam, yours very faithfully, - - “A. B. BERESFORD-HOPE.” - - - “B. Jowett to Miss F. P. C. - - “Dear Miss Cobbe, - - “I have much pleasure in signing the paper which you kindly sent me. - - “Yours very sincerely, - “B. JOWETT. - - “Jan. 15th, Oxford.” - - “5, Gordon Street, London, W.C., - “January 5th, 1875. - - “My dear Miss Cobbe, - - “I should have been very sorry not to join in the Protest against this - hideous offence, and am truly obliged to you for furnishing me with - the opportunity. The simultaneous loss, from the Morals of our - ‘advanced’ scientific men, of all reverent sentiment towards beings - _above_ them and towards beings _below_, is a curious and instructive - phenomenon, highly significant of the process which their nature is - undergoing at both ends. - - “With truest wishes for many a happy and beneficent year - - “Ever faithfully yours, - “JAMES MARTINEAU.” - - - “Manchester, - “December 26th, 1874. - - “The Bishop of Manchester” [Dr. Fraser] “presents his compliments to - Miss Cobbe, and thanks her for giving him the opportunity of appending - his name to this Memorial, which has his most hearty concurrence.” - - - “Palace, Salisbury, - “11th January, 1875. - - “The Bishop of Salisbury’s compliments to Miss Cobbe. He cannot - withhold his signature to her Paper after reading the ‘reasons which - she has kindly sent him.’” - - - “Addington Park, Croydon, - “January 2nd, 1875. - - “Madam, - - “I have received your letter of the 31st ult. on the subject of the - Memorial to the Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals with - regard to Vivisection. - - “I hardly think I should be right, considering my imperfect - acquaintance with the subject, in adding my name thereto at present. - - “Believe me to be, yours faithfully, - “A. C. CANTUAR.” - (Archbishop Tait.) - - “Deanery, Carlisle, - “January 20th, 1875. - - “Dear Madam, - - “If I had a hundred signatures you should have them all! - - “My heart has long burned with indignation against these murderers and - torturers of innocent animals. - - “Was it for _this_ that the great God made man the Lord of the - creation? - - “It is incredible hypocrisy and folly to pretend that such wholesale - torture is necessary to enlighten these stupid doctors! - - “It seems to me peculiarly ungrateful in man, to break forth in this - wholesale _Animal Inquisition_ when Providence has so recently - revealed to us several new natural powers whereby human suffering is - so much diminished. - - “But I must restrain my feelings, and _you_ must pardon me. I did not - know that this good work was begun. - - “Only get some thoroughgoing and able friend of the animal world to - tell the tale to a British House of Parliament, and these philosophic - torturers will be stayed in their detestable course. - - “Yours, - “F. CLOSE.” - (Dean of Carlisle.) - - - “27, Cornwall Gardens, S.W., - “December 30th, 1874. - - “My dear Miss Cobbe, - - “I have an impression that the subject of Vivisection is to be brought - before the Senate of the University of London, which consists mainly - of great physicians and surgeons, but of which I am a member. Hence I - think I hardly ought to sign the paper you have sent me. - - “This, you see is an official answer, but I am glad to be able to make - it, for the truth is I have neither thought nor enquired sufficiently - about Vivisection to be ready with a clear opinion. - - “Even if the utmost be proved against the vivisectors, I am inclined - to think that they ought to be dealt with as guilty of a _new_ - offence, and not of an old one. I do not at all like the notion of - bringing old laws such as Martin’s Act against cruelty to animals, to - bear on a class of cases never contemplated at the time of their - enactment. It has a certain resemblance to enforcing the old law of - blasphemy against persons who discuss Christianity in the modern - philosophical spirit. Perhaps I am the more sensitive on this point - since a friend elaborately demonstrated to me that I was liable to - prosecution for what seemed to me a very innocent passage in a book of - mine! - - “Believe me, very truly yours, - “H. S. MAINE.” - (Sir Henry Sumner Maine.) - - - “16, George Street, Hanover Square, W., - “19th December, 1874. - - “Dear Miss Cobbe, - - “I have affixed my name with much satisfaction to this Memorial, and I - presume that you intend that men should be in largest number on the - list. - - “Yours faithfully, - “W. FERGUSSON.” - (Sir William Fergusson, F.R.S., - Serjeant-Surgeon to the Queen.) - - - * * * * * - -This Memorial having a certain importance in the history of our -movement, I quote the principal paragraphs here: - - - “The practice of Vivisection has received of recent years enormous - extension. Instead of an occasional experiment, made by a man of high - scientific attainment, to determine some important problem of - physiology, or to test the feasibility of a new surgical operation, it - has now become the everyday exercise of hundreds of physiologists and - young students of physiology throughout Europe and America. In the - latter country, lecturers in most of the schools employ living animals - instead of dead for ordinary illustrations, and in Italy one - physiologist alone has for some years past experimented on more than - 800 dogs annually. A recent correspondence in the _Spectator_ shows - that many English physiologists contemplate the indefinite - multiplication of such vivisections; some (as Dr. Pye-Smith) defending - them as illustrations of lectures, and some (as Mr. Ray-Lankester) - frankly avowing that one experiment must lead to another _ad - infinitum_. Every real or supposed discovery of one physiologist - immediately causes the repetition of his experiments by scores of - students. The most numerous and important of these researches being - connected with the nervous system, the use of complete anæsthetics is - practically prohibited. Even when employed during an operation, the - effect of the anæsthetic of course shortly ceases, and, for the - completion of the experiment, the animal is left to suffer the pain of - the laceration to which it has been subjected. Another class of - experiments consists in superinducing some special disease; such as - alcoholism (tried by M. Magnan on dogs at Norwich), and the peculiar - malady arising from eating diseased pork (Trichiniasis), superinduced - on a number of rabbits in Germany by Dr. Virchow. How far public - opinion is becoming deadened to these practices is proved by the - frequent recurrence in the newspapers of paragraphs simply alluding to - them as matters of scientific interest involving no moral question - whatever. One such recently appeared in a highly respectable Review, - detailing a French physiologist’s efforts, first to drench the veins - of dogs with alcohol, and then to produce spontaneous combustion. Such - experiments as these, it is needless to remark, cannot be justified as - endeavours to mitigate the sufferings of humanity, and are rather to - be characterised as gratifications of the ‘dilettantism of discovery.’ - - “The recent trial at Norwich has established the fact that, in a - public Medical Congress, and sanctioned by a majority of the members, - an experiment was tried which has since been formally pronounced by - two of the most eminent surgeons in the kingdom to have been ‘cruel - and unnecessary.’ We have, therefore, too much reason to fear that in - laboratories less exposed to public view, and among inconsiderate - young students, very much greater abuses take place which call for - repression. - - “It is earnestly urged by your Memorialists that the great and - influential Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals may - see fit to undertake the task (which appears strictly to fall within - its province) of placing suitable restrictions on this rapidly - increasing evil. The vast benefit to the cause of humanity which the - Society has in the past half century effected, would, in our humble - estimation, remain altogether one-sided and incomplete; if, while - brutal carters and ignorant costermongers are brought to punishment - for maltreating the animals under their charge, learned and refined - gentlemen should be left unquestioned to inflict far more exquisite - pain upon still more sensitive creatures; as if the mere allegation of - a scientific purpose removed them above all legal or moral - responsibility. - - “We therefore beg respectfully to urge on the Committee the immediate - adoption of such measures as may approve themselves to their judgment - as most suitable to promote the end in view, namely, the Restriction - of Vivisection; and we trust that it may not be left to others, who - possess neither the wealth or organization of the Royal Society for - the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, to make such efforts in the same - direction as might prove to be in their power.” - - -It was arranged that the Memorial should be presented in Jermyn Street -in a formal manner on the 25th January, 1875, by a deputation introduced -by my cousin’s husband, Mr. John Locke, M.P., Q.C., and consisting of -Sir Frederick Elliot, Lord Jocelyn Percy, General G. Lawrence, Mr. R. H. -Hutton, Mr. Leslie Stephen, Dr. Walker, Col. Wood (now Sir Evelyn) and -several ladies. - -Prince Lucian Bonaparte, who always warmly befriended the cause, took -the chair at first, and was succeeded by Lord Harrowby, President of the -R.S.P.C.A., supported by Lady Burdett Coutts, Lord Mount-Temple (then -Mr. Cowper-Temple) and others. - -After some friendly discussion it was agreed that the Committee of the -R.S.P.C.A. would give the subject their most zealous attention; and a -sub-Committee to deal with the matter was accordingly appointed -immediately afterwards. - -When I drove home to Hereford Square from Jermyn Street that day, I -rejoiced to think that I had accomplished a step towards obtaining the -protection of the law for the victims of science; and I fully believed -that I was free to return to my own literary pursuits and to the -journalism which then occupied most of my time. A few days later I was -requested to attend (for the occasion only) the first Meeting of the -sub-Committee for Vivisection of the R.S.P.C.A. On entering the room my -spirits sank, for I saw round the table a number of worthy gentlemen, -mostly elderly, but not one of the more distinguished members of their -Committee or, (I think), a single Peer or Member of Parliament. In -short, they were not the men to take the lead in such a movement and -make a bold stand against the claims of science. After a few minutes the -Chairman himself asked me: “Whether _I_ could not undertake to get a -Bill into Parliament for the object we desired?” As if all my labour -with the Memorial had not been spent to make _them_ do this very thing! -It was obviously felt by others present that this suggestion was out of -place, and I soon retired, leaving the sub-Committee to send Mr. Colam -round to make enquiries among the physiologists—a mission which might, -perhaps, be represented as a friendly request to be told frankly -“whether they were really cruel?” I understood, later, that he was shown -a painless vivisection on a cat and offered a glass of sherry; and there -(so far as I know or ever heard) the labours of that sub-Committee -ended. Mr. Colam afterwards took immense pains to collect evidence from -the published works of Vivisectors of the extent and severity of their -operations; and this very valuable mass of materials was presented by -him some months later to the Royal Commission, and is published in the -Blue Book as an Appendix to their Minutes. - -I was, of course, miserably disappointed at this stage of affairs, but -on the 2nd February, 1875, there appeared in the _Morning Post_ the -celebrated letter from Dr. George Hoggan, in which (without naming -Claude Bernard) he described what he had himself witnessed in his -laboratory when recently working there for several months. This letter -was absolutely invaluable to our cause, giving, as it did, reality and -firsthand testimony to all we had asserted from books and reports. In -the course of it Dr. Hoggan said:— - - - “I venture to record a little of my own experience in the matter, part - of which was gained as an assistant in the laboratory of one of the - greatest living experimental physiologists. In that laboratory we - sacrificed daily from one to three dogs, besides rabbits and other - animals, and after four months’ experience I am of opinion that not - one of those experiments on animals was justified or necessary. The - idea of the good of humanity was simply out of the question, and would - be laughed at, the great aim being to keep up with, or get ahead of, - one’s contemporaries in science, even at the price of an incalculable - amount of torture needlessly and iniquitously inflicted on the poor - animals. During three campaigns I have witnessed many harsh sights, - but I think the saddest sight I ever witnessed was when the dogs were - brought up from the cellar to the laboratory for sacrifice. Instead of - appearing pleased with the change from darkness to light, they seemed - seized with horror as soon as they smelt the air of the place, - divining, apparently, their approaching fate. They would make friendly - advances to each of the three or four persons present, and as far as - eyes, ears, and tail could make a mute appeal for mercy eloquent, they - tried it in vain. - - “Were the feelings of the experimental physiologists not blunted, they - could not long continue the practice of vivisection. They are always - ready to repudiate any implied want of tender feeling, but I must say - that they seldom show much pity; on the contrary, in practice they - frequently show the reverse. Hundreds of times I have seen, when an - animal writhed with pain and thereby deranged the tissues, during a - delicate dissection, instead of being soothed, it would receive a slap - and an angry order to be quiet and behave itself. At other times, when - an animal had endured great pain for hours without struggling or - giving more than an occasional low whine, instead of letting the poor - mangled wretch loose to crawl painfully about the place in reserve for - another day’s torture, it would receive pity so far that it would be - said to have behaved well enough to merit death; and, as a reward, - would be killed at once by breaking up the medulla with a needle, or - ‘pithing,’ as this operation is called. I have often heard the - professor say when one side of an animal had been so mangled and the - tissues so obscured by clotted blood that it was difficult to find the - part searched for, ‘Why don’t you begin on the other side?’ or ‘Why - don’t you take another dog? What is the use of being so economical?’ - One of the most revolting features in the laboratory was the custom of - giving an animal, on which the professor had completed his experiment, - and which had still some life left, to the assistants to practice the - finding of arteries, nerves, &c., in the living animal, or for - performing what are called fundamental experiments upon it—in other - words, repeating those which are recommended in the laboratory - hand-books. I am inclined to look upon anæsthetics as the greatest - curse to vivisectible animals. They alter too much the normal - conditions of life to give accurate results, and they are therefore - little depended upon. They, indeed, prove far more efficacious in - lulling public feeling towards the vivisectors than pain in the - vivisected.” - - -I had met Dr. Hoggan one day just before this occurrence at Mdme. -Bodichon’s house, but I had no idea that he would, or could, bear such -valuable testimony; and I have never ceased to feel that in thus nobly -coming forward to offer it spontaneously, he struck the greatest blow on -our side in the whole battle. Of course I expressed to him all the -gratitude I felt, and we thenceforth took counsel frequently as to the -policy to be pursued in opposing vivisection. - -It soon became evident that if a Bill were to be presented to Parliament -that session it must be promoted by some parties other than the -Committee of the R.S.P.C.A. Indeed in the following December _The Animal -World_, in a leading article, avowed that “the Royal Society (P.C.A.) is -not so entirely unanimous as to desire the passing of any special -legislative enactment on this subject” (vivisection). Feeling convinced -that some such obstacle was in the way I turned to my friends to see if -it might be possible to push on a Bill independently, and with the most -kind help of Sir William Hart Dyke (the Conservative whip), it was -arranged that a Bill for “Regulating the Practice of Vivisection” should -be introduced with the sanction of Government into the House of Lords by -Lord Henniker (Lord Hartismere). It is impossible to describe all the -anxiety I endured during the interval up to the 4th May, when this Bill -was actually presented. Lord Henniker was exceedingly good about it and -took much pains with the draft prepared at first by Sir Frederick -Elliot, and afterwards completed for Lord Henniker by Mr. Fitzgerald. -Lord Coleridge also took great interest in it, and gave most valuable -advice, and Mr. Lowe (who afterwards bitterly opposed the almost -identical measure of Lord Cross in the Commons), was willing to give -this earlier Bill much consideration. I met him one day at luncheon at -Airlie Lodge, where were also Lord Henniker, Lady Minto, Lord Airlie and -others interested, and the Bill was gone over clause by clause till -adjusted to Mr. Lowe’s counsels. - -Lord Henniker introduced the Bill thus drafted “for _Regulating the -Practice of Vivisection_” into the House of Lords on the 4th May, 1875; -but on the 12th May, to our great surprise another Bill _to prevent -Abuse in Experiments on Animals_ was introduced into the House of -Commons by Dr. (now Lord) Playfair. On the appearance of this latter -Bill, which was understood to be promoted by the physiologists -themselves—notably by Dr. Burdon-Sanderson, and by Mr. Charles -Darwin—the Government, which had sanctioned Lord Henniker’s Bill, -thought it necessary to issue a Royal Commission of Enquiry into the -subject before any legislation should be proceeded with. This was done -accordingly on the 22nd June, and both Bills were then withdrawn. - -The student of this old chapter of the history of the Anti-vivisection -Crusade will find both of the above-named Bills (and also the -ineffective sketch of what might have been the Bill of the R.S.P.C.A.) -in the Appendix to the _Report of the Royal Commission_, pp. 336–8. Mr. -Charles Darwin, in a letter to the _Times_, April 18th, 1881, said that -he “took an active part in trying to get a Bill passed such as would -have removed all just cause of complaint, and at the same time have left -the physiologists free to pursue their researches,”—a “_Bill very -different from that which has since been passed_.” As Mr. Darwin’s -biographer, while reprinting this letter, has not quoted my challenge to -him in the _Times_ of the 23rd to point out “_in what respect the former -Bill is very different from the Act of 1876_,” I think it well to cite -here the lucid definition of that difference as delineated in the -_Spectator_ of May 15th, doubtless by the editor, Mr. Hutton. - - - “THE VIVISECTION-RESTRICTION BILLS. - - “On Wednesday afternoon last, Dr. Lyon Playfair laid on the table of - the House of Commons a Bill for the Restriction of Vivisection, which - has been drawn up by physiologists, no doubt in part, in the interest - of physiological science, but also in part, no doubt in the interest - of humanity. The contents of this Bill are the best answer which it is - possible to give to the ignorant attack made in a daily contemporary - on Tuesday on Lord Henniker’s Bill, introduced into the House of Lords - last week. The two Bills differ in principle only on one important - point. Both of them clearly have been maturely considered by men of - science as well as by humanitarians. Both of them assume the great and - increasing character of the evil which has to be dealt with. Both of - them approach that evil in the same manner, by insisting that - scientific experiments which are painful to animals shall be tried - only on the avowed responsibility of men of the highest education, - whose right to try them may be withdrawn if it be abused. Both of them - aim at compelling the physiologists who are permitted to try such - experiments at all, to use anæsthetics throughout the experiment, - whenever the use of anæsthetics is not fatal to the investigation - itself.... The Bills differ, however, on a most important point. It is - certain that all the contempt showered on Lord Henniker’s Bill by the - ignorant assailants of the humanitarian party might equally have been - showered on Dr. Lyon Playfair’s. But Lord Henniker’s Bill contemplates - making physiological and pathological experiments on living animals, - even under complete anæsthesia, illegal, except under the same - responsibility and on the same conditions as those experiments which - are not, and cannot be, conducted under complete anæsthesia,—while Dr. - Lyon Playfair leaves all experiments conducted under anæsthetics,—and - will practically, though not theoretically, leave, we fear, those - which only PROFESS to be so conducted (a very different thing),—as - utterly without restriction as they now are. Indeed, it attempts no - sort of limitation upon them. If a whole hecatomb of guinea-pigs, or - even dogs, were known to be imported, and their carcases exported - daily from the private house of any man who declared that he _always - used anæsthetics_, Dr. Playfair’s Bill provides, we believe, no sort - of machinery by which the truth of his assertion could be even - tested.... It is, however, no small matter to have obtained this clear - admission on scientific authority that the victimisation of animals in - the interest of science is an evil of a growing and serious kind which - needs legislative interference, and calls for at least the threat of - serious penalties....” - - -In short, the Bill promoted by the physiologists and Mr. Darwin, was, -like the Resolutions of the Liverpool British Association, a “Pious -Opinion” or _Brutum fulmen_. Nothing more. - -The Royal Commission on Vivisection was issued, as I have said, on the -22nd June, 1875, and the _Report_ was dated January 8th, 1876. The -intervening months were filled with anxiety. I heard constantly all that -went on at the Commission, and my hopes and fears rose and fell week by -week. Of the constitution of the Commission much might be said. Writing -of it in the _British Friend_, May, 1876, the late Mr. J. B. Firth, -M.P., Q.C., remarked:— - -“If it were possible for a Royal Commission to be appointed to inquire -into the practice of Thuggee, I should have very little confidence in -their report if one-third of the Commissioners were prominent practisers -of the art. On the same principle the constitution of this Commission is -open to the observation that it included two notorious advocates of -vivisection, Dr. Erichsen and Professor Huxley, both of whom had to -‘explain’ their writings and practices in connection with it, in the -course of the inquiry.” - -Certain it is, as I heard at the time, and as anyone may verify by -looking over the _Minutes of Evidence_, these two able gentlemen acted, -not as Judges on the Bench examining evidence dispassionately, but as -exceedingly vigorous and keen-eyed Counsel for the Physiologists. On the -humanitarian side there was but a single pronounced opponent of -Vivisection,—Mr. R. H. Hutton,—who nobly sacrificed his time for half a -year to doing all that was in the power of a single Member of the -Commission, and he a layman, to elicit the truth concerning the alleged -cruelty of the practice. At the end, after receiving a mass of evidence -in answer to 3,764 questions from 53 witnesses, the Commission reported -distinctly _in favour of legislative interference_. They say:— - - - “Even if the weight of authority on the side of legislative - interference had been less considerable, we should have thought - ourselves called upon to recommend it by the reason of the thing. It - is manifest that the practice is, from its very nature, liable to - great abuse, and that since it is impossible for society to entertain - the idea of putting an end to it, it ought to be subjected to due - regulation and control.... It is not to be doubted that inhumanity may - be found in persons of very high position as physiologists.... Beside - the cases in which inhumanity exists, we are satisfied that there are - others in which carelessness and indifference prevail to an extent - sufficient to form a ground for legislative interference.” - - -Yet in the face of these and other weighty sentences to the same -purpose, it has been persistently asserted that the Royal Commission -_exonerated_ English physiologists from all charge of cruelty! In Mr. -Darwin’s celebrated letter to Professor Holmgren, of Upsala, published -in the _Times_, April, 1881, he said: “The investigation of the matter -by a Royal Commission proved that the accusations made against our -English physiologists _were false_.” Commenting on this letter the -_Spectator_, April 23rd, 1881 (doubtless Mr. Hutton himself) observed: - - - “The Royal Commission did not report this. They came to no such - conclusion, and though that may be Mr. Darwin’s own inference from - what they did say, it is only his inference, not theirs. In our - opinion it was proved that very great cruelty had been practised, with - hardly any appreciable results, by more than one British - physiologist.” - - -Nor must it be left out of sight in estimating the disingenuousness of -the advocates of vivisection, that the above quoted sentences from the -_Report_ of the Commission were countersigned by those representatives -of Science, Prof. Huxley and Mr. Erichsen; as were, of course, also the -subsequent paragraphs, formally recommending a measure almost identical -with Lord Carnarvon’s Bill. In spite of this the Vivisecting clique has -not ceased to assert that English physiologists were exculpated, and to -protest against the measure which we introduced in strict accordance -with that recommendation; a measure which was even still further -mitigated, (as regarded freedom to the vivisectors,) under the pressure -of their Deputation to the Home Office, till it became the present -_quasi_ ineffectual Act. - -While the Royal Commission was still sitting in the autumn, and when it -had become obvious that much would remain to be done before any -effectual check could be placed on Vivisection, Dr. Hoggan suggested to -me that we should form a Society to carry on the work. I abhorred -Societies, and knew only too well the huge additional labour of working -the machinery of one, over and above any direct help to the object in -view. I had hitherto worked independently and freely, taking always the -advice of the eminent men who were so good as to counsel me at every -step. But I felt that this plan could not suffice much longer, and that -the authority of a formally constituted Society was needed to make -headway against an evil which daily revealed itself as more formidable. -Accordingly I agreed with Dr. Hoggan that we should do well to form such -a Society, he and I being the Honorary Secretaries, _provided_ we could -obtain the countenance of some men of eminence to form the nucleus. “I -will write,” I said, “to Lord Shaftesbury and to the Archbishop of York. -If they will give me their names, we can conjure with them. If _not_, I -will not undertake to form a Society.” - -I wrote that night to those two eminent persons. I received next day -from Lord Shaftesbury a telegram (which he must have dispatched -_instantly_ on receiving my letter) which answered “Yes.” Next day the -post brought from him the letter which I shall here print. The next post -brought also the letter from Archbishop Thomson. Thus the Society -consisted for two days of Lord Shaftesbury, the Archbishop, Dr. Hoggan -and myself! - - - “Lord Shaftesbury to Miss F. P. C. - - “St. Giles’s House, Cranbourne, Salisbury, - “November 17th, 1875. - - “Dear Miss Cobbe, - - “It is needful I am sure, to found a Society, in order to have unity - and persistency of action. - - “I judge, by the terms of the circular, that the object of the Society - will be restriction and not prohibition. - - “Possibly, this end is as much as you will be able to attain. - Prohibition, I doubt not, would be evaded; but restriction will, I am - certain, be exceeded. - - “Not but that a little is better than nothing. - - “But you will find many who will think with much show of reason, that, - by surrendering the principle, you have surrendered the great - argument. - - “Faithfully yours, SHAFTESBURY.” - - - “Bishopthorpe, York, - “November 16th, 1875. - - “Dear Miss Cobbe, - - “I am quite ready to join the Society for restricting Vivisection. I - agree with you; total prohibition would be impossible. - - “I am, yours very truly, - “W. EBOR.” - - -With these names to “conjure with,” as I have said, we found it easy to -enrol a goodly company in the ranks of our new Society. Cardinal Manning -was one of the first to join us. On the 2nd Dec., 1875, the first -Committee meeting was held in the house of Dr. and Mrs. Hoggan, 13, -Granville Place, Portman Square, Mr. Stansfeld taking the chair. Mrs. -Wedgwood, wife of Mr. Hensleigh Wedgwood and mother of my friend Miss -Julia Wedgwood, was present at that first meeting, and (so long as her -health permitted,) at those which followed,—a worthy example of -“heredity,” since her father and mother, Sir James and Lady Mackintosh, -had been among the principal supporters of Richard Martin, and founders -of the R.S.P.C.A. At the third meeting of the Committee, on Feb. 18th, -1876, Lord Shaftesbury took the Chair, for the first time, and again he -took it on the occasion of a memorable meeting on the 1st of March, but -vacated it on the arrival of Archbishop Thomson, who proved to be an -admirably efficient Chairman. We had a serious job, that day; that of -discussing the “_Statement_” of our position and objects. I had drafted -this _Statement_ in preparation, as well as compiled from the _Minutes -of Evidence_, a series of Extracts exhibiting the extension and abuses -of Vivisection; and also evidence regarding Anæsthetics and regarding -foreign physiologists. These appendices were all accepted and appear in -the pamphlet; but my _Statement_ was most minutely debated, clause for -clause, and at last adopted, not without several modifications. After -summarising the Report of the Royal Commission which “has been in some -respects seriously misconstrued” (I might add, persistently misconstrued -ever since) and also Mr. Hutton’s independent _Report_, in which he -desired that the “Household Animals” should be exempted from -Vivisection, the Committee carefully criticise this Report and express -their confident hope that “a Bill may be introduced immediately by -Government to carry out the recommendations of the Commission.” They -observe, in conclusion, that they find “a just summary of their -sentiments in Mr. Hutton’s expression of his view:— - - - “‘The measure will not at all satisfy my own conceptions of the needs - of the case, unless it result in putting an end to all experiments - involving not merely torture _but anything at all approaching - thereto_.’” - - -Such was our attitude at that memorable date when we commenced the -regular steady work which has now gone on for just 18 years. On the 2nd -or 3rd of March I took possession of the offices where so large a part -of my life was henceforth to be spent. When my kind colleagues had left -me and I locked the outer door of the offices and knew myself to be -alone, I resolved very seriously to devote myself, so long as might be -needful, to this work of trying to save God’s poor creatures from their -intolerable doom; and I resolved “never to go to bed at night leaving a -stone unturned which might help to stop Vivisection.” I believe I have -kept that resolution. I commend it to other workers. - -It may interest the reader to know who were the persons then actually -aiding and supporting our movement. - -There was,—first and most important,—my colleague and friend Dr. George -Hoggan, who laboured incessantly (and wholly gratuitously) for the -cause. His wife, Dr. Frances Hoggan, who I am thankful to say, still -survives, was also a most useful member of the Committee. - -The other Members of the Executive were: Sir Frederick Elliot, K.C.M.G. -who had long been Permanent Secretary at the Colonial Office; -Major-General Colin Mackenzie, a noble old hero of the Afghan wars and -the Mutiny; Mr. Leslie Stephen; Mrs. Hensleigh Wedgwood; Dr. Vaughan -(the late Master of the Temple); the Countess of Portsmouth; the -Countess of Camperdown; my friend Miss Lloyd; my cousin, Mr. Locke, -M.P., Q.C.; Mr. William Shaen; Col. (now Sir Evelyn) Wood; and Mr. -Edward de Fonblanque. The latter gentleman was one of the most useful -members of the Committee, whose retirement three years later after our -adoption of a more advanced policy, I have never ceased to regret. - -Beside these Members of the Committee we had then as Vice-Presidents, -the Archbishop of York, the Marquis of Bute, Cardinal Manning, Lord -Portsmouth, Mr. Cowper-Temple (afterwards Lord Mount-Temple), Right Hon. -James Stansfeld, Lord Shaftesbury, the Bishop of Gloucester and Bristol -(Dr. Ellicott), the Bishop of Manchester (Dr. Fraser), Lord Chief -Justice Coleridge, and the Lord Chief Baron, Sir Fitzroy Kelly. - -Dr. Hoggan had invited Mr. Spurgeon to join our Society, but received -from him the following reply:— - - - “Rev. C. H. Spurgeon to Dr. Hoggan. - “Nightingale Lane, Clapham, - “Dec. 24th. - - “Dear Sir, - - “I do not like to become an officer of a Society for I have no time to - attend to the duties of such an office, and it strikes me as a false - system which is now so general, which allows names to appear on - Committees and requires no service from the individuals. - - “In all efforts to spare animals from needless pain I wish you the - utmost success. There are cases in which they _must_ suffer, as we - also must, but not one pang ought to be endured by them from which we - can screen them. - - “Yours heartily, - “C. H. SPURGEON. - - “I shall aid your effort in my own way.” - - -Mr. Spurgeon wrote on one occasion a letter to Lord Shaftesbury to be -read from the Chair at a Meeting; but, much as we wished to use it, the -extreme strength of the _expletives_ was considered to transgress the -borders of expediency! - -We invited Prof. Rolleston to give us his support. The following was his -reply:— - - - “Oxford, Nov. 28th, 1875. - - “Dear Miss Cobbe, - - “I would have answered your letter before had I been able to make up - my mind to do as you ask. This, however, I think I should not, in the - interests of the line of legislation which I advocate, do well to do. - I believe I speak with greater weight from keeping an independent - position. And as I have a great desire to throw away none of the - advantages which that position gives me, I am obliged to decline your - invitation. Allow me to say that I am much gratified by your writing - to ask me to do what I decline to do out of considerations of - expediency. - - “It is also a great pleasure to me to think that what I said at - Bristol has met with your approbation. The bearing of parts at the end - or towards the end of that Address upon the future of Vivisection was, - I hope, tolerably obvious. - - “I am, - “Yours very truly, - “GEORGE ROLLESTON.” - - -The newly-formed Society had been clumsily named by Dr. Hoggan: “The -_Society for Protection of Animals liable to Vivisection_,” and its aim -was: “_to obtain the greatest possible protection for animals liable to -vivisection_.” I was obliged to yield to my colleague as regarded this -awkward title which exactly defined the position he desired to take up; -but it was a constant source of worry and loss to us. As soon as -possible, however, after we had taken our offices in Victoria Street, I -called our Society, unofficially and for popular use, simply “_The -Victoria Street Society_.” - -These offices are large and handsome, and so conveniently situated that -the Society has retained them ever since. They are on the first floor of -a house—formerly numbered “1,” now numbered “20,”—in Victoria Street, -ten or eleven doors up the street from the Broad Sanctuary and the -Westminster Palace Hotel; and with Westminster Abbey and the Towers of -the Houses of Parliament in view from the street door. The offices -contain an ante-room (now piled with our papers), a large airy room with -two windows for the clerks, a Secretary’s private room, and a spacious -and lightsome Committee-room with three windows. Out of this last -another room was accessible, which at one time was taken for my especial -use. I put up bookshelves, pictures, curtains, and various little -feminine relaxations, and thus covered, as far as might be, the -frightful character of our work, so that friends should find our office -no painful place to visit. - -We did not let the grass grow under our feet after we had settled down -in these offices. On the 20th March there went out from them to the -neighbouring Home Office a Deputation to Mr. (now Lord) Cross to urge -the Government to bring in a Bill in accordance with the recommendations -of the Royal Commission. The Deputation was headed by Lord Shaftesbury, -and included the Earl of Minto, Cardinal Manning, Mr. Froude, Mr. -Mundella, Sir Frederick Elliot, Col. Evelyn Wood, and Mr. Cowper-Temple. -Mr. Carlyle was to have joined the Deputation, but held back sooner than -accompany the Cardinal. - -Chief Baron Kelly wrote us the following cordial expressions of regret -for non-attendance:— - - - “Western Circuit, Winchester, - “4th March, 1876. - - “The Lord Chief Baron presents his compliments to Miss Cobbe, and very - greatly regrets that, being engaged at the assize on the Western - Circuit until nearly the middle of April, he will be unable to - accompany the deputation to Mr. Cross on the subject of Vivisection, - to which, however, he earnestly wishes success.” - - -We had invited Canon Liddon, who was a subscriber to our funds from the -first, to join this Deputation, but received from him the following -reply: - - - “Amen Court, 6th March, 1876. - - “My dear Miss Cobbe, - - “I should be sincerely glad to be able to obey your kind wishes in the - matter of the proposed Deputation, if I could. But I am unable to be - in London again between to-morrow and April 1st, and this, I fear will - make it impossible. - - “I shall be sincerely glad to hear that the Deputation succeeds in - persuading the Home Secretary to make legislation on the Report of the - Vivisection Commission a Government question. Mr. Hutton appeared to - me to resist the —— criticisms of the _Times_ on the Report very - admirably! - - “Thanking you for your note, - “I am, my dear Miss Cobbe, - “Yours very truly, - “H. P. LIDDON.” - - -A few weeks afterwards when I invited him to attend a meeting he wrote -again a letter, to the last sentence of which I desire to call attention -as embodying the opinion of this eminent man on the _human_ moral -interest involved in our crusade. - - - “Christ Church, Oxford, - “May 22nd, 1876. - - “My dear Miss Cobbe, - - “I sincerely wish that I could obey your summons. But, as a professor - here, I have public duties on Thursday, the 1st of June, which I - cannot decline or transfer to other hands. - - “I think I told you I was a useless person for these good purposes; - and so, you see, it is. - - “Still you are very well off in the way of speakers, and will not miss - such a person as I. Heartily do I hope that the meeting may reward the - trouble you have taken about it by strengthening Lord Carnarvon’s - hands. The cause you have at heart is of _even greater importance to - human character than to the physical comfort of those of our ‘fellow - creatures’ who are most immediately concerned_. - - “I am, my dear Miss Cobbe, - “Yours very truly, - “H. P. LIDDON.” - - -The Deputation of March 20th to the Home Office was most favourably -received, and our Society was invited to submit to Government -suggestions respecting the provisions of the intended Bill. These -suggestions were framed at a Committee held at our office on the 30th -March, and they were adopted by Government after being approved by its -official advisers, and presented by Lord Carnarvon in the House of -Lords. The second reading took place on the 22nd May. On that occasion -Lord Coleridge made a most judicious speech in defence of the Bill, and -Lord Shaftesbury the long and beautiful one reprinted in our pamphlet, -“_In Memoriam_.” The next morning all the newspapers came out with -leading articles in praise of the Bill. It is hard now to realise that, -previous to undergoing the medical pressure which has twisted the -minds—(or at least the _pens_)—of three-fourths of the press, even the -great paper which has been our relentless opponent for 17 years was then -our cordial supporter. Everything at that time looked fair for us. The -Bill, as we had drafted it, did, practically, fulfil Mr. Hutton’s -aspiration. No experiment whatever under any circumstances was permitted -on a dog, cat, horse, ass, or mule; nor any on any other animal except -under conditions of complete anæsthesia from beginning to end. The Bill -included Licenses, but no Certificates dispensing with the above -provisions. Our hopes of carrying this bill seemed amply justified by -the reception it received from the House of Lords and the Press; and -from a great Conference of the R.S.P.C.A. and its branches, held on the -23rd May. We held our first General Meeting at Westminster Palace Hotel -on the 1st June and resolutions in support of the Bill were passed -enthusiastically; Lord Shaftesbury presiding, and the Marquis of Bute, -Lord Glasgow, Cardinal Manning and others speaking with great spirit. It -only needed, to all appearance, that the Bill should be pushed through -its final stage in the Lords and sent down to the House of Commons, to -secure its passage intact that same Session. - -At this most critical moment, and through the whole month of June, Lord -Carnarvon, in whose hands the Bill lay, was drawn away from London and -occupied by the illness and death of Lady Carnarvon. No words can tell -the anxiety and alarm this occasioned us, when we learned that a large -section of the medical profession, which had so far seemed quiescent if -not approving, had been roused by their chief wire-puller into a state -of exasperation at the supposed “insult” of proposing to submit them to -legal control in experimenting on living animals, (as they were already -subjected to it, by the Anatomy Act, in dissecting dead bodies). These -doctors, to the number of 3,000, signed a Memorial to the Home -Secretary, calling on him to modify the Bill so as practically to -reverse its character, and make it a measure, no longer protecting -vivisected animals from torture, but vivisectors from prosecution under -Martin’s Act. This Memorial was presented on the 10th July by a -Deputation, variously estimated at 300 and at 800 doctors, who, in -either case, were sufficiently numerous to overflow the purlieus of the -Home Office and to overawe Mr. Cross. On the 10th of August the -Bill—essentially altered in submission to the medical memorialists—was -brought by Mr. Cross into the House of Commons, and was read a second -time. On the 15th August, 1876, it received the Royal Assent and became -the Act 39–40 Vict., c. 77, commonly called the “Vivisection Act.” - -The world has never seemed to me quite the same since that dreadful -time. My hopes had been raised so high to be dashed so low as even to -make me fear that I had done harm instead of good, and brought fresh -danger to the hapless brutes for whose sake, as I realised more and more -their agonies, I would have gladly died. I was baffled in an aim nearer -to my heart than any other had ever been, and for which I had strained -every nerve for many months; and of all the hundreds of people who had -seemed to sympathise and had signed our Memorials and petitions, there -were none to say: “_This shall not be!_” Justice and Mercy seemed to -have gone from the earth. - -We left London,—the Session and the summer being over, and came as usual -to Wales; but our enjoyment of the beauty of this lovely land had in -great measure vanished. Even after twenty years my friend and I look -back to our joyous summers before that miserable one, and say, “Ah! -_that_ was when we knew very little of Vivisection.” - -In my despair I wrote several letters of bitter reproach to the friends -in Parliament who had allowed our Bill to be so mutilated as that the -_British Medical Journal_ crowed over it, as affording full liberty to -“science”; and I also wrote to several newspapers saying that after this -failure to obtain a reasonable restrictive Bill, I, for one, should -labour henceforth to obtain total prohibition. In reply to my letter (I -fear a very petulant one) Lord Shaftesbury wrote me this full and -important explanation which I commend to the careful reading of such of -our friends as desire now to rescind the Act of 1876. - - - “Castle Wemyss, Wemyss Bay, N.B., - “Aug. 16th, 1876. - - “Dear Miss Cobbe, - - “Until we shall have seen the Act in print we cannot form a just - estimate of the force of the amendments. Some few, so I see by the - papers, were introduced in Committee, after my last interview with Mr. - Cross; but of their character I know nothing. I am disposed, however, - to believe that he would not have admitted anything of real - importance. - - “Mr. Cross’s difficulties were very great at all times; but they - increased much as the Session was drawing to a close. The want of - time, the extreme pressure of business, the active malignity of the - Scientific men, and the indifference of his Colleagues, left the - Secretary of State in a very weak and embarrassing position. - - “Your letter, which I have just received, asks whether ‘the Bill - cannot be turned out in the House of Lords?’ The reply is that, - whether advisable or unadvisable, it cannot now be done, for the - Parliament is prorogued. - - “In the Bill as submitted to me, just before the second reading at a - final interview with Mr. Cross, Mr. Holt and Lord Cardwell being - present, some changes were made which I by no means approved. But the - question, then, was simply, ‘The Bill as propounded, or no Bill,’ for - Mr. Cross stoutly maintained that, without the alterations suggested, - he had no hope of carrying anything at all. I reverted, therefore, to - my first opinion, stated at the very commencement of my co-operation - with your Committee, that it was of great importance, nay - indispensable, to obtain a Bill, however imperfect, which should - condemn the practice, put a limit on the exercise of it, and give us a - foundation on which to build amendments hereafter as evidence and - opportunity shall be offered to us. - - “The Bill is of that character. I apprehended that if there were no - Bill then, there would be none at any time. No private Member, I - believe, and I still believe, could undertake such a measure with even - a shadow of hope and there was more than doubt, whether a Secretary of - State would, again, entangle himself with so bitter and so wearisome a - question in the face of all Science, and the antipathies of most of - his Colleagues. Public sympathy would have declined, and would not - have easily been aroused a second time. The public sympathy at its - best, was only noisy, and not effective; and this assertion is proved - by the few signatures to petitions, compared with the professed - feeling; and by the extreme difficulty to raise any funds in - proportion to the exigency of the case. - - “The evidence, too, given to the Commission, which was, after all, our - main reliance, would have grown stale; and, the Physiologists would - have taken good care that, for some time at least, nothing should - transpire to take its place. - - “We have gained an enactment that Experiments shall be performed by - none but Licensed Persons, thereby excluding, should the Act be well - enforced, the host of young students and their bed-chamber practices. - - “We have gained an enactment that all experiments shall be performed - under the influence of Anæsthetics;[33] and, thirdly, the greatest - enactment of all, that the Secretary of State is responsible for the - due execution of all these provisions in Parliament, and in his - Office, instead of the College of Physicians, or some such - unreachable, and intangible Body, as many Secretaries of State, except - Mr. Cross, would have evasively, appointed. - - “This provision under the Statutes, so unexpected, and valuable, could - have been suggested to Parliament by a Secretary of State only, and I - feel sure that no Secretary of State in any ‘Liberal’ Administration - would listen to the proposal; and I very much doubt whether Mr. Cross - himself, had his present Bill been rejected, would have, in the case - of a new Bill, repeated his offer of making it a measure for which the - Cabinet has to answer. - - “I have seen your letter to the _Echo_ and the _Daily News_. You are - quite justified in your determination to agitate the country on the - subject of vivisection, and obtain, if it be possible, the total - abolition of it. Such an issue may be within reach, and it is only by - experience that we can ascertain how far such a blessed consummation - is practicable. You will have a good deal of sympathy with your - efforts, and from no one more than from myself. - - “Yours truly, - “SHAFTESBURY.” - - -When we all returned to town in October, the Committee placed on the -_Minutes_ a letter from me, saying that I could only retain the office -of Honorary Secretary if the Society should adopt the principle of total -prohibition. A circular was sent out calling for votes on the point, and -by the 22nd November, 1876, the Resolution was carried, “That the -Society would watch the existing Act with a view to the enforcement of -its restrictions and its extension to the total prohibition of painful -experiments on animals.” - -In February, 1877, the Committee, to my satisfaction, unanimously agreed -to support Mr. Holt’s Bill for total prohibition; and in aid thereof -exhibited on the hoardings of London 1,700 handbills and 300 posters, -which were enlarged reproductions of the illustrations of vivisection -from the Physiological Hand-books. These posters certainly were more -effective than as many thousands of speeches and pamphlets; and the -indignation of the scientific party sufficiently proved that such was -the case. On the 27th April we held our second annual meeting in support -of Mr. Holt’s Bill, and had for speakers Lord Shaftesbury, the good -Bishop of Winchester Dr. Harold-Browne, (now, alas! dead), Lord -Mount-Temple, Prof. Sheldon Amos, Cardinal Manning, and Prince Lucien -Bonaparte. The last remarkable man and erudite scholar (who most closely -resembled his uncle in person, if we could imagine Napoleon I. -commanding only armies _of books_!), was, from first to last, a warm -friend of our cause. After this meeting we elected him Vice-President -and here is his letter of acknowledgment:— - - - “Prince Lucien Bonaparte to Miss F. P. C. - “6, Norfolk Terrace, Bayswater, - “4th May, 1877. - - “My dear Miss Cobbe, - - “I feel highly honoured at being nominated one of the Vice-Presidents - of the Society for Protection of Animals liable to vivisection, and - ask you to return the Committee my best thanks. - - “I am a great admirer of a Society which, like yours, opposes so - strongly the abominable practice of vivisection, because for my own - part, I consider it, even in its mildest form, as a shame to Science, - a dishonour to modern civilisation, and (what I think more important) - a great offence against the law of God. - - “Believe me, my dear Miss Cobbe, - “Yours very sincerely, - “L. BONAPARTE.” - - -Here are some further letters concerned with that meeting or written to -me soon afterwards:— - - - “Christ Church, Oxford, - “March 26th, 1877. - - “My dear Miss Cobbe, - - “I beg to thank you sincerely for your kind letter. - - “So far as I can see there is, I fear, little chance of my being at - liberty to take part in the proceedings on the 27th of April. - - “However, with the names which you announce, you will be more than - able to dispense with any assistance that I could lend to the common - object. You will, I trust, be able to strengthen Mr. Holt’s hands. If - what I have heard of his measure is at all accurate, it seems to be at - once moderate and efficient. - - “I was much struck by an observation which you were, I think, said to - have made the other day at Bristol, to the effect that as matters now - stand everything depends upon the discretion, or rather, upon the - moral sympathies of the Home Secretary. Mr. Cross, I believe, would - always do well in all such matters. But it does not do to reckon with - the Roman Empire as if it were always to be governed by a Marcus - Aurelius. - - “I am, my dear Miss Cobbe, - “Yours very truly, - “H. P. LIDDON.” - - - “House of Commons, - “26th March. - - “Dear Miss Cobbe, - - “I am sorry I cannot undertake to speak at your meeting on the 27th - April. I am not sure that I shall be in London on that day, but - request you to send me any notice of the meeting. - - “My time and strength are somewhat overtaxed owing to an inability, - and I may add indisposition, to say No when I think I may be useful. I - am, however, I can assure you, in sympathy with you in your attempt to - put down torture in every form. - - “I am, yours very sincerely, - “S. MORLEY.” - (Samuel Morley, M.P.) - - - “My dear Miss Cobbe, - - “I will come in at some stage of your proceedings. I am bound first to - Convocation—and am engaged at Kingston before 5. - - “What I should like would be to thank Lord Shaftesbury; but this must - depend on the time that I come, and _that_ must depend on the - exigencies of Convocation. - - “Yours truly, - “A. P. STANLEY. - (The Dean of Westminster.) - - “April 25th, 1877.” - - “My dear Miss Cobbe, - - “I am very sorry that through absence from home my answer to your note - has been delayed. I shall not be able to take part in your meeting on - the 27th, for I am not in a state of health to take part in any public - meeting; but if I am at all able I should like much to attend it and - hear for myself the views of the speakers. I have not expressed - publicly any opinion on the question of Vivisection, being anxious at - first to await the determination of the Commission, and then to see - how the restrictions were likely to work. - - “I confess that my own mind is leaning very strongly to the conclusion - that there is no safe, right course other than entire prohibition. The - more I think of it the more I dread the brutality which in spite of - the influence of the best men will inevitably be developed in our - young Experimenters, in these days of almost fanatical devotion to - scientific research. It seems to me to more than counterbalance the - physical advantages to our sick what may grow out of the practice of - vivisection. - - “And I am very sceptical about these physical advantages. I doubt - whether the secrets of nature can be successfully discovered by - torture, any more than the secrets of hearts. We have abandoned the - one endeavour, finding the results to be by no means worth the cost. I - am persuaded that we shall soon, for the same reason, have to abandon - the other. - - “I am not able, as I say, to take part in a meeting, but as soon as I - am able I intend to preach on the subject, and if you can forward to - me any information which will be useful I shall be much obliged to - you. Believe me - - “Ever my dear Miss Cobbe, - “Yours very faithfully, - “J. BALDWIN BROWN.” - (Rev. J. B. Brown.) - - -By this time there were two other Anti-vivisection Societies in London, -beside Mr. Jesse’s Society at Macclesfield, all working for total -prohibition; and though of course we had various small difficulties and -rivalries in the course of time, yet practically we all helped each -other and the cause. Eventually the _International Society_, of which -Mr. and Mrs. Adlam were the spirited leaders, coalesced with ours and -added to our Committee several of its most valuable members including -our present much respected Chairman, Mr. Ernest Bell. The _London -Anti-vivisection Society_, though I expended all my blandishments on it, -has never consented to amalgamation, but has done a great work of its -own for which we have all reason to hold it in honour. - -The revolt against the cruelties of science spread also about this time -to the continent. Baron Weber read his _Torture Chamber of Science_ in -Dresden, and created thereby a great sensation, followed by the -formation of the German League, of which he is President, and the -foundation of its organ, the _Thier-und-Menschen-Freund_, edited by Dr. -Paul Förster, now a member of the Reichstag. Other Anti-vivisection -Societies were founded then or in subsequent years in Hanover, in -Berlin, and in Stockholm. In Copenhagen those devoted friends of -animals, M. and Mdme. Lembcké, had long contended vigorously against the -local vivisector, Panum. In Italy the Florence _Società Protettrice_, of -which our Queen is Patroness and Countess Baldelli the indefatigable -Hon. Sec., has steadily worked against vivisection from its foundation; -and so has the Torinese Society of which Dr. Riboli is President and -Countess Biandrate Morelli the leading member. In Riga there has also -been a persevering movement against Vivisection by the excellent Society -of which the _Anwalt der Thiere_ is the (first-class) organ, and Madame -V. Schilling the presiding spirit. - -In short, by the end of the decade, though we had been so cruelly -defeated, we were conscious that our movement had extended and had -become to all appearance one of those permanent agitations, which, once -begun, go on till the abuses which aroused them are abolished. In -America the movement only took definite shape in February, 1883, when, -under the auspices of the indefatigable Mrs. White, the _American -Anti-vivisection Society_ was founded at Philadelphia; to be followed up -by its most flourishing Illinois Branch, carried on with immense spirit -by Mrs. Fairchild Allen. Mr. Peabody and Mr. Greene have since -established at Boston the _New England Anti-vivisection Society_, which -has already become one of our most powerful allies. - -On the 2nd May, Mr. Holt’s Bill for total prohibition was debated in the -House of Commons, and on a division there were 83 votes in its favour -and 222 against it. - -At last the Committee of the Victoria Street Society formally adopted -the thoroughgoing policy; and at a Meeting, August 7th, 1878, resolved -“to appeal henceforth to public opinion in favour of the total -prohibition of Vivisection.” We then changed our title to that of the -_Society for Protection of Animals from Vivisection_. Dr. Hoggan and his -wife, Mrs. Hoggan, M.D., and also Mr. de Fonblanque retired from the -Committee with cordial goodwill on both sides, and the Archbishop of -York withdrew from the Vice-Presidency. But, beside these losses, I do -not believe that we had any others, and there was soon a large batch of -fresh recruits of new Members who had long resented our previous -half-hearted policy,—as they considered it to have been. - -For my own part I had accepted from the outset the assurance I received -on all hands that a Bill for the total prohibition of Vivisection had -not the remotest chance of passing through Parliament in the present -state of public opinion; but that a Bill might be framed, which, -proceeding only on the grounds of Restriction, might effectually and -thoroughly exclude “_not only torture but anything at all approaching -thereto_”; and that such a Bill had every chance of becoming law. To -promote such a Bill had been my single aim and hope, and when it had -been prepared and presented and received so favourably, it really -appeared as if we were on the right and reasonable tack; much as we -hated any concession whatever to the demands of the vivisectors. - -But when we found that the compromise which we proposed had failed, and -that our Bill providing the _minimum_ of protection for animals at all -acceptable by their friends, was twisted into a Bill protecting their -tormentors, we were driven to raise our demands to the total prohibition -of the practice, and to determine to work upon that basis for any number -of years till public opinion be ripe for our measure. - -This was one aspect of our position; but there was another. We had in -truth gone into this crusade almost as our forefathers had set off for -the Holy Land, with scarcely any knowledge of the Power which we were -invading. We knew that dreadful cruelties had been done; but we fondly -imagined they were abuses which were _separable_ from the _practice_ of -experimenting on living animals. We accepted blindly the representation -of Vivisection by its advocates as a rare resource of baffled surgeons -and physicians, intent on some discovery for the immediate benefit of -humanity or the solution of some pressing and important physiological -problem; and we thought that with due and well considered restrictions -and safeguards on these occasional experiments, we might effectually -shut out cruelty. By slow, very slow degrees, we learned that nothing -was much further from the truth than these fancy pictures of ideal -Vivisection, and that real Vivisection is _not_ the occasional and -regretfully-adopted resource of a few, but the _daily employment_ (Carl -Vogt called it his “daily bread”) of hundreds of men and students, -devoted to it as completely and professionally as butchers to cutting up -carcases. Finally we found that to extend protection by any conceivable -Act of Parliament to animals once delivered to the physiologists in -their laboratories, was chimerical. Vivisection, we recognized at last -to be a _Method of Research_ which may be either sanctioned or -prohibited as a Method, but which cannot be restricted efficiently by -rules founded on humane considerations wholly irrelevant to the -scientific enquiry. - -On the moral side also, we became profoundly impressed with the truth of -the principle to which Canon Liddon refers in the letter I have quoted, -viz., that the Anti-Vivisection cause is “of even greater importance to -human character than to the physical comfort of our fellow-creatures who -are most immediately concerned.” As I wrote of it, about this time in -_Bernard’s Martyrs_:— - - - “We stand face to face with a _New Vice_, new, at least in its vast - modern development and the passion wherewith it is pursued—the Vice of - Scientific Cruelty. It is not the old vice of _Cruelty for Cruelty’s - sake_. It is not the careless brutal cruelty of the half-savage - drunken drover, the low ruffian who skins living cats for gain, or of - the classic Roman or modern Spaniard, watching the sports of the arena - with fierce delight in the sight of blood and death. The new vice is - nothing of this kind.... It is not like most other human vices, hot - and thoughtless. The man possessed by it is calm, cool, deliberate; - perfectly cognisant of what he is doing; understanding, as indeed no - other man understands, the full meaning and extent of the waves and - spasms of agony he deliberately creates. It does not seize the - ignorant or hunger-driven or brutalized classes; but the cultivated, - the well-fed, the well-dressed, the civilized, and (it is said) the - otherwise kindly disposed and genial men of science, forming part of - the most intellectual circles in Europe. Sometimes it would appear as - we read of these horrors,—the baking alive of dogs, the slow - dissecting out of quivering nerves, and so on,—that it would be a - relief to picture the doer of such deeds as some unhappy, half-witted - wretch, hideous and filthy in mien or stupified by drink, so that the - full responsibility of a rational and educated human being should not - belong to him, and that we might say of him, ‘He scarcely understands - what he does.’ But, alas! this _New Vice_ has no such palliations; and - is exhibited not by such unhappy outcasts, but by some of the very - foremost men of our time; men who would think scornfully of being - asked to share the butcher’s honest trade: men addicted to high - speculation on all the mysteries of the universe; men who hope to - found the Religion of the Future, and to leave the impress of their - minds upon their age, and upon generations yet to be born.” - - -Regarding the matter from this point of view,—as our leaders, the most -eminent philanthropists of their generation, Lord Shaftesbury, Lord -Mount-Temple, Samuel Morley, and Cardinal Manning, emphatically did,—the -reasons for calling for the total Prohibition of Vivisection rather than -for its Restriction became actually clearer in our eyes on the side of -the human moral interests than on that of the physical interests of the -poor brutes. We felt that so long as the practice should be sanctioned -at all, so long the Vice of Scientific Cruelty would spring up in the -fresh minds of students, and be kept alive everywhere. It was therefore -absolutely needful to reach the germ of the disease, and not merely to -endeavour to allay the worst symptoms and outbreaks. It is the _passion -itself_ which needs to be sternly suppressed; and this can only be done -by stopping altogether the practice which is its outcome, and on which -it feeds and grows. - -But (say our opponents), “Are you prepared to relinquish all the -benefits which this practice brings to humanity at large?” - -Our answer to them, of course, is, that we question the reality of those -benefits altogether, but that, placing them at their highest estimation, -they are of no appreciable weight compared to the certain moral injury -done to the community by the sanction of cruelty. The discovery of the -_Elixir Vitæ_ itself would be too dearly purchased if the hearts of men -were to be rendered one degree more callous and selfish than they are -now. And that the practice of vivisection by a body of men at the -intellectual summit of our social system, whose influence must dribble -down through every stratum of society, would infallibly tend to increase -such callousness, there can exist no reasonable doubt. For my own part, -though believing that little or nothing worth mentioning has been -discovered for the Healing Art through Vivisection, and that Dr. -Leffingwell is right in saying that “if agony could be measured in -money, no Mining Company in the world would sanction prospecting in such -barren regions,” I yet deprecate the emphasis which many of our friends -have laid on this argument against vivisection. We have gone off our -rightful ground of the simple moral issues of the question and have -seemed to admit (what very few of us would deliberately do) that _if_ -some important discovery _had been_ made by Vivisection, our case -against it would be lost or weakened. I have been so anxious to warn our -friends against this, as I think, very grave mistake in tactics, that I -circulated some time ago a little _Parable_ which I may as well -summarize here:— - - - “A party of Filibusters once proposed to ravage a neighbouring island, - inhabited by poor and humble people who had always been faithful - servants and friends of our country, and had in no way deserved - ill-treatment. Some friends of justice protested that the Filibusters - ought to be prohibited from carrying on their expedition, but - unluckily they did not simply arraign the moral lawfulness of the - project, but went on to discuss the _inexpediency_ of the invasion, - arguing that the island was very poor and barren, and would not repay - the cost of conquest. Here the Filibusters saw their advantage and - broke in: ‘No such thing! _We_ are the only people who know anything - about the island, and we assure you it is full of mines of gold and - silver.’ ‘Bosh!’ replied the just men; ‘we defy you to show us a - single nugget.’ On this there was a good deal of shuffling of feet - among the Filibusters, and they exhibited some glittering fragments as - gold, but being tested these proved to be worthless, and again other - fragments which they produced were traced to quite another part of the - district, far away from the island. Still it became evident that the - Filibusters would go on interminably bringing up specimens, and some - day might possibly produce one the value of which could not be well - disputed. Moreover the Filibusters (who, like other pirates, were - addicted to telling fearful yarns) had the great advantage of talking - all along of things they had studied and seen, whereas the men of the - party of justice were imperfectly informed about the resources of the - island, having never gone thither, and thus they were easily placed at - a disadvantage and made to appear foolish. It is true that the - Filibusters had set them on the wrong track by clamouring for the - invasion on the avowed ground of the spoil they should gather for the - nation, and they had only tried to nullify the effect of such appeals - to general selfishness by showing that there was really no spoil to be - had; and that the invasion was a blunder as well as a crime. But in - bandying such appeals to expediency they had put themselves in the - wrong box; because _to discuss the value of the spoil was_, by - implication _to admit that, if it only were rich, it might possibly be - justifiable to go and seize it_!” - - -I have made this long explanation of our policy, because I am painfully -aware that among practical people and men of the world, accustomed to -compromise on public questions, our adoption of the demand for total -prohibition has placed us at a great disadvantage as “irreconcilables;” -and our movement has appeared as the “fad” of enthusiasts and fanatics. -For the reasons I have given above I think it will appear that while -compromise offered any hope of protecting our poor clients from the very -worst cruelties, we tried it frankly and in earnest; first in Lord -Henniker’s and secondly in Lord Carnarvon’s Bill. When this last effort -failed we were left no choice but either to abandon our dumb friends to -their fate, or demand for them the removal of the source of their -danger. - - -It will not be necessary for me to recount further with as much detail -the history of the Victoria Street Society, of which I continued to act -as Hon. Secretary till I finally left London in 1884. Abundance of other -friends of animals, active and energetic, were in the field, and our -movement, in spite of a score of checks and defeats, continued to spread -and deepen. Campbell’s familiar line often occurred to me (with a -variation)— - - “The cause of _Mercy_ once begun, - Though often lost is always won!” - -On July 15th, 1879, Lord Truro brought into the House of Lords a Bill -for the Prohibition of Vivisection. It was not promoted by us, and was -in many respects unfortunately managed, but our Society, of course, -supported it, Lord Shaftesbury made in defence of it one of his longest -speeches. I was in the House of Lords at the time, and thought that -there could never be a much more affecting sight than that of the noble -old man, who had pleaded so often in that “gilded chamber” for men, -women and children, standing there at last in his venerable age, urging -with all his simple eloquence the claims of dumb animals to mercy. -Against him rose and spoke Lord Aberdare, actually (as he took pains to -explain) _as President_ of the Society for Prevention of Cruelty to -Animals! The Bishop of Peterborough, Dr. Magee, afterwards Archbishop of -York, also made then his unhappy speech about the rabbits and the -surgical operation; (with which the inventor of that operation, Dr. -Clay, said they had “no more to do than the Pope of Rome”). Only 16 -Peers voted for the Bill, 97 against it. - -On the 16th March, 1880, Mr. Holt’s Bill for total prohibition was down -for second reading in the House of Commons, but was stopped by notice of -dissolution. From that time our friend, Sir Eardley Wilmot, took charge -of a similar Bill promoted by our Society. Notice of it was given by Mr. -Firth on the 3rd February, 1881. The second reading was postponed, first -to July 13th, next to July 27th, and then that day was taken by -government. In October of that year (1881) Mr. R. T. Reid took charge of -our Bill, on the resignation of Sir Eardley Wilmot. The second reading -was postponed on June 28th, 1882, and not till the 4th of April, 1883, -after all these heart-breaking postponements and failures, there was at -last a Debate. Mr. Reid and Mr. George Russell spoke admirably in favour -of the Bill, but they were talked out without a division by a whole -series of advocates of vivisection, of whom Sir William Harcourt, Mr. -Cartwright, and Lord Playfair, were most eminent. This was the last -occasion on which we have been able to obtain a debate in either House. -Mr. Reid brought in his Bill again in 1884, but could obtain no day for -a second reading. - -One touching incident of these earlier years I must not omit. Our Hon. -Correspondent at the Hague, Madame van Manen-Thesingh, had written me -several letters exhibiting remarkable good sense as well as ardent -feeling. One day I received a short note from her telling me that she -was dying; and begging me to send over some trustworthy agent at once to -the Hague, if, (as she feared) I could not go to her myself. I -telegraphed that I would be with her next day, and accordingly sailed -that night to Flushing. When I reached her house M. van Manen received -me very kindly; but as a man half bewildered with grief. His wife’s -disease was cancer of the tongue, and she could no longer speak. She was -waiting for me in her drawing-room. It may be imagined how affecting was -our half-speechless interview. After a time M. van Manen, at a sign from -his wife, unlocked a bureau and took out a large packet of papers. These -he placed before her on the table and then left the room. Of course I -understood this proceeding was intended to satisfy me that it was with -her husband’s entire consent that Madame van Manen gave these papers to -me. There were a great many of them, Dutch, Russian, and American -securities of one sort or another, and she marked them off one by one on -a list which she had prepared. Then she wrote down that she gave me all -these, and also some laces and jewellery, to further the -Anti-vivisection cause in whatever way I thought best; reserving a -donation for the _London Anti-vivisection Society_. A few efforts to -convey my gratitude and sympathy were all I could make. The dear, noble -woman stood calm and brave in the immediate prospect of death in its -most painful form, and all her anxiety seemed to be that the poor brutes -should be effectually aided by her gifts. I left her sorrowfully, and -carried her parcel in my travelling bag, first to Amsterdam for a day or -two, and then to London, where having summoned our Finance Committee, I -placed it in their hands. The contents (duly estimated and sold through -the _Army and Navy Society_) realised (over and above the legacy to the -_London Society_) about £1,350. With this sum we started the -_Zoophilist_. - -The _Zoophilist_ thus founded (May 2nd, 1881) under the editorship of -Mr. Adams, then our Secretary, has of course been of enormous value to -our cause. A new series began on the 1st January, 1883, which I edited -till my resignation of the Hon. Secretaryship June, 1884. I also started -and edited a French journal of the same size and character, _Le -Zoophile_, from November 1st, 1883, to April, 1884, when the undertaking -was abandoned, French readers having obviously found the paper too dry -for their taste. Some of them also remonstrated with me against the -occasional references in it to religious considerations, and I was -frankly counselled by a very influential French gentleman to _cease -altogether to mention God_,—a piece of advice which I distinctly -declined to take! The late celebrated Mdlle. Deraismes sent me a -beautiful article for _Le Zoophile_, of which I should have gladly -availed myself if she would have allowed me the editorial privilege of -dropping about half a page of aggressive atheism; but this, after a -pretty sharp correspondence, she refused peremptorily to do. Altogether -I was evidently out of touch both with my French staff and French -readers. - -Beside these two periodicals our Society from the first issued an almost -incredible multitude of pamphlets and leaflets. I should be afraid to -make any calculation of the number of them and of the thousands of -copies sent into circulation. My own share must have exceeded four -hundred. Beside these and those of our successive Secretaries (some -extremely able) we printed valuable pamphlets, Sermons and Speeches by -Lord Shaftesbury, Cardinal Manning, the Lord Chief Justice, the Dean of -Llandaff, Professor Ruskin, Bishop Barry, Mr. R. T. Reid, Hon. B. -Coleridge, Lady Paget, Canon Wilberforce, Mr. Mark Thornhill, Mr. Leslie -Stephen, the Bishop of Oxford (Dr. Mackarness), Rev. F. O. Morris, Dr. -Arnold, George Macdonald, Mr. Ernest Bell, Baron Weber, and (above all -for scientific importance) Mr. Lawson Tait, Dr. Bell Taylor, Dr. Berdoe, -and Dr. Clarke. - -Some of my own Anti-vivisection pamphlets were collected a few years ago -and published by Messrs. Sonnenschein in a volume (crown 8vo., pp. 272) -entitled the _Modern Rack_. Several very useful books of reference were -compiled by our Secretary, Mr. Bryan, and published by the Society; -notably the _Vivisectors’ Directory_, the _English Vivisectors’ -Directory_, and _Anti-vivisection Evidences_. Of the _Nine Circles_, -compiled for me and printed (first edition) at my expense, I shall speak -presently. - -I must here be allowed to say that the spirited letters, pamphlets and -articles by our medical allies, Dr. Berdoe, Dr. Clarke, Dr. Bowie and -Dr. Arnold,—above all Dr. Berdoe’s contributions to our scientific -literature, have been an immeasurable value to our cause. The day of Dr. -Berdoe’s accession to our party at one of our annual meetings must ever -be remembered by me with gratitude. His ability, courage and -disinterestedness have been far beyond any praise I can give them. Mr. -Mark Thornhill also (a distinguished Indian Civil Servant, author of -_The Indian Mutiny_, etc.), has done us invaluable service by his calm, -lucid and most convincing writings, notably “_The Case against -Vivisection_,” and “_Experiments on Hospital Patients_.” Mr. Pirkis, -R.N., has been for many years not only by his steady attendance at the -Committee but by his unwearied exertions in preparing and disseminating -anti-Pasteur literature, one of the chief benefactors of the Society. - -Among our undertakings on behalf of the victims of science was the -prosecution of Prof. Ferrier at Bow Street on the 17th November, 1881, -on the strength of certain reports in the two leading Medical Journals. -We had ascertained that he had no license for Vivisection and yet we -read as follows in a report of the proceedings at the International -Medical Congress of 1881:— - -“The members were shown two of the monkeys, a portion of whose cortex -had been removed by Professor Ferrier.”—_British Medical Journal_, 20th -August, 1881. - -“The interest attaching to the discussion was greatly enhanced by the -fact that Professor Ferrier was willing to exhibit two monkeys which he -had operated upon some months previously.... - -“In startling contrast to the dog were two monkeys exhibited by -Professor Ferrier. One of them had been operated upon in the middle of -January, the left motor area having been destroyed.”—_Lancet_, October -8th, 1881. - -When the reporters who had sent in their reports to the two journals -were produced, the following ludicrous examination took place in court:— - - - Dr. Charles Smart Roy (the Reporter for the _British Medical Journal_) - was asked— - - “_Q._ Did Professor Ferrier offer to exhibit two of the monkeys upon - which he had so operated? - - “_A._ At the Congress, no. - - “_Q._ Did he subsequently? - - “_A._ No; he showed certain of the members of the Congress two monkeys - at King’s College. - - “_Q._ What two monkeys? - - “_A._ Two monkeys upon which an operation had been performed. - - “_Q._ By whom? - - “_A._ BY PROFESSOR YEO” (!!) - - The Editor of the _Lancet_, Dr. Wakeley, was next examined:— - - Dr. Wakeley, _sworn, examined by Mr. Waddy_:— - - “_Q._ Are you the Editor of the _Lancet_? - - “_A._ I am. - - “_Q._ Can you tell me who it was furnished his Report? - - “_A._ I have the permission of the gentleman to give his name, - Professor Gamgee, of Owen’s College, Manchester. - - “Mr. Waddy: What I should ask is that one might have an opportunity of - calling Professor Gamgee. - - “Mr. Gully (Counsel for the defendant): We have communicated with - Professor Gamgee, and I know very well he will say precisely what was - said by Dr. Roy.” - - —_Report of Trial_, November 17th, 1881. - - -The position of the Anti-vivisectionists on the occasion was, it must be -confessed, like that of the simple countryman in the fair. “You lay your -money that Professor Ferrier is under that cup?” “Yes, certainly! I saw -both Professor Roy and Professor Gamgee put him there about five minutes -ago.” “Here then, see! Hay Presto! Hocus-pocus! There is only Professor -Yeo!” - -The group of Vivisectors and their allies, Dr. Michael Foster, Dr. -Burdon-Sanderson, Dr. Ernest Hart, Prof. Ferrier, Dr. Roy and many more -who filled the court, all evinced the utmost hilarity at the success of -the device whereby (as a matter of necessity) the Anti-vivisection case -collapsed. - -At last, in the _Philosophical Transactions_ of the Royal Society for -1884, the truth came to light. In the Prefatory Note to a record of -Experiments by David Ferrier and Gerald F. Yeo, M.D., occurs the -statement:— - - - “The facts recorded in this paper are partly the results of a research - made conjointly by Drs. Ferrier and Yeo, aided by a grant from the - British Medical Association, and partly of a research made by Dr. - Ferrier alone, aided by a grant from the Royal Society.” - - -The conjoint experiences are distinguished by an asterisk; and among -them we find those of the two monkeys which formed the subject of the -trial. Thus it stands confessed,—actually in the _Transactions of the -Royal Society_,—that Professor Ferrier _had_ the leading share (his name -always appears first) in the experiments; and that, conjointly with -Professor Yeo, he received a grant from the British Medical Association -for performing the same! - -If after this experience we have ceased to hope much from proceedings in -Courts of Justice against our antagonists, it will not be thought -surprising. The Society has been frequently twitted with the failure of -this prosecution, “for which” our opponents say, we “had not a tittle of -evidence.” Elaborate reports in the two leading Medical journals do not, -it appears, afford even “a tittle of evidence!”[34] - -Among other modes in which we endeavoured to push forward our cause, -have been special appeals to win over particular churches or other -bodies to adopt our principles. Enormous numbers of circulars have been -addressed in this manner by our Society to the Clergy of the Church of -England, and it is believed that at least 4,000 are on our side in the -controversy; more than 2,000 had signed our Memorial several years ago. - -Another appeal was addressed by me personally to the Society of Friends -through the Clerks of the Monthly and Quarterly Meetings in England and -Ireland. - -It has proved eminently successful, and has led to the formation of a -powerful “_Friends’ Anti-vivisection Society_,” which lately issued an -appeal to other members of their body signed by 2,000 friends, many of -them being among the most eminent in England. This has again formed the -ground of a fresh appeal on an immense scale in Pennsylvania. Another -recent appeal to the Congregationalists has, I hear, been very well -received. On one occasion a special Petition to the House of Lords was -signed by every Unitarian Minister in London. It was presented by the -Archbishop of York, who also presented a Memorial (for Restriction) in -1876 signed by all the heads of Colleges in Oxford. - -Another appeal which I ventured to make (printed as a large pamphlet) to -“_the Humane Jews of England_,” entreating them to remonstrate with the -40 German Jews who are the worst vivisectors in Europe, was, -unfortunately, a deplorable failure. Four of my own private friends, -Jewesses, all expressed their sympathy warmly, and sent handsome -contributions to our funds; but _not one_ other Jew or Jewess, high or -low, rallied to us, albeit I presented pamphlets to nearly 200 -recommended to me as specially well disposed. I shall never be tempted -to address the “_Humane_” Jews of England again! - -One other circular I may mention as more successful. I sent to seven -hundred Head Schoolmasters the following Letter, with which were -enclosed the pamphlets mentioned therein:— - - - “Hengwrt, Dolgelly, - “September, 1886. - - “Dear Sir, - - “Permit me respectfully to ask your perusal of the accompanying little - paper on ‘Physiology as a Branch of Education.’ I have written it - under a strong sense of the necessity which at present exists for some - similar caution. - - “The leaflet describing a ‘Specimen of Modern Physiological - Instruction,’ refers to a scene in Paris which could not be precisely - paralleled in an English school, so far as concerns the actual torture - of the animals used for exhibition, since the Vivisection Act of 1876 - provided that anæsthetics must be used in all cases of Vivisection for - Illustration of Lectures. - - “It is, however, to be seriously questioned whether even painless, - (and therefore not _shocking_), operations on living animals, - performed before boys and girls, by the enthusiastic English admirers - of Claude Bernard and Paul Bert, may not excite in the minds of the - young witnesses a curiosity unmingled with pity, such as may - subsequently prompt them to become the most merciless experimenters; - or, at least, advocates and apologists of scientific cruelty. - - “Trusting, Sir, that you will pardon the trespass of this letter, - - “I am, sincerely yours, - “FRANCES POWER COBBE.” - - -Twelve of these Head Masters, including some of the most eminent, -_e.g._, Mr. Welldon, of Harrow; Dr. Haig, of the Charterhouse; and the -lamented Mr. Thring, of Uppingham, wrote me most interesting letters in -reply expressing approval of my views. I shall here insert that of Mr. -Thring as in many respects noteworthy. - - - “Rev. Edward Thring to Miss F. P. C. - “Pitlochry, Perthshire, N.B., - “September 6th, 1889. - - “My dear Madam, - - “I received your little pamphlet on physiology, but I hardly know what - you expect me to do. My writings on Education sufficiently show how - strongly I feel on the subject of a Literary Education; or rather how - confident I am in the judgment that there can be no worthy education - which is not based on the study of the highest thoughts of the highest - men, in the best shape. - - “As for Science (most of it falsely so called) if a few leading minds - are excepted, it simply amounts, to the average dull worker, to no - more than a kind of upper shopwork, weighing out, and labelling, and - learning alphabetical formulæ; a superior Grocery-assistant’s work; - and has not a single element of higher mental training in it. Not to - mention that it leaves out all knowledge of man and life, and - _therefore_ is eminently fitted to train men for life and its - struggles! Physiology, in its worser sense adds to this a brutalising - of the average practitioner, or rather a devilish combination of - intellect-worship and cruelty at the expense of feeling and character. - For my part, if it were true that vivisection had wonderfully relieved - bodily disease for men, if it were at the cost of lost spirits, then I - should say, Let the body perish! And it _is_ at the cost of lost - spirits! I do not say that under no circumstances should an experiment - take place, but I do say that under no circumstance should an - experiment take place for teaching purposes. You will see how decided - my judgment is on this matter. I send you three Addresses on - Education, which in smaller space than my books, will illustrate the - positive side of my experience and beliefs. - - “Yours faithfully, - “EDWARD THRING.” - - -Our Committee was, in all the years in which I had to do with it, the -most harmonious and friendly of which I have ever heard. Lord -Shaftesbury, who presided 49 times, and never once failed us when he was -expected, was, of course, as all the world knows, a first-rate Chairman, -getting through an immense amount of business, while allowing every -member his, or her, legitimate rights of speech and voting. He never -showed himself, (I have been told,) anywhere more genial and zealous -than with us. Lord Mount-Temple attended very frequently, and Lady -Mount-Temple from first to last has been one of our warmest and wisest -friends. General Colin Mackenzie, a devout and noble old soldier, spoke -little, but what he did say was always straight to the mark, and the -affectionate respect we all felt for him made his presence delightful. -Lady Portsmouth (now the Dowager Countess) attended in those days very -regularly and Lady Camperdown has given us her unwearied help from that -time to this. I have spoken of the very valuable services of Mr. E. de -Fonblanque. In later years my friend Rev. William Henry Channing was a -great support to me. The Cardinal was, perhaps, a little reserved, but -always carefully kind and courteous, and whatever he said bore great -weight. Lord Bute’s advice was very valuable and full of good sense. Mr. -Shaen’s legal knowledge served us often. In brief, each member was -useful. There never were any parties or cabals in the Committee. It was -my business as Hon. Sec. (especially after my colleague, Dr. Hoggan, -retired) to lay proposals for action before the Committee. They were -sometimes rejected and often completely modified; but we all felt that -the one thing we desired was simply to find the best way of forwarding -our cause, and we were thankful for the guidance of the wise and -experienced men who were our leaders. In short, the feelings which -inspired us round that long oak office-table were not ill befitting our -work; and now that so many of those who sat there beside me in the -earlier years have passed from earth, I find myself pondering whether -they have met “_Elsewhere_;” where, ere long I may join them. They must -form a blessed company in any world. May my place be with _them_, please -God! rather than with the votaries of Science, in the “secular to be.” - -In later years the _personnel_ of the Committee has of course been -largely renewed. Lady Mount-Temple, Lady Camperdown and Mrs. Frank -Morrison almost alone remain from the earlier body. Miss Marston also, -who originally founded the _London Anti-vivisection Society_, has been -for many years one of the firmest and wisest friends of the Victoria -Street Society also. I have spoken above of all that we owe to Capt. -Pirkis’ unfailing help at the Committee, even while residing far out of -town; and of the zeal wherewith he and his gifted wife founded the first -of our Branches, and have laboured in circulating our literature. Miss -Monro, Miss Rees, Miss Bryant, and Mrs. Arthur Arnold have never wearied -through many years in patiently and vigorously aiding our work. Of our -excellent chairman, Mr. Ernest Bell’s services to the Anti-vivisection -cause it is needless for me to speak as they must be recognised -gratefully by the whole party throughout England. - -We have had several successive Secretaries who sometimes took the work -much off my hands, sometimes left it to fall very heavily on me and Miss -Lloyd. On one occasion, we two, having also lost the clerk, did the -entire work of the office for many weeks, inclusive of writing, editing, -folding, addressing, and actually _posting_ an issue of the -_Zoophilist_! But my toils and many of my anxieties ended when I was -fortunate enough to obtain the services, as Secretary, of Mr. Benjamin -Bryan, who had long shown his genuine interest in the cause as editor of -a Northern newspaper; and, after a year or two of work in concert with -him, I felt free to leave the whole burden on his shoulders and tendered -my resignation. The constant presence on the Committee of my long-tried -and most valued allies Mr. Ernest Bell, Capt. Pirkis, and Miss Marston -left me entirely at rest respecting the course of our future policy in -the straight direction of Prohibition. - -The last event which I need record is a disagreeable incident which -occurred in the autumn of 1892. I had been seriously ill with acute -sciatica, and had been only partially relieved by a large subcutaneous -dose of morphia given me by my country doctor. In this state, with my -head still swimming and scarcely able to sit at a table, I found myself -involved in the most acrimonious newspaper controversy which I ever -remember to have seen in any respectable journal. It will be best that -another pen than mine should tell the story, so I will quote the calm -and lucid statement of the author of the excellent pamphlet, -“_Vivisection at the Folkestone Church Congress_” (page 6). - -After a _résumé_ of the notorious debate at Folkestone the writer says:— - - - “The main point of attack in Mr. Victor Horsley’s paper was a book - called the _Nine Circles_ which had been published some months before, - and contained reports of different classes of cruel experiments on - animals, both in England and on the Continent. To this book Miss Cobbe - had given the sanction of her name, but she was not personally - responsible for any of the quotations, having intrusted the - compilation of the book to friends living in London, and who had - access to the journals and papers in which the experiments were - recorded. Mr. Horsley’s indignation was roused because in a certain - number of cases—22 out of the 170 narratives of different classes of - experiments, many of them involving a _series_, and the use of large - numbers of animals in each—the mention of the use of morphia or - chloroform was omitted. Miss Cobbe, in a letter to the _Times_ of - October 11th, while acknowledging that the compilers were bound to - quote the fact if stated, expressed her conviction that such - statements are misleading, because insensibility is not and cannot be - complete during the whole period of the experiment. Dr. Berdoe also - wrote in several papers defending Miss Cobbe against Mr. Horsley’s - imputations of fraud and intent to deceive, &c., and explaining that - the compilers of the book were alone responsible for the omissions. He - added, however, a further explanation that, as it was often the - painful results, and not the operations which caused them, that it was - desired to illustrate, and as these results lasted sometimes for many - days or weeks or months and to maintain insensibility during that - period was impossible, the omissions were not so important after - all.”... - - “... The assailant, however, returned to the charge and in a more - violent style than before. His letter to the _Times_ of October 17th, - was a tirade against Miss Cobbe, worthy, as the _Spectator_ remarked, - only of the fifteenth century, in which the words ‘false’ and ‘lie’ - were freely used. It was a letter of so libellous a character that it - is a matter for wonder that it obtained publication. Miss Cobbe very - naturally and properly at once retired from a controversy conducted, - as she expressed it in a letter to the _Times_, ‘outside of all my - experience of civilised journalism.’ She concluded with these words: - ‘I need scarcely say that I maintain the veracity of every word of the - letter which you did me the honour to publish of the 15th inst., as - well as the _bona fides_ of all I have spoken or written on this or - other subjects during my three-score years and ten.’” - - -After a week or two I went to Bath to recruit my health after the attack -of sciatica; and the first newspaper I took up at the York Hotel, -contained a still more violent attack on me than those which had -preceded it. On reading it I walked into the telegraph office next door, -wired for rooms at my favourite South Kensington Hotel and went up to -town with my maid, presenting myself at once to our Committee, which -happened to be sitting and arranging for the impending meeting in St. -James’s Hall. “Shall I attend,” said I, “and speak, or not? I will do -exactly what you wish.” The Committee were unanimously of opinion that I -should go to the meeting and take part in the proceedings, and I have -ever since rejoiced that I did so. It was on the evening of October -27th. My ever kind friend, Canon Basil Wilberforce took the chair, Col. -Lockwood, Bishop Barry, Dr. Berdoe, Mr. Bell, and Captain Pirkis were on -the platform supporting me, but above all Mr. George W. E. Russell (then -Under Secretary of State for India) made a speech on my behalf for which -I shall feel grateful to him so long as I live. We had but slight -acquaintance previously, and I shall always feel that it was a most -generous and chivalrous action on his part to stand forth in so public a -manner as my champion on such an occasion. The audience was more than -sympathetic. There was a storm of genuine feeling when I rose to make my -explanation, and I found it, for once, hard to command my voice. This is -what I said, as reported in the _Zoophilist_, November 1st, 1892: - - - “Now to come to the story of the _Nine Circles_, which I will tell as - quickly as possible. When I gave up the Honorary Secretaryship of the - Victoria Street Society six years ago, I retired to live among the - mountains in Wales; and the chief thing which remained for me to do - was to publish as many pamphlets and papers as seemed likely to help - the cause. I have just got here my printer’s list of the papers which - I have printed in those six years. I have made up the totals, and I - find that the number in the six years of books, pamphlets, and - leaflets has been 320—that is about one a week—and that 271,350 copies - of them were printed; 173 papers having been written by myself. - (Cheers.) Some of these were adopted by the Society and honoured by - coming out under its auspices; and others I issued quite - independently. Amongst those which I issued ‘on my own hook,’ I am - happy to say, was this book called the _Nine Circles_. Therefore our - dear and honoured Society is not responsible for that book. I am alone - responsible; it was printed at my expense, and Messrs. Sonnenschein - published it for me. Therefore, I am the only person concerned with - it, and the Society has nothing to do with it. I am thankful to hear - that the revised edition will come out under the auspices of the - Society. My only privilege will be to pay for it, and that I shall - most thankfully do, in order to wipe out the wrong I have done as - concerns the present edition. When the present book was got up, I - sketched a plan of it, and asked a lady often employed by us who was - living in London, and is a good German scholar, to make extracts for - me. She knows a great deal about the subject; she also knows German - (which I do not do sufficiently for the purpose), and she was living - in London while I was 200 miles away. Therefore I asked her to make - the extracts of which this book is compiled, and it was afterwards - revised,—as Dr. Berdoe has told us,—by him. The book came out; and it - appears now that there are some mistakes in it. My assistant had left - out certain things which ought to have been stated. I took it for - granted,—I was quite wrong to do so,—that all my directions had been - carried out, and I made myself responsible for the book. Therefore, - whatever error there is in the matter is mine, and I beg that that - will be quite understood. (Cheers.) But what is all this tremendous - storm which has been raised, and this pulling of the house down about - these mistakes? Do they wish us to understand that there are no such - things as painful experiments in England? Apparently that is what they - are trying to make us think—that there never has been anything of the - kind; that they are perfectly incapable of putting any animal to pain. - Do they really mean that? Is that what they wish us to understand? If - they do _not_ mean that, I do not know what it is they mean. It seems - to me that they are raising this tremendous storm very much as if the - old slave-holders were to have danced a war-dance round Mrs. Stowe and - scalped her for having said that Legree had flogged Uncle Tom with a - thousand lashes, when really there were only nine hundred and - ninety-nine. (Laughter.) That seems to me to be the case in a - nutshell.”—_Zoophilist_, November 1st, 1892. - - -I had the gratification to receive soon after the following most kind -Address and expression of confidence from the leading Members of the -Victoria Street Society:— - - - ADDRESS. - - - _To Miss Frances Power Cobbe_, - - We, the undersigned, being supporters of the Victoria Street Society, - and others interested in the movement against Vivisection, wish to - express the strong feeling of indignation with which we have seen your - integrity called in question by men who seem unable to conceive of the - pure unselfish devotion of high intellectual gifts to the service of - God’s humbler creatures. - - It is impossible for those who know anything of the early history of - this movement to forget the great personal sacrifice at which you - undertook to make it the chief work of your life. - - It is equally impossible for us who have watched its progress, to say - how highly we have esteemed the indomitable courage and forcible - eloquence with which you have exposed the evils inseparable from - experiments on living animals. - - Further, we wish to record our firm conviction that you have, - throughout, recognised the wisdom and the duty of founding your attack - on Vivisection upon the truth, and nothing but the truth, so far as - you have been able to arrive at it. - - We wish, in conclusion, to assure you not only of our special sympathy - with you at a time when you have been subjected to a personal attack - of an unusually coarse and violent character, but also of our - determination to give still more earnest support to the Cause to which - you have, at so great a cost, devoted yourself: - - Strafford (_Earl of Strafford_) - Coleridge (_Lord Chief Justice_) - Worcester (_Marquis of Worcester_) - Haddington (_Earl of Haddington_) - Arthur, Bath and Wells (_Bishop of Bath and Wells_) - J., Manchester (_Bishop of Manchester_) - W. Walsham, Wakefield (_Bishop of Wakefield_) - H. B., Coventry (_Bishop of Coventry_) - John Mitchinson (_Bishop_) - F. Cramer-Roberts (_Bishop_) - Edward G. Bagshawe (_R. C. Bishop of Nottingham_) - Sidmouth (_Viscount Sidmouth_) - Pollington (_Viscount Pollington_) - Colville of Culross (_Lord Colville of Culross_) - Cardross (_Lord Cardross_) - H. Abinger (_Lady Abinger_) - Robartes (_Lord Robartes_) - Leigh (_Lord Leigh_) - C. Buchan (_Dow. Countess of Buchan_) - Harriet de Clifford (_Dow. Lady de Clifford_) - F. Camperdown (_Countess of Camperdown_) - Kinnaird (_Lord Kinnaird_) - Alma Kinnaird (_Lady Kinnaird_) - Clementine Mitford (_Lady Clementine Mitford_) - Eveline Portsmouth (_Dowager Countess of Portsmouth_) - Georgina Mount-Temple (_Lady Mount-Temple_) - H. Kemball (_Lady Kemball_) - J. Brotherton (_Lady Brotherton_) - Evelyn Ashley (_Hon. Evelyn Ashley_) - Bernard Coleridge (_Hon. B. Coleridge, M.P._) - Geraldine Coleridge (_Hon. Mrs. S. Coleridge_) - Stephen Coleridge (_Hon. Stephen Coleridge_) - George Duckett (_Sir George Duckett, Bt._) - Henry A. Hoare (_Sir Henry Hoare, Bt._) - Geo. F. Shaw, LL.D. - Samuel Smith, M.P. - Theodore Fry, M.P. - George W. E. Russell, M.P. - Jacob Bright, M.P. - Th. Burt, M.P. - Julius Barras (Colonel) - Richard H. Hutton - R. Payne Smith - H. Wilson White, D.D., LL.D. - Edward Whately (_Archdeacon Whately_) - George W. Cox (_Revd. Sir George Cox, Bart._) - R. M. Grier (_Prebendary Grier_) - Eleanor Vere C. Boyle (_Hon. Mrs. R. C. Boyle_) - E. G. Deane Morgan (_Hon. Mrs. Deane Morgan_) - Charles Bell Taylor, M.D. - Edward Berdoe, M.R.C.S. - Alex. Bowie, M.D., C.M. - John H. Clarke, M.D. - Henry Downes, M.D. - Henry M. Duncalfe - William Adamson, D.D. - William Adlam - Amelia E. Arnold - Ernest Bell - Rhoda Broughton - Olive S. Bryant - W. K. Burford - A. Gallenga and Mrs. Gallenga - Maria G. Grey - Emily A. E. Shirreff - Frances Holden - Eleanor Mary James - Francis Griffith Jones - E. J. Kennedy - Edith Leycester - W. S. Lilly - Mary Charlotte Lloyd - Ann Marston - Mary J. Martin - S. S. Munro - Frank Morrison - Harriet Morrison - Josiah Oldfield - Rose Pender - Fred. Pennington - Herbert Philips - Fred. E. Pirkis and Mrs. Pirkis - R. Ll. Price - Evelyn Price - R. M. Price - Lester Reed - Ellen Elcum Rees - J. Herbert Satchell - Mark Thornhill, J.P. - - -Looking back on this long struggle of twenty years, in which so much of -my happiness and the happiness of others dearer than myself, has been -engulfed, I can see that, starting from the apparently small and -subordinate question of Scientific Cruelty, the controversy has been -growing and widening till the whole department of ethics dealing with -man’s relation to the lower animals has gradually been included in it. -That this department is an obscure one, and that neither the Christian -Churches nor yet philosophic moralists have hitherto paid it sufficient -attention, is now admitted. That it is time that it should be carefully -studied and worked out, is also clear. - -Sometimes I have thought (as by a law of our being we seem driven to do -whenever our hearts are deeply concerned) that a Divine guidance may -have presided over all the heart-breaking delays and disappointments of -this weary movement; and that it has not been allowed to terminate, as -it would certainly have done, had we carried our Bill of 1876 in its -original form through Parliament. _Then_ our Society would have -dissolved at once; and, after a time, perhaps, the Act, however well -designed, would have become more or less a dead letter; and the -hydra-heads of Vivisection would have reared themselves once more. But, -as it has actually happened, the delay and failure of our earlier -efforts and our consequent persistence in them, have fixed attention on -this culminating sin against the lower animals, and through it on all -other sins against them. A great revision of opinion on the subject is -undoubtedly taking place; and while some (especially Roman Catholic) -Zoophilists have diligently sought in decrees and manuals and treatises -of casuistry for some authority defining Cruelty to animals to be a Sin, -the poverty of the results of all such investigations, and of the -anxious collation of Biblical texts by Protestants, is gradually -revealing the fact that, in this whole department of human duty, we must -look to the God-enlightened consciences of _living_ men rather than to -the _dicta_ of departed saints, or casuists, whose attention was -directed exclusively to the relations of human beings with each other -and with God, and who obviously never contemplated those which we hold -to the brutes with adequate seriousness,—if at all. Of course we are -here met, just as the first anti-Slavery apostles were met, and as the -advocates of every fresh development of morality will be met for many a -day to come, by the fundamental fallacy of the Christian Churches (in -that respect resembling Islam) that there is a finality in Divine -teaching, and that they have been for two thousand years in possession -of the last word of God to man. Protestants are certainly not bound in -any way to occupy such a position, or to assume that a final revise has -ever been issued, or ever will be issued by Divine authority, of a -_Whole Duty of Man_. Rather are they called on piously and gratefully to -look for fresh light to come down, age after age, from the Father of -lights: or (if they please rather so to consider it) further development -of the Christian Spirit to be manifested as men learn better to -incarnate it in their minds and lives. As for Theists like myself, it is -natural for us and in accordance with all our opinions, to believe that -such a movement as is now taking place over the civilised world on -behalf of dumb animals, is a fresh Divine impulse of Mercy, stirring in -thousands of human hearts, and deserving of reverent cherishing and -thankful acceptance. - -It is my supreme hope that when, with God’s help, our Anti-vivisection -controversy ends in years to come, long after I have passed away, -mankind will have attained _through it_ a recognition of our duties -towards the lower animals far in advance of that which we now commonly -hold. If the beautiful dream of the later Isaiah can never be perfectly -realised on this planet and none may ever find that thrice “Holy -Mountain” whereon they “shall not hurt nor destroy”—yet at least the -time will come when no man worthy of the name will take _pleasure_ in -killing; and he who would torture an animal will be looked upon as (in -the truest sense) “_inhuman_”; unworthy of the friendship of man or love -of woman. The long-oppressed and suffering brutes will then be spared -many a pang and their innocent lives made far happier; while the hearts -of men will grow more tender to their own kind by cultivating pity and -tenderness to the beasts and birds. The earth will at last cease to be -“full of violence and cruel habitations.” - - - September, 1898. - -The too confident expectations which I entertained of my permanent -connection till death with the Society which I had founded and which I -designed to make my heir, have alas! been disappointed. It was perhaps -natural that in my long exile from London and consequent absence from -the Committee, my continual letters of enquiry, advice, and (as I fondly -and foolishly imagined) assistance in the work were felt to be -obtrusive,—especially by the newer members. One change after another in -the Constitution and in the Name of the Society, left me more or less in -opposition to the ruling spirits; and before long a much more serious -difference arose. The very able and energetic Hon. Sec., Hon. Stephen -Coleridge, (who had entered on his office in April, 1897), after making -the changes to which I have referred, proposed that we should introduce -a Bill into Parliament, no longer on the old lines, asking for the Total -Prohibition of Vivisection, but on quite a different basis; demanding -certain “Lesser Measures,” not yet distinctly formulated, but intended -to supply checks to the practical lawlessness of licensed Vivisectors. -Mr. Coleridge and his brother (now Lord Coleridge), had, twelve or -fourteen years before, urged me to abandon the demand for Total -Prohibition, and to adopt the policy of Restriction and bring in a bill -accordingly. But to this proposal I had made the most strenuous -resistance, writing a long pamphlet on the _Fallacy of Restriction_ for -the purpose; and it had been (as I thought), altogether given up and -forgotten. It would appear, however, that the idea remained in Mr. -Coleridge’s mind,—with the modification that he now regarded “Lesser -Measures” not as final Restriction, but as steps to Prohibition; and for -this policy he obtained the suffrage of the majority of the Council, -though not of the oldest members. - -The reader who will kindly glance back over the preceding pages -(300–306), will see the exceeding importance I attach to the maintenance -of the strict principle of Abolition,—whereby our party renounces all -compromise with the “abominable sin,” and refuses to be again cheated by -the hocus-pocus of Vivisectors and their deceptive anæsthetics. But an -over-estimate (as it seems to me) of the importance of Parliamentary -action, and certainly an under-estimate of that of the great popular -propaganda whereon our hopes must ultimately rest,—a propaganda which -would be paralyzed by the advocacy of half measures,—caused Mr. -Coleridge and his friends to take an opposite view. After a long and, to -me, heart-breaking struggle, I was finally defeated by a vote of 29 to -23, at a Council Meeting on the 9th February, 1898. The policy of Lesser -Measures was adopted by the newly-christened _National Society_; and I -and all the oldest members and founders of the Victoria Street Society -sorrowfully withdrew from what we had proudly, but very mistakenly, -called “our” Society. Amongst us were Mr. Mark Thornhill, Miss Marston, -Mr. and Mrs. Adlam, Lady Mount-Temple, Mr. and Mrs. Frank Morrison, Lady -Paget, Madame Van Eys, and Countess Baldelli. To all workers in the -cause these names will stand as representing the very nucleus of the -whole party since it began its life 23 years ago. The oldest and most -faithful worker of all, Lady Camperdown, who had aided me with the first -memorial in 1874, and who had attended the Committee from first to last, -had risen from her death-bed to write a letter imploring the Chairman -not to support the demand for Lesser Measures. She died before the -decision was reached, and her touching letter, in spite of my -entreaties, was not read to the Congress. - -After leaving the old Society with unspeakable pain and mortification I -felt it incumbent on me, while I yet had a little strength left for work -and was not wholly “played out” (as I believe I was supposed to be by -the new spirits at the office) to establish some centre where the only -principle on which the cause can, in my opinion, be safely maintained -should be permanently established, and to which I could transfer the -legacy of £10,000 which then stood in my Will bequeathed unconditionally -to the Committee of the National Society. My first effort was to request -the Committee of the _London Anti-vivisection Society_ to give me such -pledge as it was competent to afford that it would not promote any -measure in Parliament short of Abolition. This pledge being formally -refused, there remained for me no resource but to attempt once more in -my old age to create a new Anti-Vivisection Society; and I resolved to -call it THE BRITISH UNION FOR THE ABOLITION OF VIVISECTION, and to make -it a Federation of Branch Societies, having its centre in Bristol where -my staunch old fellow-workers had had their office for many years -established and in first-rate order. I invited as many friends as seemed -desirous of joining in my undertaking, to a private Conference here at -Hengwrt; and I had the pleasure of receiving and entertaining them for -three days while we quietly arranged the constitution of the new Union -with the invaluable help of our Chairman, Mr. Norris, K.C., late one of -the Justices of the Supreme Court, Calcutta. - -The _British Union_ was, in the following month, (June, 1898), formally -constituted at a public conference in Bristol; and it is at present -working vigorously in Bristol and in its various Branches in Wales, -Liverpool, York, Macclesfield, Sheffield, Yarmouth and London. All -information concerning it and its special constitution (whereby the -Branches will all profit by bequests to the Union) may be obtained by -enquiry from either our admirable Hon. Sec., Mrs. Roscoe (Crete Hill, -Westbury-on-Trym, Bristol); our zealous Secretary, Miss Baker, 20, -Triangle, Bristol; or our Hon. Treasurer, John Norris, Esq., K.C., -Devonshire Club, London. - -To those of my readers who may desire to contribute to the -Anti-Vivisection Cause, and who have shared my views on it as set forth -in my numberless pamphlets and letters, and to those specially who, like -myself, intend to bequeath money to carry on the war against Scientific -Cruelty, I now earnestly say as my final Counsel: SUPPORT THE BRITISH -UNION! - - - - - CHAPTER - XXI. - _MY HOME IN WALES._ - - -[Illustration: - - _Hengwrt._ -] - -In April, 1884, my friend and I quitted London, having permanently let -our house in South Kensington to Mrs. Kemble. The strain of London life -had become too great for me, and advancing years and narrowed income -together counselled retreat in good time. I continued then and ever -since, of course, to work for the Anti-vivisection cause; but I resigned -my Honorary Secretaryship, June 26th, 1884, and left the entire charge -of the office and of editing the _Zoophilist_ to Mr. Bryan.[35] - -A few months later I was disturbed to hear that the Hon. Stephen -Coleridge (Lord Coleridge’s second son) who had always been particularly -kind and considerate towards me, had started a fund to form a farewell -testimonial to me from my fellow-workers. Mr. Coleridge addressed our -leading members and friends in the following letter:— - - - “12, Ovington Gardens, S.W., - “August, 1884. - - “Sir or Madam, - - “At the general meeting of the Victoria Street and International - Societies for the Total Abolition of Vivisection, on the 26th June, - Miss Frances Power Cobbe, for reasons set forth in the annual report, - gave in her resignation of the post of Honorary Secretary, and it was - accepted with deep reluctance. - - “The executive committee, meeting shortly afterwards unanimously - passed a resolution to the effect that the occasion ought not to be - passed over by the Society unrecognised, and a list of subscribers to - a testimonial for Miss Cobbe has been opened. The object of this - letter is to acquaint you of these facts and to afford you the - opportunity of adding your name to the list should you desire to do - so. - - “Year after year from the foundation of the Societies and before, Miss - Cobbe has fought against the practice of the torture of animals with - constant earnestness, conspicuous power, and enthusiasm born of a - noble cause. - - “That testimonials are too plentiful it may perhaps be urged with - truth; but many of us who deprecate the practice of Vivisection feel - that such a life as this, of honour and devotion, were it to stand - unrecognised and unacknowledged, would mark us as entirely ungrateful. - - “I remain, - “Your faithful servant, - “STEPHEN COLERIDGE.” - (Honorary Secretary and Treasurer to the fund.) - - -In a short space of time, I was told, a thousand pounds was collected; -and it was kindly and thoughtfully expended in buying me an annuity of -£100 a year. The amount of labour and trouble which all these -arrangements must have cost Mr. Stephen Coleridge must have been very -great indeed, and only most genuine kindness of heart and regard for me -could have induced him to undertake them. I was very much startled when -I heard of this gift and very unwilling to accept it, as in some degree -taking away the pleasurable sense I had had of working all along -gratuitously for the poor beasts, and of having sacrificed for some -years nearly all my literary earnings to devote myself to their cause. -My objections were over-ruled by friendly insistence, and Lord -Shaftesbury presented the Testimonial to me in the following letter:— - - - “24, Grosvenor Square, W., - “February 26th, 1885. - - “My dear Miss Cobbe, - - “The Committee of the Anti-vivisection Society, and other - contributors, have assigned to me the agreeable duty of requesting you - to do them the kindness and the honour, to accept the accompanying - Testimonial. - - “It expresses, I can assure you, their deep and real sense of the vast - services you have rendered to the world, by the devotion of your time, - your talents and indefatigable zeal, to the assertion of principles - which, though primarily brought into action for the benefit and - protection of the inferior orders of the Creation, are of paramount - importance to the honour and security of the whole Human Race. - - “We heartily pray that you may enjoy all health and happiness in your - retirement, which, we trust, will be but temporary. We shall - frequently ask the aid of your counsels and live in hope of your - speedy return to active exertion, in the career in which you have - laboured so vigorously, and which you so sincerely love. - - “Believe me to be, - “Very truly yours, - “SHAFTESBURY.” - - -I acknowledged Lord Shaftesbury’s letter as follows:— - - - “Hengwrt, Dolgelly, N. Wales, - “February 27th. - - “Dear Lord Shaftesbury, - - “I find it very difficult to express to you the feelings with which I - have just read your letter, and received the noble gift which - accompanied it. You and all the good friends and fellow-workers who - have thus done me honour and kindness will have added much to the - material comfort and enjoyment of such years as may remain to me; but - you have done still more for me, by filling my heart with the happy - sense of being cared for. - - “That you should estimate such work as I have been able to do so - highly as your letter expresses, while it far surpasses anything I can - myself think I have accomplished, yet makes me very proud and very - thankful to God. - - “Whatever has been done by me in the way of raising up opposition to - scientific cruelty has been attained only because I had the - inestimable advantage of being supported and guided by you from first - to last, and aided step by step by the unwearied sympathy and - co-operation of my dear and generous fellow-labourers. - - “These words are very inadequate to convey my thanks to you for this - gift and all your past goodness towards me, and those which I would - fain offer through you to the Committee and all the Subscribers to - this splendid Testimonial; especially to the Hon. Secretary, who has - undertaken the great trouble which the collection of it must have - involved. I can but repeat, I thank you and them with my whole heart. - - “Most sincerely, dear Lord Shaftesbury, and - “Gratefully yours, - “FRANCES POWER COBBE.” - - -This addition to my little income made up for certain losses which I had -incurred, and raised it to about its original moderate level, enabling -me to share the expenses of our Welsh cottage. I was, however, of -course, a poor woman, and not in a position to help my friend to live -(as we both earnestly desired to do) in her larger house in Hengwrt. We -made an effort to arrange it so, loving the place and enjoying the -beauty of the woods and gardens exceedingly. But we knew it could not be -our permanent home; and a suitable tenant having come on the field, -offering to take it for a term of years which would naturally reach -beyond our lives, we felt that the end of our possession was drawing -near. I was very sorrowful for my own sake, and still more for that of -my friend who had always had peculiar attachment to the place. I -reflected painfully that if I had been only a little better off, she -might not have been obliged to relinquish her proper home. - -All this was occupying me much. It was a Thursday morning, and the -gentleman who proposed to become the tenant of Hengwrt was to come on -Monday to make a definite offer which,—once accepted,—would have been -held to bind my friend. - -I went downstairs into the old oak hall in the morning and opened the -post-bag. Among the large packet of letters which usually awaits me -there was one from a solicitor in Liverpool. I knew that my kind old -friend Mrs. Yates had died the week before, and I had been informed that -she had left me her residuary legatee; but I imagined her to be in -narrow circumstances, and that a few hundreds would be the uttermost of -my possible inheritance; not sufficient, at all events, to affect -appreciably my available income. I opened the Solicitor’s letter very -coolly and found myself to be,—so far as all my wants and wishes -extend,—a rich woman. - -The story of this legacy is a very touching one. I never saw or heard of -Mrs. Yates till a few years before her death, and when she was already -very aged. She began by sending large and generous donations of £50, and -£80, at a time to our Society. Later, she came up from Liverpool to -London when I was managing affairs without a Secretary, and, finding me -at the office, she gave me a still larger donation, actually in -bank-notes. She was an Unitarian, or rather a Theist, like myself; and -having taken very warm interest in my books, she seemed to be drawn to -me by a double sympathy, both on account of religious sympathies, and -those we shared on behalf of the vivisected animals. Of course I -explained to her the details of my work, and she took the warmest -interest in it. After I resigned my office of Honorary Secretary, she -seemed to prefer to give her principal contributions personally to me to -expend for the cause according to my judgment, and twice she sent me -large sums, with strictest injunction to keep her name, and even the -locality of the donor, secret. I called these gifts my _Trust Fund_, and -made grants from it to working allies all over the world. I also spent a -great deal of it in printing large quantities of papers. Of course I -began by sending her a balance sheet of my expenditure; but this she -forbade me to repeat, so I could only from time to time write her long -letters (copied for me by my friend as my writing taxed her sight), -telling her all we were doing. At last she came to see us here in answer -to our repeated invitations, but could not be persuaded to stop more -than one night. Talking to me out walking, she asked me: “Would I take -charge of some money she wished to leave for protection of animals _in -Liverpool_?” I answered that I could not engage to do this, and begged -her to entrust it (as she eventually did) to some friend resident in the -place. Then she said shyly: “Well, you do not object to my leaving you -something for yourself—to my making you my residuary legatee?” adding to -the question some words of affection. Of course I could only press her -hand and say I was grateful for her kind thought. She did it all so -simply, that, being prepossessed with the idea that she was in rather -narrow circumstances, and that she had already given me the savings of -her lifetime in the Trust Fund, it never even occurred to me that this -residuary legateeship could be an important matter, after she had -provided (as she was sure to do) for all legitimate claims upon her. -Nothing could exceed my astonishment when I found how large was the sum -bequeathed in this unpretending way. My friend thought I must be ill -from the difficulty I seem to have found in commanding my voice to tell -her the strange news when she came into the hall, a quarter of an hour -after I had read that epoch-making letter! - -Certainly never was a great gift made with such perfect delicacy. Mrs. -Yates had taken care that I should have no reason, so long as she lived, -to suppose myself under any personal obligation to her. Since then, it -may be believed that my heart has never ceased to cherish her memory -with tender gratitude, and to associate the thought of her with all the -comforts of the home which her wealth has secured for me. - -Mrs. Yates, at the time I knew her, had been for thirty or forty years -the widow of Mr. Richard Vaughan Yates, a Liverpool Merchant. The -following obituary notice of her appeared in the _Zoophilist_, November -2nd, 1891. I may add that beside her personal legacy to me (given simply -by her will to “her friend Miss Frances Power Cobbe,” without comment of -any kind) Mrs. Yates gave £1,000 to the Victoria Street Society, as well -as £1,000 to the Liverpool Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals; -both bequests being over and above legacies to her executors, relatives -and dependents:— - - - “OBITUARY. - - “THE LATE MRS. YATES. - - “The Victoria Street Society and the cause of Anti-vivisection have - lost their most generous supporter in Mrs. Richard Yates, of - Liverpool; a good and noble woman if ever there were one. Born in - humble circumstances, she was one of the truest gentlewomen who ever - lived. Her wide cultivation of mind, broadly liberal but deeply - religious spirit and sound, clear judgment, remained conspicuous even - in extreme old age. The hearts of those whom she aided in their toil - for the poor brutes, with a generosity only equalled by the delicacy - of its manifestations, will ever keep her memory in tender and - grateful respect.” - - -A warmly-feeling article in the _Inquirer_, October 10th, 1891, known to -be by her friend and pastor, Rev. Valentine Davies, gave the following -sketch of her life. It is due to her whose generosity has so brightened -my later years, that my autobiography should contain some such record of -her goodness and usefulness. - - - “MRS. RICHARD VAUGHAN YATES. - - - “On Thursday evening, October 1st, there passed peacefully away one - who was the last of her generation; bearing a name honoured in - Liverpool since the Rev. John Yates, in the latter part of last - century and the early years of this, ministered in Paradise Street - Chapel, and his sons took their places in the first rank of the - merchants and philanthropic citizens of the town. Anne Simpson was - born November 10th, 1805, and to the last retained happy recollections - of her childhood’s home, a simple cottage in the pleasant Cheshire - country. She married, in the midsummer of 1832, Mr. Richard Vaughan - Yates, having first spent a year (for purposes of education) in the - household of Dr. Lant Carpenter, at Bristol, of whom she always spoke - with great veneration. Richly endowed with natural grace and delicacy - of feeling, true nobility of heart, and great simplicity, sustained by - earnest religious feeling and a strong sense of duty, there was never - happier choice than this, which gave to Mrs. Yates the larger - opportunities of wealth and freedom in society. She shared her - husband’s interest in many philanthropic labours, his care for the - Harrington Schools, founded by his father, and for the Liverpool - Institute, his pleasure and his anxieties in the making of the - Prince’s Park, opened in 1849, as his gift to the town. She shared - also to the full his delight in works of art and in foreign travel. - The late Rev. Charles Wicksteed published some charming reminiscences - of one of their Italian journeys; and still more notable was that - journey through Egypt, Sinai, and Palestine, recorded by Miss Harriet - Martineau in her _Eastern Travel_. - - “Since her husband’s death, in 1856, Mrs. Yates has stood bravely - alone, living very quietly, but keenly alive to all the interests of - the world, with ardent sympathy for every righteous cause, and - generous help ever ready for public needs as for private charity. No - one will ever know the full measure of her acts of kindness, her care - for the least defended, her many quiet ways of doing good. She was a - great lover of dumb creatures, and felt a passionate indignation at - every kind of cruelty. Four-footed waifs and strays often found a - pleasant refuge in her house, and for many years she was an active - worker for the local branch of the Society for the Prevention of - Cruelty to Animals. The cabmen and donkey-boys of Liverpool at their - annual suppers have long been familiar with her kindly face and - gracious word, and many a time has her intrepid protest checked an act - of cruelty in the public streets. The friend of Frances Power Cobbe, - she took a deep and painful interest in the work of the Victoria - Street Society for the Suppression of Vivisection, and sustained its - work through many years by generous gifts. Herself a solitary woman in - these later years, it was to the solitary and defenceless that her - sympathies most quickly went. She desired for women larger powers to - defend their own helplessness, to share in government for the - amelioration of society, and to share also in the world’s work. She - had a surprising energy and persistence of will in attending to her - own affairs and doing the unselfish work she had most at heart. With a - plain tenacity to the duty that was clear, she went out to the last, - whenever it was possible, to vote at every election where she had a - vote to give, and to attend meetings of a political and useful social - character. Hers was a life of great unselfishness and true humility. - Suffering most of all through sympathy with others, she longed for - more light to dissipate the darker shadows of the world. And she - herself, wherever it was possible to her patient faithfulness and - generous kindness, drove away the darkness, praying thus the best of - prayers, and making light and gladness in innumerable hearts. - - “After only a few days of illness she fell asleep. A memorial service - was held on Sunday last in the Ancient Chapel of Toxteth, where for - many years she regularly worshipped. The Rev. V. D. Davis preached the - sermon, and also on the following day, at the Birkenhead Flaybrick - Hill Cemetery, spoke the words of faith at her grave.”—_Inquirer_, - October 10th. - - -I have erected over her last resting-place (as I learned that she -disliked heavy horizontal tombstones), a large upright slab of polished -red Aberdeen granite. After her name and the dates of her birth and -death, Shakespeare’s singularly appropriate line is inscribed on the -stone:— - - “SWEET MERCY IS NOBILITY’S TRUE BADGE.” - - -On receiving that eventful Thursday morning the news of the unlooked-for -riches which had fallen to my lot, our first act was naturally to -telegraph to the would-be tenant that “another offer” (to wit mine!) -“had been accepted for Hengwrt.” The miseries of house-letting and -home-leaving were over for us, we trust, so long as our lives may last. - - -There is not much more to be told in this last chapter of my story. The -expansion of life in many directions which wealth brings with it, is as -easy and pleasant as the contraction of it by poverty is the reverse. -Yet I have not altered the opinion I formed long ago when I became poor -after my father’s death, that the importance we commonly attach to -pecuniary conditions is somewhat exaggerated, (so long as a competence -is left) and that other things,—for example, the possession of good -walking powers, or of strong eyesight or of good hearing, not to speak -of the still more precious things of the affections and spirit,—are -larger elements, by far, in human happiness than that which riches -contributes thereto. Of course I have been very glad of this -unlooked-for wealth in my old age. I have felt, first and before all -things else, the immense satisfaction of being able to help the -Anti-vivisection cause in all parts of the world while I live, and to -provide for some further continuance of such help after I die. And next -to this I have rejoiced that the comfort and repose of our beautiful and -beloved home is secured to my friend and myself. - - -The friendly reader who has travelled with me through the journey of my -three-score years and ten, from my singularly happy childhood in my old -home at Newbridge to this far bourne on the road, will now, I hope, -leave me with kindly wishes for a peaceful evening, and a -not-too-distant curfew bell; in this dear old house, and with my beloved -friend for companion. - - -The photograph of Hengwrt, which will be inserted in these last pages, -gives a good idea of the house itself, but can convey none of the beauty -of the rivers, woods and mountains all round. No spot in the kingdom I -think, not even in the lovely Lake country, unites so many elements of -beauty as this part of Wales. The mountains are not very lofty,—even -glorious Cader where the giant Idris, (so says the legend) sat in the -rocky “chair” (_Cader_) on the summit and studied the stars,—is trifling -compared to Alpine height, and a molehill to Andes and Himalayas; yet is -its form, and that of all these Cambrian rocks, so majestic, and their -_tilt_ so great, that no one could treat them as merely hills, or liken -them to Irish mountains which resemble banks of rainclouds on the -horizon. The deep, true, purple heather and the emerald-green fern robe -these Welsh mountains in summer in regal splendour of colouring; and in -autumn wrap them in rich russet brown cloaks. Down between every chain -and ridge rush brooks, always bright and clear, and in many places -leaping into lovely waterfalls. The “broad and brawling Mawddach” runs -through all the valley from heights far out of sight, till, just below -Hengwrt, it meets the almost equally beautiful stream of the Wnion, and -the two together wind their way through the tidal estuary out into the -sea at “Aber-mawddach” or “Abermaw,”—in English “Barmouth,” eight miles -to the west. On both north and south of the valley and on the sides of -the mountains, are woods, endless woods, of oak and larch and Scotch -fir, interspersed with sycamore, wild cherry, horse-chestnut, elm, -holly, and an occasional beech. Never was there a country in which were -to be found growing freely and almost wild, so many different kinds of -trees, creating of course the loveliest wood-scenery and variety of -colouring. The oaks and elms and sycamores which grow in Hengwrt itself, -are the oldest and some of the finest in this part of Wales; and here -also flourish the largest laurels and rhododendrons I have ever seen -anywhere. The luxuriance of their growth, towering high on each side of -the avenue and in the shrubberies is a constant subject of astonishment -to our visitors. The blossoms of the rhodos are sometimes twenty or -twenty-five feet from the ground; and the laurels almost resemble forest -trees. It has been one of my chief pleasures here to prune and clip and -clear the way for these beautiful shrubs. Through the midst of them all, -from one end of the place to the other, rushes the dearest little brook -in the world, singing away constantly in so human a tone that over and -over again I have paused in my labours of saw and clippers, and said to -myself: “There _must_ be some one talking in that walk! It is a lady’s -voice, too! It _can’t_ be only the brook this time!” But the brook it -has always proved to be on further investigation. - -Of the interior of this dear old home I shall not write now. It is -interesting from its age,—one of the oak-panelled rooms contains a bed -placed there at the dissolution of the neighbouring monastery of Cymmer -Abbey,—but it is not in the least a gloomy house; altogether the -reverse. The drawing-room commands a view to right and left of almost -the whole valley of the Mawddach for nine or ten miles; and just -opposite lies the pretty village of Llanelltyd, at the foot of the -wooded hills which rise up behind it to the heights of Moel Ispry and -Cefn Cam. It is a panorama of splendid scenery, not darkening the room, -but making one side of it into a great picture full of exquisite details -of old stone bridge and ruined abbey, rivers, woods, and rocks. - - -Among the objects in that wide view, and also in the still more -extensive one from my bedroom above, is the little ivy-covered church of -Llanelltyd; and below it a bit of ground sloping to the westering sun, -dotted over with grey and white stones where “the rude forefathers of -the hamlet sleep,” together with a few others who have been our friends -and neighbours. There, in that quiet enclosure, will, in all -probability, be the bourne of my long journey of life, with a grey -headstone for the “_Finis_” of the last chapter of the Book which I have -first lived, and now have written. - - -I hope that the reader, who perhaps may drive some day along the road -below, in the enjoyment of an autumn holiday in this lovely land, will -cast a glance upon that churchyard, and give a kindly thought to me when -I have gone to rest. - - * * * * * - - September, 1898. - -The grey granite stone is standing already in Llanelltyd burying ground, -though my place beneath it still waits for me. The friend who made my -life so happy when I wrote the last pages of this book, and who had then -done so for thirty-four blessed years,—lies there, under the rose trees -and the mignonette; alone, till I may be laid beside her. - -It would be some poor comfort to me in my loneliness to write here some -little account of Mary Charlotte Lloyd, and to describe her keen, -highly-cultivated intellect, her quick sense of humour, her gifts as -sculptor and painter (the pupil and friend of John Gibson and of Rosa -Bonheur); her practical ability and strict justice in the administration -of her estate; above all to speak of her character, “cast”—as one who -knew her from childhood said,—“in an heroic mould,” of fortitude and -loftiness; her absolute unselfishness in all things large and small. But -the reticence which belonged to the greatness of her nature made her -always refuse to allow me to lead her into the more public life whereto -my work necessarily brought me, and in her last sacred directions she -forbids me to commemorate her by any written record. Only, then, in the -hearts of the few who really knew her must her noble memory live. - -I wrote the following lines to her some twenty-five years ago when -spending a few days away from her and our home in London. I found them -again after her death among her papers. They have a doubled meaning for -me now, when the time has come for me to need her most of all. - - TO MARY C. LLOYD. - - _Written in Hartley Combe, Liss, about 1873._ - - Friend of my life! Whene’er my eyes - Beat with sudden, glad surprise - On Nature’s scenes of earth and air - Sublimely grand, or sweetly fair, - I want you—Mary. - - When men and women, gifted, free, - Speak their fresh thoughts ungrudgingly, - And springing forth, each kindling mind - Streams like a meteor in the wind, - I want you—Mary. - - When soft the summer evenings close, - And crimson in the sunset rose, - Our Cader glows, majestic, grand, - The crown of all your lovely land, - I want you—Mary. - - And when the winter nights come round, - To our “ain fireside,” cheerly bound, - With our dear Rembrandt Girl, so brown, - Smiling serenely on us down, - I want you—Mary. - - _Now_,—while the vigorous pulses leap - Still strong within my spirit’s deep, - _Now_, while my yet unwearied brain - Weaves its thick web of thoughts amain, - I want you—Mary. - - _Hereafter_, when slow ebbs the tide, - And age drains out my strength and pride, - And dim-grown eyes and trembling hand - No longer list my soul’s command, - I’ll want you—Mary. - - In joy and grief, in good and ill, - Friend of my heart! I need you still; - My Playmate, Friend, Companion, Love, - To dwell with here, to clasp above, - I want you—Mary. - - For O! if past the gates of Death - To me the Unseen openeth - Immortal joys to angels given, - Upon the holy heights of Heaven - I’ll want you—Mary! - - * * * * * - -God has given me two priceless benedictions in life;—in my youth a -perfect Mother; in my later years, a perfect Friend. No other gifts, had -I possessed them, Genius, or beauty, or fame, or the wealth of the -Indies, would have been worthy to compare with the joy of those -affections. To live in companionship, almost unbroken by separation and -never marred by a doubt or a rough word, with a mind in whose workings -my own found inexhaustible interest, and my heart its rest; a friend who -knew me better than any one beside could ever know me, and yet,—strange -to think!—could love me better than any other,—this was happiness for -which, even now that it is over, I thank God from the depths of my soul. -I thank Him that I have _had_ such a Friend. And I thank Him that she -died without prolonged suffering or distress, with her head resting on -my breast and her hand pressing mine; calm and courageous to the last. -Her old physician said when all was over: “I have seen many, a _great_ -many, men and women die; but I never saw one die so bravely.” - - -It has been possible for me through the kindness of my friend’s sister, -to whom Hengwrt now belongs, to obtain for my remaining months or years -a lease of this dear old house and beautiful grounds; and my winters of -entire solitude, and summers, when a few friends and relations gather -round me, glide rapidly away. I am still struggling on, as my friend -bade me (literally with her dying breath), working for the cause of the -science-tortured brutes, and I have even spoken again in public, and -written many pamphlets and letters for the press. I hope, as Tennyson -told me to do, to “fight the good fight” quite to the end. But there is -a price which every aged heart perforce must pay for the long enjoyment -of one soul-satisfying affection. When that affection is lost, it must -be evermore lonely. - - * * * * * - - - - - INDEX - - - A - - Abengo, 243 - - Adams, Mr., 670 - - Adelsburg, Cave of, 265 - - Adlam, Mr. and Mrs., 661 - - Airlie, Lord, 639 - - Aitken, Mary Carlyle, 539 - - Ajalon, Valley of, 243 - - Aldobrandini, 623 - - Alexandria, 229 - - Alfort, 620 - - Alger, Rev. W., 499 - - Allbut, Dr. Clifford, 600 - - Allen, Mrs. Fairchild, 662 - - “Alone, to the Alone,” 408 - - American Visitors, 499 - - Amos, Sheldon, 461, 657 - - Amphlett, Mr. Justice, 593 - - Amsterdam, 670 - - Ansano, 376 - - Apennines, 268, 375 - - Appleton, Dr., 373, 624 - - Apthorp, Mr. and Mrs., 225, 269, 499 - - Archer, Mrs., 337 - - Archibald, Mr. Justice, 593 - - Ardgillan, 12, 197 - - Argaum, 20, 210 - - Armstrong, Rev. R., 421 - - Arnold, Mr. Arthur, 430, 436 - Mrs., 679 - - Arnold, Sir Edwin, 629 - - Arnold, Matthew, 180, 390, 469, 486, 497 - - Arnold, Dr., 672 - - Ashburton, Lord, 7 - - Assaye, 20, 210 - - Assisi, 365 - - Athens, 254, 256 - - Ayrton, Mr., 464 - - d’Azeglio, Massimo, 365, 369, 395, 444 - - - B - - Baalbec, 243, 246, 248 - - Babbage, Mr., 458, 559 - - Bacon, 94 - - Bagehot, Mr., 468 - - Baldelli, Countess of, 661 - - Balfour, J. H., 625 - - Ballard, Mrs. Laura Curtis, 592 - - Balisk, 137, 144, 147, 156 - - Barbauld, Mrs., 37 - - Barmouth, 706 - - Barnum, 565 - - Barry, Bishop, 671 - - Baths (Introduction of into England), 169 - - Bath, 16, 20, 24, 40, 682 - - Bath and Wells, Bishop of, 629 - - Bathurst, Miss, 275 - - Beard, Rev. C., 421, 524 - - Becker, Miss, 586 - - Beddoe, Mrs., 607 - - Beddoe, Dr. John, 607 - - Bell, Sir C., 538 - - Bell, Mr. E., 661, 677 - - Belloc, Madame, 586 - - Bellosguardo, 269, 375 - - Bennett, Sir Sterndale, 532 - - Bentley, Mr., 575–576 - - Berchet, 66 - - Berdoe, Dr., 671, 672, 681 - - Beresford, Marcus, Primate of Ireland, 11, 629 - - Beresford, Lady, 11 - - Beresford, Sir Tristram, 11 - - Berkeley, Bishop, 19 - - Berlin, 661 - - Bernard, Claude, 637, 676 - - Bert, Paul, 676 - - Bethany, 243 - - Bethlehem, 236 - - Bewick, 179 - - Beyrout, 243, 250 - - Bhagvat-Gita, 495 - - Biedermann, Rev. W. and Mrs., 269 - - Bilson, Bishop, 7 - - Bishop, Mr., 379 - - Bishop, Mrs., 496 - - Blackburn, Justice, 593 - - Black Forest, (Poem composed in), 270 - - Blagden, Miss, 269, 352, 375, 376, 622 - - Blunt, Rev. Gerard, 629 - - Bodichon, Madame, 171, 466, 577, 638 - - Boehmen, Jacob, 17 - - Bologna, 365 - - Bombay Parsee Society, 421 - - Bonheur, Rosa, 393, _seq._, 708 - - Bonaparte, Prince Lucien, 635, 657 - - Borrow, George, 479, _seq._ - - Boston, 113 - - Bost, M. Theodore, 496 - - Botticelli, 225 - - Bowie, Dr., 672 - - Bowen, Lord Justice, 383 - - Bowring, Sir John, 480 - - Boxall, Sir W., 560, _seq._ - - Brabant, Dr., 352 - - Brahmos of Bengal, 491 - - Bramwell, Baron, 593 - - Bray, Mr. and Mrs., 92 - - Bright, John, 461, 589, 629 - - Bright, Mrs. Jacob, 587 - - Brighton, 57 - - Bristol, 57, chapter x. 617 - - British Union, 691 - - “Broken Lights,” 400 - - Brooke, Stopford, 93 - - Brookfield, Mrs., 478 - - Brown, Baldwin, 660 - - Brown, Dr. J., 9, 224 - - Browne, Mrs. Woolcott, 360 - - Browning, Robert and Mrs., 263, 269, 365, 374, 378, _seq._, 457, 466, - 556, 575, 577, 629 - - Brunton, Dr. Lauder, 626 - - Bryan, Mr., 672, 680, 695 - - Bryant, Miss, 679 - - Buckley, Mrs., 308 - - Burleigh, Celia, 592 - - Bunsen, 365 - - Bunting, Mr., 421, 595 - - Burntisland, 387 - - Bute, Marquis of, 653, 679 - - Butler, Mrs. J., 577 - - Buxton, Mr., 461 - - Byfleet, 471, 446 - - Byron, 257, 258, 383, 475, 616 - - Byron, Lady, 275, 291, 475, _seq._ - - - C - - Cader, Idris, 346, 705 - - Cahir, Lady, 167 - - Cairo, 231 - - Cairnes, Professor, 461 - - Calmet (Dictionary), 82 - - Campbell, 668 - - Camperdown, Countess of, 629, 647, 679 - - Canary, 311 - - Cardwell, Lord, 627, 655 - - Carlow, 8 - - Carlyle, Thomas, 538, _seq._, 558, 629, 650 - - Carnarvon, Lord, 653, 668 - - Caramania, 240 - - Carpenter, Mary, 275, _seq._, 475, 577, 583 - - Carpenter, Professor Estlin, 287 - - Carpenter, Philip, 287 - - Carpenter, Dr., 452, 454, 482 - - Cartwright, Mr., 669, 675 - - Castlemaine, Lady, 192 - - Cavour, 366, 389 - - Cellini, 391 - - Cervantes, 179 - - Chambers, Robert, 195 - - Champion, Colonel and Mrs., 23, 24 - - Channing, Rev. W. H., 492, 499, 524, 678 - - Charles, Justice, 593 - - Charley, 40, _seq._ - - Chaloner, James, 7 - - Charcot, Dr., 321 - - Churchill, Lord R., 15 - - “Cities of the Past,” 399 - - Clarke, Rev. J. Freeman, 499 - - Clarke, Dr., 671, 672 - - Clay, Dr., 669 - - Clewer, 322 - - Clerk, Miss, 337 - - Clifton, 338, 352, 360 - - Close, Dean of Carlisle, 632 - - Clough, Arthur, 90, 374 - - Cobbe, Frances Power, Birth, 31; - School, 57; - Mother’s death, 99; - First book, 110; - Leaves Newbridge, 213; - in Bristol, 275; - Settles in London, 395; - Leaves London, 580 - - Cobbe, Lady Betty, 11 - - Cobbe, Frances Conway, 388 - - Cobbe, Rev. Henry, 13, 44 - - Cobbe, George, 43 - - Cobbe, William, 41, 43 - - Cobbe, Thomas, 10, 43, 578 - - Cobbe, Charles, 20, _seq._, 100, _seq._, 206, _seq._, 212 - - Cobbe, Sophia and Eliza, 464 - - Cobbe, Helen, 204, 212 - - Cockburn, Lord, Chief Justice, 593 - - Colam, Mr., 626, _seq._, 636 - - Colenso, Bishop, 97, 400, 404, 451, 540 - - Colenso, Mrs., 453 - - Coleridge, Hon. Bernard, 671 - - Coleridge, Lord, 549, 560, 561, 593, 629, 648, 695 - - Coleridge, Hon. Stephen, 689, 690, 695, 696 - - Collins, Wilkie, 558 - - Combe, George, 576 - - Comet (of 1835), 52 - - Condorcet, 187 - - Constantinople, 261 - - Conversion, 88 - - Conway, Captain T., 7 - - Conway, Adjutant General, 43 - - Copenhagen, 661 - - Corsi, 623 - - Corsini, 623 - - Corfu, 264 - - Coutts, Lady Burdett, 636 - - Cowie, Mr. James, 621 - - Cowper-Temple, Hon. W., 318 - - Cox, Sir G. W., 452 - - Crabbe, 11 - - Craig, Isa, 316 - - Crampton, Sir Philip, 46 - - Crawford, Mr. Oswald, 421 - - Crimean War, 173 - - Crofton, Sir Walter, 291 - - Crosby & Nichols, 113 - - Cross, Lord, 639 - - Cross, Mr., 653, _seq._ - - Cunningham, Rev. W., 373, 374 - - Curtis, Mr. George, 499 - - Curraghmore, 12 - - Cushman, Charlotte, 365, 391, 392 - - Cyon, 553 - - Cyclades, 240 - - Cyprus, 252 - - - D - - Dall, Mr., 496 - - Daly, Miss, 50 - - Damascus, 243 - - Darwin, Charles, 180, 423, 485, _seq._, 540, 618, 640, 643 - - Darwin, Erasmus, 485, 490 - - Davies, Rev. V., 702 - - “Dawning Lights,” 483 - - Dead Sea, 240 - - Dean, Rev. Peter, 375 - - Decies, Lord, 22 - - Denison, Archdeacon, 542 - - Denman, Mr. Justice, 593 - - Deraismes, Mademoiselle, 671 - - Devis, Mrs., 23, 58 - - Devon, Lord, 194 - - De Wette, 452 - - Dicey, Mrs., 478 - - Djinns, 247 - - Donabate, 100, 137 - - Donegal, 101 - - Donne, W., 576 - - Donnelly, Mr. William, 141 - - Dorchester House, 26, 143 - - Downshire, Marquis of, 193 - - Drumcar, 169, 192 - - Dublin, 8, 104 - - Durdham Down, 303 - - “Duties of Women,” 570, 601 - - Dyke, Sir W. Hart, 639 - - - E - - Eastlake, Lady, 391 - - Easton Lyss, 445, 578 - - Edgeworth, Miss, 44, 179 - - Edwards, The Misses Betham, 558 - - Edwards, Passmore, 436 - - Egypt, 219 - - Eliot, George, 92, 444, 578 - - Elliot, Dean, 359 - - Elliot, Miss, 277, 307, _seq._, 333, 359, 385, 387, 448, 458 - - Elliot, Sir Frederick, 635, 639, 647, 650 - - Ellicott, Bishop, 648 - - Emigration, 157 - - Empson, Mr., 300 - - Enniskillen, Lord, 194 - - Erichsen, Dr., 642, 644 - - Escott, Mr., 380 - - Essays and Reviews, 89 - - Euphrates, 40 - - Evans, Mrs., 186, _seq._ - - Evans, George H., 186 - - Exeter, Bishop of, 629 - - - F - - Fairfax, Ursula, 7 - - Fairfax, Sir William, 385, 387 - - Fauveau, Mademoiselle F., 222 - - Fawcett, Mr. and Mrs., 459, 466, 467, 578, 586 - - Ferguson, Mr., 423 - - Ferguson, Mr. J., 559, 560 - - Fergusson, Sir W., 345, 627, 629, 633 - - Ferrier, Professor, 672, _seq._ - - Ferrars, Selina, Countess of, 17 - - Ffoulkes, Edmund, 178 - - Fiésolé, 375 - - Finlay, Mr., 254, _seq._ - - Firth, Mr. J. B., 642 - - Fisherman of Loch Neagh, 48 - - Fitzgerald, Edward, 576 - - Fitzgerald, Mr., 639 - - Flood, 15 - - Florence, 221, 268, 320, 365, 375, 388, 389, 622, _seq._, 661 - - Flower, William, 625 - - Fonblanque, Mr. E. de, 648, 662 - - Fontanés, M., 496 - - Förster, Dr. Paul, 661 - - Foster, Dr. Michael, 626, 674 - - Francis, Saint, 536 - - Froude, J. A., 8, 421, 478, 510, _seq._, 621, 650 - - Furdoonjee, Nowrosjee, 421, 491 - - - G - - Galton, 423, 466, 483 - - Gamgee, Professor A., 625, 673 - - Garbally, 16, 193 - - Garibaldi, 366 - - Garrett, Miss E., 467 - - Gaskell, Mrs., 577 - - Geist, 470, 471 - - Genoa, 365, 384 - - Germany, 46 - - George IV., 16 - - Ghiza, 232 - - Ghosts, 13 - - Greene, Mr., 662 - - Gibbon, 52, 74, 89, 97 - - Gibson, John, 268, 365, 390, 708 - - Gladstone, W. E., 446, 504, _seq._, 551 - - Glasgow, Lord, 653 - - Godwin, William, 257, 466 - - Goethe, 555 - - Goldschmidts, 237 - - Goodeve, Dr., 338, 361 - - Gothard, 269 - - Grana Uaile, 139 - - Granard, Lady, 14, 44 - - Grant, Isabel, 435 - - Grant, Baron, 436 - - Grant Duff, Sir M., 536 - - Granville, Lord, 587 - - Grattan, 15 - - Green, Miss, 195 - - Greg, Mr. W. R., 524, _seq._ - - Grey, Mrs. William, 578, 586 - - Greville, Henry, 576 - - Grisanowski, Dr., 383 - - Grove, Sir W., 482 - - Guillotine (Nuns chanting at), 293 - - Gully, Mr., 673 - - Gurney, Mr. Russell, 589, 595 - - Guthrie, Canon, 359 - - Guyon, Madame, 17 - - - H - - Hague, The, 669 - - Hajjin, 278, 617 - - Hall, Mrs., 482 - - Hallam, Arthur, 553, 555 - - Hamilton, Nichola, 11 - - Handel, 8 - - Hanover, 661 - - Harcourt, Sir W., 669 - - “Hard Church,” 196 - - Harris, Mr., 401, 501 _seq._ - - Harrison, Frederic, 377 - - Harrowby, Lord, 636 - - Hart, Dr. Ernest, 674 - - Harvey, 538 - - Hastings, Lady Selina, 13 - - Hastings, Lord, 43 - - Haweis, Mr., 430 - - Hazard, Mr., 499 - - Headfort, Marquis of, 264 - - Hebron, 236 - - Heidelburg, 270 - - Helps, Sir A., 629 - - Hemans, Mrs., 258 - - Hengwrt, 392, 485, 699, 704, 706, 710 - - Henniker, Lord, 639, _seq._, 668 - - Hereford, Bishop of, 629 - - Herodotus, 588 - - Herschell, Mr., 596 - - Higginson, Colonel, 499, 592 - - Hill, Alfred, 595, _seq._ - - Hill, Frederick, 586 - - Hill, Sir Rowland, 586 - - Hill, Matthew D., 285, 347, 586 - - Hill, F. D., 327, 337, 347, 578, 586 - - Hill, Miss, 347 - - Hill, Miss Octavia, 578 - - Hobbema, 26, 143 - - Hoggan, Dr. and Mrs., 468, 538, 545, 617, 637, _seq._, 647, _seq._ - - Holden, Mrs. Luther, 628 - - Holland, Sir H., 596 - - Holloway, Mr., 322 - - Holmes, Dr. O. W., 499 - - Holmgren, Professor, 491, 643 - - Holt, Mr., 655, 657, 662, 669 - - Holyhead, 40 - - Holyrood, 9 - - “Holy Griddle,” The, 147 - - Hooker, 113 - - Hooker, Mrs., 457 - - Hooper, Mr. G., 207, 208 - - Hopwood, Mr., 595 - - Hope, Mr. (“Anastasius”), 22 - - Horsley, Mr. Victor, 680 - - Hosmer, Harriet, 289, 392, 499, 577 - - Houghton, Lord, 537 - - Hough, Bishop, 14 - - Howe, Mrs., 499, 591 - - Howard, John, 495, 564 - - Howth, 139 - - Hume, 97 - - Humphry, Sir G., 625 - - Huntingdon, Earl of, 10 - - Huntingdon, Lady, 81 - - Hutton, Richard, 469, 627, 635, 643, 647, 652 - - Huxley, Professor, 642, 644 - - - I - - Isle of Man, 7 - - Italy, 222 - - - J - - Jaffa, 234, 243 - - James, Mr. H., 575 - - Jameson, Mrs., 576 - - Jericho, 242 - - Jerusalem, 220, 234 - - Jesse, Mr., 660 - - Jewsbury, Miss, 558 - - Jones, Martha, 37, 268 - - Jordan, 242 - - Jowett, Benjamin, 316, 318, 349, 351, 402, 540, 629 - - - K - - Kant, 115, 122, 487 - - Keats, 555 - - Keating, Justice, 593 - - Keeley, Mr., 173 - - Kelly, Chief Baron, 593 - - Kelly, Sir Fitzroy, 629, 648, 650 - - Kemble, Fanny, 4, 197, _seq._, 257, 360, 439, 446, 553, 555, 575, 580, - 695 - - Kemble, John, 553, 555 - - Kempis, Thomas à, 149 - - Keshub Chunder Sen, 455, 491, _seq._ - - Kilmainham, 25 - - Kingsley, Charles, 401, 454, _seq._ - - Kingsland, Lord, 9 - - Kinnear, Miss, 39, 50 - - Kitty, 290 - - Klein, Professor, 626 - - Kozzaris, Lady Emily, 264 - - Kubla Khan, 47 - - - L - - Lamartine, 90 - - Landsdown, Lord, 359 - - Landor, W. S., 257, 269, 382, 622 - - Landseer, Sir E., 394, 561 - - Langton, Anna Gore, 586 - - Lankester, Mr. Ray, 634 - - Lawrence, Lord, 493, _seq._ - - Lawrence, General, 635 - - Lawson, M. A., 625 - - Lebanon, 243, 250 - - Leblois, Mons., 496 - - Lecky, Mr., 179, 478, 629 - - Lee, Miss, 13 - - Leffingwell, Dr., 502, 666 - - Le Hunt, Colonel, 155 - - Leigh, Colonel, 593 - - Leitrim, Lord, 194 - - Lembcké, M. and Mdme., 661 - - Le Poer, John, 11 - - L’Estrange, Alice, 500, _seq._ - - Levinge, Dorothy, 17 - - Lewes, George H., 63 - - Lewis, Sir George, 528 - - Liddon, Canon, 651, _seq._, 659, 664 - - Lindsay, Lady Charlotte, 44 - - Livermore, Mrs., 591 - - Liverpool, 51, 52, 624, 625, 701 - - Llandaff, Dean of, 671 - - Llanelltyd, 707, 708 - - Llangollen (Ladies of), 197 - - Lloyd, Miss, 200, 392, 395, 471, 438, 574, 647, 680, 708, _seq._ - - Locke, 94 - - Locke, John, M.P., 463 - - Lockwood, Mrs., 499 - - London, 40, chapters xvi., xvii., xviii. - - Longfellow, 500 - - Longley, Bishop, 184 - - Longman, Mr. W., 111, 579 - - Loring-Brace, Mr. and Mrs., 499 - - Louth, 8 - - Louis Philippe, 222 - - Lowell, J. R., 234, 392, 551 - - Lush, Justice, 593 - - Lux Mundi, 89 - - Lydda, 234 - - Lyell, Sir Charles and Lady, 446, _seq._, 481 - - Lyell, Colonel and Mrs., 446, 447 - - - M - - Macdonald, George, 145, 671 - - Machpelah, 237 - - Macintosh, Sir James, 646 - - Mackenzie, General Colin, 629, 647, 678 - - Mackarness, Bishop, 671 - - Mackay, R. W., 472, _seq._ - - Madiai (Family of), 565 - - Madras, 7, 20, 282 - - Magee, Bishop, 668 - - Magnan, M., 627, 634 - - Maine, Sir H., 478, 633 - - Majendie, 538 - - Malabari, 611 - - Malone, Mary, 32 - - Malta, 228 - - Mamre, 236 - - Manchester, Bishop of 629, 631, 648 - - Manen, Madame von, 669 - - Manning, Mrs., 423 - - Manning, Archbishop, 540, _seq._, 629, 657 - - Manzoni, 66 - - Mario, Madame Alberto, 383 - - Marsh, Archbishop, 112 - - Marston, Miss, 690 - - Martin, Richard, 178, 646 - - Martineau, Dr., 93, 412, 446, 519, _seq._, 629 - - Martineau, Harriet, 577 - - Mar Saba, 238, 247 - - Masson, David, 314, 421 - - Matthew, Father, 147 - - Maulden Rectory, 445 - - Maurice, F. D., 401 - - Mawddach, 706 - - Maxwell, Colonel, 209 - - May, Rev. Samuel J., 282, 583 - - Mazzini, 257, 366, 367 - - M‘Clintock, Lady E., 160, 169 - - Mellor, Mr. Justice, 593 - - Merivale, Mr. Herman, 446, 478 - - Messina, 228 - - Michaud, Madame, 65 - - Michel, Louise, 498 - - Mill, J. S.,411, 457, 486, 540 - - Milan, 269, 365 - - Minto, Lord 369, 650 - - Minto, Lady, 639 - - Mischna, The, 473 - - Mitchell, Professor Maria, 591 - - Moira, Lady, 14, 174 - - Moncks, 17 - - Monsell, Hon. Mrs., 155, 322 - - Monro, Miss, 679 - - Monteagle, Lady, 478 - - Montefiores, 237; - Sir Moses, 475 - - Montriou, Mademoiselle, 52 - - Montreux, 269 - - Moore, 37, 48 - - Morelli, Countess, 661 - - Morgan, Mrs. de, 478 - - Morley, John, 421 - - Morley, Samuel, 659, 665 - - Morris, Rev. F. O., 671 - - Morris, Lewis, 558 - - Morrison, Mrs. Frank, 679, 690 - - Moth, Mrs., 14 - - Mount of Olives, 243 - - Mount-Temple, Lord and Lady, 318, 561, 578, 636, 648, 657, 665, 679, - 690 - - Moydrum Castle, 192 - - Mozoomdar, 493 - - Müller, Max, 423 - - Mundella, Mr., 650 - - Murray, 112 - - - N - - Naples, 226, 365, 384 - - Napoleon, 368, 621 - - Newbridge, 9, 20, 25, 46, 75, 154, 169, 203, 209, 264, 304 - - Newman, Cardinal, 97, 371, 530 - - Newman, Francis, 95, 97, 103, 406, 415, 530 - - Newspapers, 169 - - New York, 157 - - Nightingale, Miss, 262 - - Nile, 234 - - Noel, Major, 4 - - Norris, Mr. John, 691 - - Norton, Sir Richard, 7 - - Northumberland, Duke of, 629 - - Norwich, 627, 634 - - - O - - - O’Brien, Smith, 153, _seq._ - - O’Connell, 182 - - Oliphant, Laurence, 500 - - Ormonde, Marchioness of, 194 - - Owen, Sir John, 7 - - - P - - Padua, 268 - - Paley, 94 - - Palestine, 234 - - Palmer, Susannah, 432 - - Palmerston, Lord, 563 - - Paris, 224, 320 - - Parkes, Miss Bessie, 586 - - Parker, Theodore, 97, 103, 225, 351, 353, 371, 502, 622 - - Parnell, Sophia, 186 - - Parnell, C. S., 186 - - Parnell, Sir Henry, 189 - - Parnell, Thomas, 189 - - Parsonstown, 194 - - Parthenon, 255 - - Pays de Vaud, 269 - - Peabody, Mr., 499, 662 - - Pécaut, M. Felix, 496 - - Pelham, Mrs. H., 11, 16 - - Pennington, Frederick, 595 - - Penzance, Lord, 596 - - Percy, Lord Jocelyn, 635 - - Perugia, 365 - - Pfeiffer, Mrs., 577 - - Philæ, 234 - - Pigott, Baron, 593 - - Pilgrim’s Progress, 84 - - Pirkis, Mr., 672, 679 - - Pisa, 365, 369 - - Playfair, Lord, 640, 669 - - Plutarch, 52 - - Poggi, Miss, 60 - - Pollock, Baron, 593 - - Portrane, 8, 189 - - Portsmouth, Countess of, 629, 647, 678 - - Poussin, Gaspar, 26, 143 - - Powers, 42 - - Primrose, (in Bonny Glen), 101 - - Probyn, Miss Letitia, 435 - - Putnam, Messrs., 457 - - Pye-Smith, Dr., 634 - - Pyramids, 231 - - - Q - - Quain, Mr. Justice, 593 - - Quarantania, Mountains of, 242 - - - R - - Ragged Schools, 286 - - Ramabai, 495 - - Ramleh, 234 - - Rawdon, Colonel, 14 - - Red Lodge, 275, _seq._ - - Remond, Miss, 283 - - Renan, Ernest, 400, 404, 535 - - Reville, Albert, 371 - - Reid, Mrs., 485 - - Reid, Mr. R. T., 669, 671, 675 - - Rees, Miss, 679 - - Rhine, 269 - - Rhodes, 252 - - Rhone, 269 - - Riboli, Dr., 661 - - Riga, 661 - - Ritchie, Mrs. Richmond, 478 - - Roberts, Lord, 7 - - Roberts, Miss, 60 - - Robertson, Frederick, 93, 423 - - Rolleston, George, 625, 627, 649 - - Rollin, 52 - - Rome, 224, 365 - - Roscoe, Mrs., 692 - - Rosse, Lord and Lady, 194 - - Rothkirch, Countess, 359 - - Roy, Dr. C. S., 673 - - Runciman, Miss, 60, 74 - - Ruskin, John, 629, 671 - - Russell, Mr. Patrick, 147 - - Russell, Lord Arthur, 460, 545 - - Russell, Lord John, 369 - - Russell, Lord Odo, 534, 544 - - Russell, Mr. George, 669 - - Rutland, Duke of, 629 - - - S - - Salisbury, Bishop of, 629 - - Sanderson, Burdon, Dr., 625, 626, 640, 674 - - Schœlcher, M. le Sénateur V., 497 - - Schiff, Professor, 383, 622, _seq._ - - Schilling, Madame V., 661 - - Schuyler, Misses, 499, 577 - - Scott, Sir Walter, 11, 47 - - Scutari, 262 - - Sedan, 621 - - Selborne, Lord, 629 - - Sesostris, 39 - - Shaftesbury, Lord, 81, 294, 561, _seq._, 645, _seq._, 657, 671, 697 - - Shaen, Mr. W., 647, 679 - - Shaen, Emily, 579, 606 - - Shelley, 50, 92, 225, 383, 466, 555 - - Shelley, Sir Percy, 466 - - Shirreff, Miss, 578, 586 - - Shore, Augusta, 594 - - Simpson, Mrs., 478, 535 - - Skene, Miss Felicia, 26, 27, 109 - - Sleeman, Mrs., 224 - - Smith, Horace, 63 - - Smith, Sydney, 179 - - Smith, Joseph, 401 - - Smith, Sir W., 421 - - Smyrna, 253 - - Somerville, Mrs., 172, 263, 269, 365, 383, 446, 575, 622 - - Somerset, Lady Henry, 496 - - Sonnenschein, Messrs. Swan, 671 - - Southey, 13, 47 - - Spedding, James, 559 - - Spencer, Herbert, 485 - - Spezzia, 384 - - Spurgeon, Rev. C. H., 648 - - Stael, Madame de, 187 - - Stanley, Dean, 97, 237, 385, 402, 465, 496, 529, _seq._, 563, 659 - - Stanley, Lady Augusta, 534 - - Stanley, Miss, 541 - - Stanley, Lady, of Alderley, 587 - - Stansfeld, Mr. and Mrs., 367, 646, 648 - - Stebbins, Miss, 391 - - Stephen, Miss Sarah, 328, 333 - - Stephen, Leslie, 421, 478, 618, 635, 671 - - Stephen, Miss Caroline, 578 - - Stephens, Sir Fitzjames, 419 - - Stewart, Delia, 186 - - Stockholm, 661 - - Story, W. W., 365 - - Stowe, Mrs., 365, 382, 457, 575, 577 - - Strozzi, 623 - - St. Asaph, Bishop of, 629 - - St. Sophia, 262 - - St. Leger, Harriet, 4, 111, 180, 197, 205, 211, 214, 275, 298, 384, - 388, 576, 579 - - St. Paul’s, 112 - - Sunday, (at Newbridge), 82 - - Swanwick, Anna, 577, 607 - - Swarraton, 7, 20 - - Swedenborg, 401 - - Switzerland, 222, 269 - - Symonds, Dr., 286 - - Syra, 264 - - Syracuse, 282 - - - T - - Tait, Archbishop, 631 - - Tait, Mrs., 318 - - Tait, Lawson, 671 - - Tayler, Rev. J. J., 375, 524 - - Taylor, Rev. Edward, 12, 197 - - Taylor, Jane, 37 - - Taylor, Mr. and Mrs. P. A., 283, 457, 459, 461, 586 - - Taylor, Sir Henry, 557 - - Taylor, Miss, 199, 411, 456 - - Taylor, Dr. Bell, 671 - - Templeton, 13, 44 - - Tennyson, Alfred, 551, _seq._, 611, 629 - - Tennyson, Emily, 556 - - Tennyson, Frederick, 383 - - Tennyson, Hallam, 555 - - Thebes, 234 - - Theism, 93 - - Themistocles, Tomb of, 261 - - Thompson, Archbishop, 629, 645, 662, 675 - - Thornhill, Mark, 671, 672 - - Thring, Mr., 677 - - Trelawney, Mr., 258 - - Trench, Anne Power, 16 - - Trench, Jane Power, 176 - - Trench, Archdeacon, 177 - - Trench, Archbishop, 553 - - Trevelyan, Sir C., 541 - - Trieste, 264, 267 - - Trimleston, Lord, 8, 137 - - Trimmer, Mrs., 38 - - Trollope, Adolphus, 263, 269, 365, 381 - - Trollope, Anthony, 558 - - Trübner, 113, 400, 421 - - Truro, Lord, 668 - - Tufnell, Dr., 627 - - Tuam, Archbishop of, 12, 22, 177 - - Turin, 365 - - Turner, Mr., 210 - - Turvey, 8, 9 - - Twining, Louisa, 318, 327 - - Tyndall, Professor, 482, _seq._ - - Tyrone, Lord, 12 - - - U - - Umberto, 368 - - Unwin, Fisher, Messrs., 205, 422 - - Upsala, 643 - - Usedom, Count Guido, 365, 368, 371 - - - V - - Vambéry, Mons., 484 - - Vaughan, Rev. Mr., 87 - - Vaughan, Rev. Dr., 647 - - Venice, 258, 267, 365 - - Verona, 365 - - Vestiges of Creation, 194 - - Vesuvius, 226 - - Victor Emmanuel, 368, 388 - - Villari, Madame, 269, 381 - - Virchow, Dr., 634 - - Vivisection (Movement against), chapter xx. - - Vogt, Carl, 490, 663 - - Voltaire, 94, 97 - - - W - - Waddy, Mr., 673 - - Wakeley, Dr., 673 - - Walker, Dr., 635 - - Warburton, Elliot, 183 - - Ward, Mrs. Humphry, 524 - - Warren, Mr., 464 - - Waterford, Marquis of, 12, 23, 174 - - Watson, William, 558 - - Watts, Dr., 37 - - Watts, G. F., 456 - - Weber, Baron, 661, 671 - - Webster, Mrs., 577, 586 - - Wedgwood, Mr. H., 646 - - Wedgwood, Miss Julia, 578, 646 - - Weiss, Mr., 375 - - Wellborne, 7 - - Welldon, Mr., 677 - - Wellesley, 20, 209 - - Wellington, Duke of, 629 - - Weston, 20 - - Whately, Archbishop, 196 - - White, Blanco, 97 - - White, Rev. H., 532 - - White, Mrs., 662 - - Wicksteed, Rev. P., 524 - - Wilberforce, Canon, 671 - - Wilhelm, Emperor, 366 - - Willard, Miss, 607 - - Williams & Norgate, Messrs., 422, 471 - - Wilmot, Sir Eardley, 669 - - Windeyer, W. C., 334 - - Winchester, Bishop of, 629 - - Winkworth, Misses, 580 - - Wilson, Miss Dorothy, 214 - - Wister, Mrs., 499 - - Wollstoncraft, Mary, 466 - - Wood, Colonel Sir Evelyn, 629, 635, 648, 650 - - Woolman, John, 619 - - Workhouses, 286, chapter xi. - - Wynne-Finch, Mr., 500 - - - Y - - Yates, Mrs. Richard Vaughan, 699, _seq._ - - Yeo, Professor, 674 - - - Z - - Zachly, 244 - - Zola, 369 - - Zoophilist, 670, 680, 682 - ------ - -Footnote 1: - - With respect to the Letters and Extracts from Letters to myself and to - Miss Elliot, from the late Master of Balliol,—(to be found Vol. I., - pp. 316, 317, 349, 350, 351, 352, 353, and 354),—I beg to record that - I have received the very kind permission of Mr. Jowett’s Executors for - their publication. - -Footnote 2: - - It is always amusing to me to read the complacent arguments of - despisers of women when they think to prove the inevitable mental - inferiority of my sex by specifying the smaller circumference of - our heads. On this line of logic an elephant should be twice as - wise as a man. But in my case, as it happens, their argument leans - the wrong way, for my head is larger than those of most of my - countrymen,—Doctors included. As measured carefully with proper - instruments by a skilled phrenologist (the late Major Noel) the - dimensions are as follows:—Circumference, twenty-three and a - quarter inches; greatest height from external orifice of ear to - summit of crown, 6²⁄₈ inches. On the other hand dear Mrs. - Somerville’s little head, which held three times as much as mine - has ever done, was below the average of that of women. So much for - that argument! - -Footnote 3: - - The aphorism so often applied to little girls, that “it is better to - be good than pretty,” may, with greater hope of success, be applied to - family names; but I fear mine is neither imposing nor sonorous. I may - say of it (as I remarked to the charming Teresa Doria when she - ridiculed the Swiss for their _mesquin_ names, all ending in “_in_”), - “Everybody cannot have the luck to be able to sign themselves Doria - _nata_ Durazzo!” Nevertheless “Cobbe” is a very old name (Leuricus - Cobbe held lands in Suffolk, _vide_ Domesday), and it is curiously - wide-spread as a word in most Aryan languages, signifying either the - _head_ (literal or metaphorical), or a head-shaped object. I am no - philologist, and I dare say my examples offend against some “law,” and - therefore cannot be admitted; but it is at least odd that we should - find Latin, “_Caput_;” Italian, _Capo_; Spanish, _Cabo_; Saxon, _Cop_; - German, _Kopf_. Then we have, as derivates from the physical head, - _Cape_, _Capstan_, _Cap_, _Cope_, _Copse_ or _Coppice_, _Coping - Stone_, _Copped_, _Cup_, _Cupola_, _Cub_, _Cubicle_, _Kobbold_, - _Gobbo_; and from the metaphorical Head or Chief, _Captain_, - _Capital_, _Capitation_, _Capitulate_, &c. And again, we have a - multitude of names for objects obviously signifying head-shaped, - _e.g._, _Cob-horse_, _Cob-nut_, _Cob-gull_, _Cob-herring_, _Cob-swan_, - _Cob-coal_, _Cob-iron_, _Cob-wall_; a _Cock_ (of hay), according to - Johnson, properly a “_Cop_” of hay; the _Cobb_ (or Headland) at Lyme - Regis, &c., &c.; the Kobbé fiord in Norway, &c. - -Footnote 4: - - As such things as mythical pedigrees are not _altogether_ unknown in - the world, I beg to say that I have myself noted the above from - Harleian MS. in British Museum 1473 and 1139. Also in the College of - Arms, G. 16, p. 74, and C. 19, p. 104. - -Footnote 5: - - Wife of Thomas Cobbe’s half-brother. - -Footnote 6: - - Lady Huntingdon was doubly connected with Thomas Cobbe. She was his - first cousin, daughter of his maternal aunt Selina Countess of - Ferrers, and mother of his sister-in-law, Elizabeth Countess of Moira. - The pictures of Dorothy Levinge, and of her father; of Lady Ferrers; - and of Lord Moira and his wife, all of which hang in the halls at - Newbridge, made me as a child, think of them as familiar people. - Unfortunately the portrait of chief interest, that of Lady Huntingdon, - is missing in the series. - -Footnote 7: - - Pronounced “Lock Nay.” - -Footnote 8: - - Part of the following description of my own and my mother’s school - appeared some years ago in a periodical, now, I believe, extinct. - -Footnote 9: - - “It is a fact of Consciousness to which all experience bears witness - and which it is the duty of the philosopher to admit and account for, - instead of disguising or mutilating it to suit the demands of a - system, that there are certain truths which when once acquired, no - matter how, it is impossible by any effort of thought to conceive as - reversed or reversible.”—Mansel’s _Metaphysics_, p. 248. - -Footnote 10: - - We should now say _Altruism_. - -Footnote 11: - - I am thankful to believe that he would be no longer accorded such a - rank in 1890 as in 1850! - -Footnote 12: - - Mr. Hutton, whose exceedingly interesting and brilliant _Life of the - Marquess of Wellesley_ (in the “_Rulers of India_” series) includes an - account of the whole campaign, has been so kind as to endeavour to - identify this Frenchman for me, and tells me that in a note to - Wellington’s _Despatches_, Vol. II., p. 323, it is given as _Dupont_; - Wellington speaking of him as commanding a “brigade of infantry.” My - father certainly spoke of him or some other Frenchman as commanding - Scindias’ artillery. Mr. Hutton has also been good enough to refer me - to Grant Duff’s _History of the Mahrattas_, Vol. III., p. 240, with - regard to the number of British troops engaged at Assaye. He (Mr. - Grant Duff) says the handful of British troops did not exceed 4,500 as - my father also estimated them. - -Footnote 13: - - The mistake recorded in these little verses was made by a daughter of - Louis Philippe when visiting her uncle, the Grand Duke of Lucca. The - incident was narrated to me by the sculpturess, Mdlle. Felicie - Fauveau, attendant on the Duchesse de Berri. - -Footnote 14: - - See General Sleeman’s _India_. - -Footnote 15: - - The Proteus Anguinus. - -Footnote 16: - - Miss Elliot and I had begun it a year sooner, as stated above. - -Footnote 17: - - Mr. Jowett referred to Dean Elliot’s purchases of some fine old - pictures. - -Footnote 18: - - “Then, soul of my soul! I shall meet thee again, - And with God be the rest!” - -Footnote 19: - - This refers to an afternoon party we gave to witness poor Mr. Bishop’s - interesting thought-reading performances. He was wonderfully - successful throughout, and the company, which consisted of about 30 - clever men and women, were unanimous in applauding his art, of - whatever nature it may have been. I may add that after my guests were - departed, when I took out my cheque-book and begged to know his fee, - Mr. Bishop positively refused to accept any remuneration whatever for - the charming entertainment he had given us. The tragic circumstances - of the death of this unhappy young man will be remembered. He either - died, or fell into a deathlike trance, at a supper party in New York, - in 1889; and within _four hours_ of his real (or apparent) decease, - three medical men who had been supping with him, dissected his brain. - One doctor who conducted this autopsy alleged that Bishop had been - extremely anxious that his brain should be examined _post mortem_, but - his mother asserted on the contrary, that he had a peculiar horror of - dissection, and had left directions that no _post mortem_ should be - held on his remains. It was also stated that he had a card in his - pocket warning those who might find him at any time in a trance, to - beware of burying him before signs of dissolution should be visible. - In a leading article on the subject in the _Liverpool Daily Post_, May - 21st, 1889, it is stated that by the laws of the United States “it is - distinctly enacted that no dissection shall take place without the - fiat of the coroner, or at the request of the relatives of the - deceased; so that some explanation of the anxiety which induced so - manifest a breach of both laws and custom is eminently desirable. A - second examination of the body at the instance of the coroner, has - revealed the fact that all the organs were in a healthy state, and - that it was impossible to ascribe death to any specific cause or to - say whether Mr. Bishop were alive or dead at the time of the first - autopsy.” Both wife and mother believed he was “murdered;” and ordered - that word to be engraved on his coffin. His mother had herself - experienced a cataleptic trance of six days’ duration, during the - whole of which she was fully conscious. The three doctors were - proceeded against by her and the widow, and were put under bonds of - £500 each; but, as the experts alleged that it was impossible to - decide the cause of death, the case eventually dropped. Whether it - were one of “_Human Vivisection_” or not, can never now be known. If - the three physicians who performed the autopsy on Mr. Bishop did not - commit a murder of appalling barbarity on the helpless companion of - their supper-table, they certainly _risked_ incurring that guilt with - unparalleled levity and callousness. - -Footnote 20: - - A statue of Miss Hosmer exhibited in London, purchased by an American - gentleman for £1,000. - -Footnote 21: - - Not quite so good a story as that of another American child who, - having been naughty and punished, was sent up to her room by her - mother and told to ask for forgiveness. On returning downstairs the - mother asked her whether she had done as she had directed? “Oh yes! - Mama,” answered the child, “_And God said to me, Pray don’t mention - it, Miss Perkins!_” - -Footnote 22: - - See Spenser—The “West” District of London was the one which elected - Miss Garrett for the School Board. - -Footnote 23: - - Sir W. Harcourt interrupted Mr. Russell when speaking of Vivisections - before students, by the assertion— - - “Under the Act demonstrations were forbidden.”—_Times_, April 5th, - 1883. - - In the Act in question—39 & 40 Vict., c. 77, Clause 3, Sect. 1—are - these words, “Experiments _may be performed_ ... by a person giving - illustrations of lectures,” &c., &c. By the Returns issued from Sir W. - Harcourt’s own (Home) Office in the previous year, _sixteen_ persons - had been registered as holding certificates permitting experiments in - illustration of lectures. It seems to me a shocking feature of modern - politics that an outrageous falsehood—or must we call it mistake?—of - this kind is allowed to serve its purpose at the moment but the author - never apologizes for it afterwards. - -Footnote 24: - - Most of the following letters were lent by me to Mr. Walrond when he - was preparing the biography of Dean Stanley, and in returning them he - said that he had kept copies of them, and meant to include them in his - book. The present Editor not having used them, I feel myself at - liberty to print them here. - -Footnote 25: - - We had many good stories floating about in Rome at that time and he - was always ready to enjoy them, but one, I think, told me by the - painter Penry Williams, would not have tickled him as it did us - heretics. The Pope, it seems, offered one of his Cardinals (whose - reputation was far from immaculate) a pinch of snuff. The Cardinal - replied more facetiously than respectfully “_Non ho questo vizio, - Santo Padre_.” Pius IX. observed quietly, snapping his snuffbox, “_Se - vizio fosse, l’avreste_” (If it had been a vice you would have had - it)! - -Footnote 26: - - Curiously enough I have had occasion to repeat this remark this Spring - (1894) in a controversy in the columns of the _Catholic Times_. - -Footnote 27: - - I had talked to him of our Ragged School at Bristol. - -Footnote 28: - - When our Bill was debated in Parliament in 1883, Mr. Gladstone left - us, totally unaided, to the mercies (not tender) of Sir William - Harcourt, who interrupted Mr. George Russell’s speech in support of - our Bill by the remark that the demonstrations to students, to which - he referred, were forbidden by the Vivisection Act. _Sixteen_ - certificates granting permission for the performance of such - experiments in demonstration to students passed through his own office - that year! - -Footnote 29: - - This opinion of the great _Philanthropist_ deserves to be remembered - with those of the many thinkers who have reached the same conclusion - from other sides. - -Footnote 30: - - The General Secretary, then, and, I am happy to say, still,—of the - Victoria Street Society. - -Footnote 31: - - The lines to which Lord Shaftesbury refers—“Best in the Lord” (since - included in many collections) begin with the words: - - “God draws a cloud over each gleaming morn. - Wouldst thou ask, why? - It is because all noblest things are born - In agony. - - Only upon some Cross of pain or woe - God’s Son may lie. - Each soul redeemed from self and sin must know - Its Calvary.” - - Lord Shaftesbury entirely understood the point of view from which I - regarded that sacred spot. - -Footnote 32: - - Here is what Dr. Russell Reynolds, F.R.S., said in 1881 in an address - to the Medical Society of University College:—“There is meddling and - muddling of a most disreputable sort, and the patients” (he is - speaking of women) “grow sick of it, and give it all up and get well; - or they go from bad to worse.”... “Physicians have coined names for - trifling maladies, if they have not invented them, and have set - fashions of disease. They have treated or maltreated their patients by - endless examinations, applications, and the like, and this sometimes - for months, sometimes for years, and then, when by some accident the - patient has been removed from their care, she has become quite well - and there has been no more need for caustic,” &c., &c. - - And here is what Dr. Clifford Allbut said in the Gulstonian Lecture - for 1884 at the Royal College of Physicians. After admitting that - women feel more pain than men, he mentioned the “_morbid chains_,” the - “_mental abasement_,” into which fall “the flock of women who lie - under the wand of the Gynæcologist” (specialist of women’s diseases); - “the women who are _caged up in London back drawing-rooms_, and - visited almost daily; their brave and active spirits broken under a - _false_ (!!) _belief in the presence of a secret and over-mastering - local malady_; and the best years of their lives honoured only by a - distressful victory over pain.” (Italics mine.)—_Medical Press_, March - 19th, 1884. - -Footnote 33: - - The certificate (A) dispensing with Anæsthetics was doubtless inserted - after Lord Shaftesbury saw the Bill. - -Footnote 34: - - Mr. Cartwright, speaking in the House of Commons, April 4th, 1883, in - reply to Mr. R. T. Reid, said: “The hon. member should have said - something about the prosecution of Dr. Ferrier for having evaded the - Act. He does not do that. He has wisely given the go-by to it, for - that prosecution lamentably failed, altogether broke down. The charge - brought against Dr. Ferrier was that he operated without a licence and - infringed the law by doing those things to which the hon. and learned - member referred; but the charge was not supported by one tittle of - evidence.” - -Footnote 35: - - Many persons have supposed that I am still concerned with the - management of that journal; but, except as an occasional contributor, - such is not the case. The credit of the editorship for the last ten - years (which I consider to be great) rests entirely with Mr. Bryan. - ------------------------------------------------------------------------- - - - - - TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES - - - 1. P. 169, changed “but really achieved” to “but rarely achieved”. - 2. P. 277, changed “straight on end” to “straight on in”. - 3. P. 319, changed “bought forth fruit” to “brought forth fruit”. - 4. P. 354, changed “thoughts, I don’t” to “thoughts, I won’t”. - 5. Corrected the issues identified in the Errata. - 6. Silently corrected obvious typographical errors and variations in - spelling. - 7. Retained archaic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings as printed. - 8. Re-indexed foot-notes using numbers and collected together at the - end of the last chapter. - 9. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_. - -*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIFE OF FRANCES POWER COBBE AS TOLD -BY HERSELF *** - -Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will -be renamed. - -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the -United States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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margin-right: 0em; - max-width: 50%; } - .center {text-align: center; margin-top: 2em; } - .x-ebookmaker p.dropcap:first-letter { float: left; } - </style> - </head> - <body> - -<div style='text-align:center; font-size:1.2em; font-weight:bold'>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Life of Frances Power Cobbe as told by herself, by Cobbe Frances Power</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere in the United States and -most other parts of the world at no cost and with almost no restrictions -whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms -of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online -at <a href="https://www.gutenberg.org">www.gutenberg.org</a>. If you -are not located in the United States, you will have to check the laws of the -country where you are located before using this eBook. -</div> - -<p style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:0; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Title: Life of Frances Power Cobbe as told by herself</p> -<p style='display:block; margin-top:0; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:0;'>with additions by the author, and introduction by Blanche Atkinson</p> - -<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Author: Cobbe Frances Power</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin-top:1em; margin-bottom:1em; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Contributor: Atkinson Blanche</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Release Date: December 21, 2021 [eBook #66987]</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Language: English</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'>Character set encoding: UTF-8</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin-left:2em; text-indent:-2em'>Produced by: Richard Tonsing and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive)</div> - -<div style='margin-top:2em; margin-bottom:4em'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIFE OF FRANCES POWER COBBE AS TOLD BY HERSELF ***</div> - -<div class='tnotes covernote'> - -<p class='c000'><strong>Transcriber’s Note:</strong></p> - -<p class='c000'>The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.</p> - -</div> - -<div class='chapter ph1'> - -<div class='nf-center-c0'> -<div class='nf-center c001'> - <div>LIFE OF FRANCES POWER COBBE</div> - </div> -</div> - -</div> -<div class='figcenter id001'> -<img src='images/i_frontispiece.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -<div class='ic001'> -<p><em>Frances Power Cobbe.</em><br />1894. <span class='right'>[<em>Frontispiece.</em></span></p> -</div> -</div> - -<div class='titlepage'> - -<div> - <h1 class='c002'><span class='xlarge'>LIFE OF</span> <span class='sc'>Frances Power Cobbe</span><br /> <span class='large'>AS TOLD BY HERSELF</span></h1> -</div> - -<div class='nf-center-c0'> -<div class='nf-center c003'> - <div><span class='small'>WITH</span></div> - <div class='c004'>ADDITIONS BY THE AUTHOR</div> - <div class='c004'><span class='small'>AND</span></div> - <div class='c004'>INTRODUCTION BY BLANCHE ATKINSON</div> - <div class='c003'>LONDON</div> - <div>SWAN SONNENSCHEIN & CO., LIM.</div> - <div>PATERNOSTER SQUARE</div> - <div>1904</div> - </div> -</div> - -</div> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_v'>v</span> - <h2 class='c005'>INTRODUCTION.</h2> -</div> - -<p class='c006'>The story of the beautiful life which came to an end on -the 5th of April, 1904, is told by Miss Cobbe herself in -the following pages up to the close of 1898. Nothing is -left for another pen but to sketch in the events of the few -remaining years.</p> - -<p class='c007'>But first a word or two as to the origin of the book. -One spring day in 1891 or ’92, when Miss Cobbe was walking -with me through the Hengwrt grounds on my way to -the station, after some hours spent in listening to her -brilliant stories of men and things, I asked her if she -would not some day write her autobiography. She stood -still, laughing, and shook her head. Nothing in her life, -she said, was of sufficient importance to record, or for -other people to read. Naturally I urged that what had -interested me so greatly would interest others, and that -her life told by herself could not fail to make a delightful -book. She still laughed at the idea; and the next time I -saw her and repeated my suggestion, told me that she had -not time for such an undertaking, and also that she did not -think her friend, Miss Lloyd, would like it. At last, however, -to my great satisfaction, I heard that the friends had -talked the matter over, and were busily engaged in -looking at old letters and records of past days, and both -becoming interested in the retrospection. So the book -grew slowly into an accomplished fact, and Miss Cobbe -often referred to it laughingly as “your” book, to which I -replied that then I had not lived in vain! It is possible -<span class='pageno' id='Page_vi'>vi</span>that the idea had occurred to her before; but she always -gave me to understand that my persuasion had induced her -to write the book. She came to enjoy writing it. Once -when I said:—“I want you to tell us everything; all your -love-stories—and <em>everything</em>!” she took me up to her -study and read me the passage she had written in the -1st Chapter concerning such matters. The great success of -the book was a real pleasure to both Miss Cobbe and her -friend. She told me that it brought her more profit -than any of her books. Most of them had merely a <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">succès -d’estime</span></i>. Better still, it brought her a number of kindly -letters from old and new friends, and from strangers in -far off lands; and these proofs of the place she held in -many hearts was a true solace to a woman of tender affections, -who had to bear more than the usual share of the -abuse and misrepresentation which always fall to those who -engage in public work and enter into public controversies.</p> - -<p class='c007'>The sorrow of Miss Lloyd’s death changed the whole -aspect of existence for Miss Cobbe. The joy of life had -gone. It had been such a friendship as is rarely seen—perfect -in love, sympathy, and mutual understanding. No -other friend—though Miss Cobbe was rich in friends—could -fill the vacant place, and henceforward her loneliness -was great even when surrounded by those she loved and -valued. To the very last she could never mention the -name of “my dear Mary,” or of her own mother, without -a break in her voice. I remember once being alone with -her in her study when she had been showing me boxes -filled with Miss Lloyd’s letters. Suddenly she turned from -me towards her bookshelves as though to look for something, -and throwing up her arms cried, with a little sob, -“My God! how lonely I am!”</p> - -<p class='c007'>It was always her custom, while health lasted, to rise -early, and she often went to Miss Lloyd’s grave in the fresh -<span class='pageno' id='Page_vii'>vii</span>morning hours, especially when she was in any trouble or -perplexity. Up to within a few days of her death she had -visited this—to her—most dear and sacred spot. Doubtless -she seemed to find a closer communion possible with one -who had been her counsellor in all difficulties, her helper -in all troubles, at the graveside than elsewhere. She -planted her choicest roses there, and watched over them -with tender care. Now she rests beside her friend.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Yet this anguish of heart was bravely borne. There was -nothing morbid in her grief. She took the same keen -interest as before in the daily affairs of life—in politics and -literature and social matters. There never was a nature -more made for the enjoyment of social intercourse. She -loved to have visitors, to take them for drives about -her beautiful home, and to invite her neighbours to pleasant -little luncheons and dinners to meet them. Especially she -enjoyed the summer glories of her sweet old garden, and -liked to give an occasional garden party, and still oftener -to take tea with her friends under the shade of the big -cherry tree on the lawn. How charming a hostess she -was no one who has ever enjoyed her hospitality can -forget. “A good talk” never lost its zest for her; until -quite the end she would throw off langour and fatigue -under the spell of congenial companionship, and her talk -would sparkle with its old brilliance—her laugh ring with -its old gaiety.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Her courtesy to guests was perfect. When they happened -not to be in accord with her in their views upon -Vivisection (which was always in these years the chief -object of her work and thought), she never obtruded the -question, and it was her rule not to allow it to be discussed -at table. It was too painful and serious a subject to be an -accompaniment of what she thought should be one of the -minor pleasures of life. For though intensely religious, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_viii'>viii</span>there was no touch of the ascetic in Miss Cobbe’s nature. -She enjoyed everything; and guests might come and go -and never dream that the genial, charming hostess, who -deferred to their opinions on art or music or books, who -conversed so brilliantly on every subject which came up, -was all the time engaged in a hand to hand struggle against -an evil which she believed to be sapping the courage and -consciences of English men and women.</p> - -<p class='c007'>It is pleasant to look back upon sunny hours spent -among the roses she loved, or under the fine old trees she -never ceased to admire; upon the gay company gathered -round the tea-table in the dark-panelled hall of Hengwrt; -best of all, on quiet twilight talks by the fireside or in -the great window of her drawing-room watching the last -gleams of sunset fade from hill and valley, and the stars -come out above the trees. But it is sadly true that the last -few years of Miss Cobbe’s life were not as peacefully happy -as one would have loved to paint them to complete the -pleasant picture she had drawn in 1894. Even her cheery -optimism would hardly have led her to write that she would -“gladly have lived over again” this last decade.</p> - -<p class='c007'>The pain of separating herself from the old Victoria -Street Society was all the harder to bear because it came -upon her when the loss of Miss Lloyd was still almost fresh. -Only those who saw much of her during that anxious spring -of 1898 can understand how bitter was this pain. Miss -Cobbe has sometimes been blamed for—as it is said—causing -the division. But in truth, no other course was -possible to one of her character. When the alternative was -to give up a principle which she believed vital to the cause -of Anti-Vivisection, or to withdraw from her old Society, no -one who knew Miss Cobbe could doubt for an instant which -course she would take. It was deeply pathetic to see the brave -old veteran of this crusade brace up her failing strength to -<span class='pageno' id='Page_ix'>ix</span>meet the trial, resolved that she would never lower the flag -she had upheld for five-and-twenty years. It was a lesson -to those who grow discouraged after a few disappointments, -and faint-hearted at the first failure. This, it seems to me, -was the strongest proof Miss Cobbe’s whole life affords of -her wonderful mental energy. Few men, well past 70, -when the work they have begun and brought to maturity is -turned into what they feel to be a wrong direction, have -courage to begin again and lay the foundations of a new -enterprise. Miss Cobbe has herself told the story of how -she founded the “British Union;” and I dwell upon it here -only because it shows the intensity of her conviction that -Vivisection was an evil thing which she must oppose to the -death, and with which no compromise was possible. She -did not flinch from the pain and labour and ceaseless -anxiety which she plainly foresaw. She never said—as -most of us would have held her justified in saying—“<em>I</em> -have done all I could. I have spent myself—time, money, -and strength—in this fight. Now I shall rest.” She took -no rest until death brought it to her. Probably few realise -the immense sacrifices Miss Cobbe made when she devoted -herself to the unpopular cause which absorbed the last 30 -years of her life. It was not only money and strength -which were given. She lost many friends, and much social -influence and esteem. This was no light matter to a woman -who valued the regard of her fellows, and had heartily -enjoyed the position she had won for herself in the world -of letters. She often spoke sadly of this loss, though I am -sure that she never for an instant regretted that she had -come forward as the helper of the helpless.</p> - -<p class='c007'>From 1898 until the last day of her life the interests of -the new Society occupied her brain and pen. It was at -this time that I became more closely intimate with her than -before. Her help and encouragement of those who worked -<span class='pageno' id='Page_x'>x</span>under her were unfailing. No detail was too trifling to -bring to her consideration. Her immense knowledge of -the whole subject, her great experience and ready judgment -were always at one’s service. She soon had the care of all -the branches of the Union on her shoulders; she kept all -the threads in her hand, and the particulars of each small -organisation clear in her mind. For myself, I can bear this -testimony. Never once did Miss Cobbe urge upon me any -step or course of action which I seriously disliked. When, on -one or two occasions, I ventured to object to her view of what -was best, she instantly withdrew her suggestion, and left me -a free hand. If there were times when one felt that she -expected more than was possible, or when she showed a -slight impatience of one’s mistakes or failures, these were as -nothing compared with her generous praise for the little one -achieved, her warm congratulation for any small success. -It was indeed easy to be loyal to such a chief!</p> - -<p class='c007'>Much of Miss Cobbe’s leisure time during the years after -Miss Lloyd’s death was spent in reading over the records of -their old life. I find the following passage in a letter of -December, 1900:—</p> - -<p class='c008'>“I have this last week broken open the lock of an -old note-book of my dear Mary’s, kept about 1882–85. -Among many things of deep interest to me are letters -to and from various people and myself on matters of -theology, which I used to show her, and she took the -trouble to copy into this book, along with memoranda of -our daily life. It is unspeakably touching to me, you -may well believe, to find our old life thus revived, and -such tokens of her interest in my mental problems. I -think several of the letters would be rather interesting to -others, and perhaps useful.”</p> - -<p class='c006'>There remain in my possession an immense number of -letters, carefully arranged in packets and docketed, to and -<span class='pageno' id='Page_xi'>xi</span>from Miss Lloyd, Lord Shaftesbury, Theodore Parker, -Fanny Kemble, and others. These have all been read -through lately by Miss Cobbe, and endorsed to that effect. -Up to the very end Miss Cobbe’s large correspondence was -kept up punctually. She always found time to answer a -letter, even on quite trivial matters; and among the mass -which fell into my hands on her death were recent letters -from America, India, Australia, South Africa, and all parts -of England, asking for advice on many subjects, thanking -for various kindnesses, and expressing warm affection and -admiration for the pioneer worker in so many good causes. -With all these interests, her life was very full. Nothing -that took place in the world of politics, history, or literature, -was indifferent to her. She never lost her pleasure in -reading, though her eyes gave her some trouble of late -years. At night, two books—generally Biography, Egyptology, -Biblical Criticism, or Poetry—were placed by her -bedside for study in the wakeful hours of the early morning. -In spite of all these resources within herself, she sorely -missed the companionship of kindred spirits. She was, as -I have said, eminently fitted for the enjoyment of social -life, and had missed it after she left London for North -Wales. Up to the last, even when visitors tired her, she -was mentally cheered and refreshed by contact with those -who cared for the things she cared for.</p> - -<p class='c007'>In the winter of 1901–2 she was occupied in bringing -out a new edition of her first book, “The Theory of -Intuitive Morals.” She wrote thus of it to me at the -time:—</p> - -<p class='c008'>“I have resolved not to leave the <i><span lang="la" xml:lang="la">magnum opus</span></i> of my -small literary life out of print, so I am arranging to -reprint ‘Intuitive Morals,’ with my essay on ‘Darwinism -in Morals’ at the end of it, and a new Preface, so that -when I go out of the world, this, my <em>Credo</em> for moral -<span class='pageno' id='Page_xii'>xii</span>science and religion, will remain after me. Nobody but -myself could correct it or preface it.... As I look back -on it now, I feel glad to be able to re-circulate it, though -very few will read anything so dry! It was written just -50 years ago, and I am able to say with truth that I have -not seen reason to abandon the position I then took, -although the ‘cocksureness’ of 30 can never be -maintained to 80!”</p> - -<p class='c006'>During the same winter, Miss Cobbe joined the Women’s -Liberal Federation, moved to take this decided step not -only by her strong disapproval of the war in South Africa, -but by her belief that the then existing government was in -opposition to all the movements which she longed to see -carried forward. Her accession to their ranks met with a -warm welcome from the President and Committee of the -Women’s Liberal Federation, many of whom were already -her personal friends. To the end she kept in close touch -with all that concerned women; and only a few days before -her death, was asked to allow her name to be given to the -Council as an Honorary Vice-President of the National -Union of Women Workers of Great Britain and Ireland.</p> - -<p class='c007'>In the summer of 1902 an incident occurred—small in -itself, but causing such intense mortification to Miss Cobbe -that it cannot be passed over in any true account of the -closing years of her life. In fact, those who saw most of -her at the time, and knew her best, believe that she never -recovered from the effects of it. A charge was brought -against her of cruelly overdriving an old horse—a horse -which had been a special pet. The absurdity of such a -charge was the first thing that struck those who heard of it; -but to Miss Cobbe it came as a personal insult of the -cruellest kind. The charge was pressed on with what -looked like malicious vindictiveness, and though it failed, -the intention to give her pain did not fail. She wrote to -<span class='pageno' id='Page_xiii'>xiii</span>me at the time that she was “wounded to the quick.” The -insult to her character, the attempt to throw discredit upon -her life’s work for the protection of animals from suffering, -the unchivalrousness of such an attack upon an old and -lonely woman—all this embittered the very springs of -her life, and for a time she felt as if she could not stay -any longer in a neighbourhood where such a thing had been -possible. The results were very grievous for all who loved -her, as well as for herself. It had been one of her -pleasantest recreations to drive by the lovely road—which -was full of associations to her—between Hengwrt and -Barmouth, to spend two or three hours enjoying the sea -air and sunshine, and the society of the old friends who -were delighted to meet her there. To Barmouth also she -had a few years previously bequeathed her library, and had -taken great interest and pleasure in the room prepared for -the reception of her “dear books.” Yet it was in Barmouth -that the blow was struck, and she never visited the little -town again. It was pitiful! She had but a few more -months to live, and this was what a little group of her -enemies did to darken and embitter those few months!</p> - -<p class='c007'>On September 6th, she wrote to me:—</p> - -<p class='c008'>“This week I have had to keep quite to myself. I am, -of course, enduring now the results of the strain of the -previous weeks, and they are bad enough. The recuperative -powers of 80 are—<em>nil</em>! My old friends, Percy -Bunting and his wife, offered themselves for a few days -last week, and I could not bear to refuse their offer. As -it proved, his fine talk on all things to me most interesting—modern -theological changes, Higher Criticism, etc.—and -her splendid philanthropy on the lines I once humbly -followed (she is the leading woman on the M.A.B.Y.S., -which I had practically founded in Bristol forty years -ago), made me go back years of life, and seem as if I -<span class='pageno' id='Page_xiv'>xiv</span>were once more living in the blessed Seventies.... -Altogether, their visit, though it left me quite exhausted, -did my brains and my heart good. O! what friends I -once had! How <em>rich</em> I was! How poor I am now!”</p> - -<p class='c006'>In October of that year she decided to leave Hengwrt -for the winter. It was a great effort. She had not left her -home for eight years, and dreaded the uprooting. But it -was a wise move. One is glad now to remember how -happy Miss Cobbe was during that winter in Clifton. -She lived over again the old days of her work in Bristol -with Mary Carpenter; visited the old scenes, and noted the -changes that had taken place. Some old friends were left, -and greatly she enjoyed their company. At Clifton she had -many more opportunities of seeing people engaged in the -pursuits which interested her than in her remote Welsh -home. Her letters at that time were full of renewed -cheeriness. I quote a few sentences:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c009'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“November 13th.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c010'>“... I hope you have had as beautiful bright weather -as we have had here, and been able to get some walks on -the mountain. Now I can no longer ‘take a walk,’ I -know how much such exercise helped me of old, mentally -and morally, quite as much as physically. I see a good -many old friends here, and a few new ones, and my niece -comes to tea with me every afternoon. They are all very -kind, and make more of me than I am worth; but it is a -City of the Dead to me, so many are gone who were my -friends long ago; and what is harder to bear is that when -I was here last, eight or ten years ago, I was always thinking -of returning <em>home</em>, and writing daily all that happened -to dear Mary—and now, it is all a blank.”</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“November 16th.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c010'>“... It is so nice to think I am missed and wanted! -If I do get back to Hengwrt, we must manage to see more -<span class='pageno' id='Page_xv'>xv</span>of each other.... I have come to the conclusion that -for such little time as may remain for me, I will not shut -myself up again, and if I am at all able for it, I will return -home very early in the spring. I see a good many nice, -kind people here, old friends and new, and I have nice -rooms; but I sadly miss my own home and, still more, -<em>garden</em>. And the eternal noise of a town, the screaming -children and detestable hurdy-gurdies, torment my ears -after their long enjoyment of peace—and thrushes.... -I am shocked to find that people here read nothing but -novels; but they flock to any abstruse lectures, <em>e.g.</em>, those -of Estlin Carpenter on Biblical Criticism. I have just -had an amusing experience—a journalist sent up to gather -my views as to changes in Bristol in the last forty years. -Goodness knows what a hash he will make of them!”</p> - -<p class='c006'>During this autumn, the thought occurred to me that as -Miss Cobbe’s 80th birthday was at hand, a congratulatory -address from the men and women who appreciated -the work she had done for humanity and the lofty, -spiritual influence of her writings, might cheer her, -and help to remove some of the soreness of heart which -the recent trouble at Barmouth had left behind. Through -the kind help of Mr. and Mrs. Bunting and Mr. Verschoyle -in England, and of Miss Schuyler and Mrs. Wister in -America, an address was drawn up, and a notable list of -signatures quickly and most cordially affixed to it. The -address was as follows:—</p> - -<div class='nf-center-c0'> -<div class='nf-center c009'> - <div><span class='large'>“To FRANCES POWER COBBE</span></div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='lg-container-r c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“<span class='sc'>December</span> 4th, 1902.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c010'>“On this your eightieth birthday, we, who recognize -the strenuous philanthropic activity and the high moral -purpose of your long life, wish to offer you this congratulatory -address as an expression of sincere regard.</p> - -<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_xvi'>xvi</span>“You were among the first publicly to urge the right -of women to university degrees, and your powerful pen -has done much to advance that movement towards -equality of treatment for them, in educational and other -matters, which is one of the distinguishing marks of our -time.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“In social amelioration, such as Ragged Schools and -Workhouse reform, you did the work of a pioneer. By -your lucid and thoughtful works on religion and ethics, -you have contributed in no small degree to that broader -and more humane view, which has so greatly influenced -modern theology in all creeds and all schools of thought.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“But it is your chief distinction that you were practically -the first to explore the dark continent of our -relations to our dumb fellow-creatures, to let in light -on their wrongs, and to base on the firm foundation -of the moral law their rights and our duty towards them. -They cannot thank you, but we can.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“We hope that this expression of our regard and -appreciation may bring some contribution of warmth -and light to the evening of a well spent life, and may -strengthen your sense of a fellowship that looks beyond -the grave.”</p> - -<p class='c006'>The Address happily gave Miss Cobbe all the gratification -we had hoped. I quote from her letters the following -passages:—</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c009'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Clifton, December 5th.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c010'>“I learn that it is to you I owe what has certainly -been the greatest honour I have ever received in my -long life—the address from English and American friends -on my 80th birthday. I can hardly say how touched I -am by this token of your great friendship, and the cheer -which such an address could not fail to give me. The -handsome album containing it and all the English signatures -(the American ones—autographs—are on their -<span class='pageno' id='Page_xvii'>xvii</span>way, but I have the names in type-writing) was brought -to me yesterday by Mrs. Bunting and Mr. Verschoyle. -I had three reporters dodging in and out all day to get -news of it, and have posted to you the <cite>Bristol Mercury</cite> -with the best of their reports. It is really a very splendid -set of signatures, and a most flattering expression of -sympathy and approval from so many eminent men and -women. It is encouraging to think that they would -<em>endorse</em> the words about my care for animals.”</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“December 8th.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c010'>“You may not know that a very fair account of the -address appeared in the <cite>Times</cite> of Saturday, and also in -at least twenty other papers, so my <em>fame</em>! has gone -evidently through the land. I also had addresses from -the Women’s Suffrage people, with Lady Frances Balfour -at their head, and from the A.V. (German) Society at -Dresden, Ragged School, etc.... I am greatly enjoying -the visits of many literary men and women, old friends -and new—people interested in theology and ethics and -Egypt, and all things which interest me....”</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“December 24th.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c010'>“Only think that I am booked to make an address on -Women Suffrage to a ladies’ club, five doors off, on the -2nd.... The trouble you must have taken (about the -address) really overwhelms me! You certainly succeeded -in doing me a really great honour, and in <em>cheering</em> me. I -confess I was very downhearted when I came here, but I -am better now. I feel like the man who ‘woke one -morning and found himself famous.’”</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“January 4th.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c010'>“I like to hear of your fine walk on the mountain. -How good such walks are for soul and body! I miss -them dreadfully—for my temper as well as my health and -strength. Walking in the streets is most disagreeable to -<span class='pageno' id='Page_xviii'>xviii</span>me, especially now that I go slower than other people, so -that I feel myself an obstacle, and everybody brushes past -me. I sigh for my own private walks, small as they are, -where nobody has a right to come but myself, and my -thoughts can go their ways uninterrupted. But oh, for -the old precipice walk and Moel Ispry solitudes! You -will be amused to hear that I actually gave an hour’s -address to about 100 ladies at a new club, five doors -from me in this crescent, on Friday.... I was not -sorry to say a word more on that subject, and, of course, -to bring in how I trusted the votes of women to be -against all sorts of cruelty, including Vivisection. I -found I had my voice and words still at command.... -They were nice, ladylike women in the club. One said -she would have seven votes if she were a man. I do -believe that it would be an immense gain for women -themselves to have the larger interest which politics -would bring into their cramped lives, and to cease to -be de-considered as children.”</p> - -<p class='c006'>Miss Cobbe was too human, too full of sympathy with her -fellow-creatures, to know anything of the self-esteem which -makes one indifferent to the affection and admiration of -others. She was simply and openly pleased by this address, -as the words I have quoted show; and more than a year -later, only a few days before her death, she wrote to an old -friend on <em>her</em> 80th birthday:—</p> - -<p class='c008'>“My own experience of an 80th birthday was so much -brightened by that address ... that it stands out as a -happy, albeit solemn, day in my memory.”</p> - -<p class='c006'>While in Clifton, Miss Cobbe presided at the committee -meetings of the Bristol Branch of the British Union; and -she even considered the possibility of taking up the work -once more in London. But a brief visit, when she -occupied rooms in Thurloe Gardens, proved too much for -<span class='pageno' id='Page_xix'>xix</span>her strength. The noise at night prevented her from -sleeping, and she was reluctantly—for she enjoyed this -opportunity of seeing old friends—obliged to return to -North Wales. One Sunday morning when in London, she -told me that she walked to Hereford Square to see the -little house in which she and Miss Lloyd had spent the -happiest years of their lives. But the changed aspect of -the rooms in which they had received most of the -distinguished men and women of that time distressed -her, and she regretted her visit. On February 21st, she -wrote to me from Hengwrt:—</p> - -<div class='lg-container-l c009'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Dearest Blanche,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c010'>“As you see I have got home all right, and this morning -meant to write to announce my arrival.... I have -heaps of things to tell you, but to-day am dazed by -fatigue and change of air. It was quite warm in London, -and the cold here is great. But oh, how glad I am to be -in the peace of Hengwrt again—how thankful that I have -such a refuge in my old age! You will be glad, I know, -that I can tell you I am in a great deal better health than -when I left.”</p> - -<p class='c006'>The first time I went to see her after her return, I found -her standing in front of an immense chart which was spread -out on a table, studying the successions of Egyptian -dynasties. The address she had given in Clifton at the -ladies’ club was about to be printed in the <cite>Contemporary -Review</cite>, and she wanted to verify a statement she had made -in it about an Egyptian queen. She told me that this elaborate -chronological and genealogical chart had been made -by her, when a girl of 18, on her own plan. “How happy -I was doing it,” she said, “with my mother on her sofa -watching me, and taking such interest in it!” It was -very delightful to find the old woman of 80 consulting the -work of the girl of 18.</p> - -<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_xx'>xx</span>Alas! the improvement in her health did not continue -long. From that time till the end, I hardly received a -letter from Miss Cobbe without some reference to the -cheerless, gloomy weather. She was very sensitive to the -influences of the weather; and as one of her greatest -pleasures had always been to pass much time out of doors, -it became a serious deprivation to her when rain and cold -made it impossible to take her daily drive, or to walk and -sit in her beloved garden. She thought that some real -and permanent change had come over our climate, and the -want of sunshine, during the last winter especially, terribly -depressed her spirits and health. I spent two or three -happy days with her in the spring, and one drive on an -exquisite morning at the end of May will long live in my -memory. No one ever loved trees and flowers, mountain -and river, more than she, or took more delight in the -pleasure they gave to others.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Gradually, as the year went on, serious symptoms showed -themselves—and she knew them to be serious. Attacks of -faintness and complete exhaustion often prevented her from -enjoying the society of even her dearest friends, though in -spite of increasing weakness she struggled on with all the -weight of private correspondence and the business of her -new society; and sometimes, when strangers went to see -her, they would find her so bright and animated that they -came away thinking our fears for her unfounded.</p> - -<p class='c007'>A visit from two American friends in the summer gave -her much pleasure; but all last year her anxieties and -disappointments were great, and wore down her strength. -The Bayliss <em>v.</em> Coleridge case tried her grievously, and the -adverse verdict was a severe blow. The evident animus of -the public made her almost despair of ever obtaining that -justice for animals which had been the object of her efforts -for so many years. Hope deferred, and the growing opposition -<span class='pageno' id='Page_xxi'>xxi</span>of principalities and powers, made even her brave -heart quail at times. One result of the trial, however, gave -her real satisfaction. The <cite>Daily News</cite> opened its columns -to a correspondence on the subject of Vivisection, and the -wide-spread sympathy expressed with those who oppose it -was, Miss Cobbe said, “the greatest cheer she had known in -this sad cause for years.” The two young Swedish ladies who -had been the principal witnesses at the trial, visited her at -Hengwrt in November, and I met them there one afternoon -at, I think, the last of her pleasant receptions. I have never -seen her more interested, more graciously hospitable, than -on that day. She listened to the account of the trial, -sometimes with a smile of approval, sometimes with tears -in her eyes; and when we went into the hall for tea, where -the blazing wood fire lighted up the dark panelling, and -gleamed upon pictures, flowers, and curtains, and she -moved about talking to one and another with her sweet -smile and kindly, earnest words, some one present said -to me, “How young she looks!” I think it was the -simplicity, the perfect naturalness of her manner and speech -that gave an aspect of almost childlikeness to the dear old -face at times. Every thought found expression in her -countenance and voice. The eyes, laughing or tearful, the -gestures of her beautifully shaped hands, were, to the last, -full of animation.</p> - -<p class='c007'>There was indeed a perennial flow of vitality which -seemed to overcome all physical weakness in Miss Cobbe. -But if others were deceived as to her health, she was not. -As the dark, dreary winter went on, she grew more and -more depressed. Four days before the end came, I -received the following sad letter. Illness and other causes -had made it impossible for me to go to Hengwrt for some -weeks. The day after her death I was to have gone.</p> - -<p class='c008'><span class='pageno' id='Page_xxii'>xxii</span>“It is very sad how the weeks go by, and we, living -almost within <em>sight</em> of each other, fail to meet. It is -most horribly cold to-day, and I would not have had you -come for anything.... I think our best plan by far will -be to settle that whenever you make your proposed start -abroad, you come to me for three or four days on your -way. This will let us have a little peaceful confab. I -really want very much to do what I have been thinking -of so long, but have never done yet, and give you advice -about your future editorship of my poor books. To tell -you my own conviction, even if I should be living when -you return, I do not think I shall be up to this sort of -business. I am getting into a wretched state of inability -to give <em>attention</em> to things, and now the chances are all -for a speedy collapse. This winter has been too great a -trial for my old worn brains, and now the cold returning -is killing.”</p> - -<p class='c006'>Happily for her, she was spared the pain of any protracted -period of mental or bodily weakness. On Monday, April -4th, she drove out as usual, wrote her letters (one to me, -received after she was dead), and in the afternoon enjoyed -the visit of a neighbour, who took tea with her. It was a -better day with her than many had been of late, and she -went to bed cheerful and well. In the morning, having -opened her shutters to let in the blessed daylight, and to -look her last upon the familiar scene of mountain, valley, -river, and wood, with the grey headstone visible in the -churchyard where her friend rested, she passed swiftly away, -and was found dead, with a smile of peace upon her face. -A short time before, she had written to me:—</p> - -<p class='c008'>“I am touched by your affectionate words, dear -Blanche, but <em>nobody</em> must be sorry when that time -comes, least of all those who love me.”</p> - -<p class='c006'>We can obey her request not to sorrow for her; but for all -<span class='pageno' id='Page_xxiii'>xxiii</span>those—and they are more than she ever realised—who -loved her, the loss is beyond words to tell.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Miss Cobbe’s personality breathes through all her writings. -Yet there was a charm about her which not even her -autobiography is able to convey. It was the charm of an -intensely sympathetic nature, quickly moved to laughter or -to tears, passionately indignant at cruelty and cowardice, -tender to suffering, touched to a generous delight at any -story of heroism. As an instance of this, I may recall that -in the spring of 1899 Miss Cobbe started a memorial to -Mrs. Rogers, stewardess of the <cite>Stella</cite>, by the gift of £25. -The closing words of the inscription she wrote for the -beautiful drinking fountain which was erected to that brave -woman’s memory are worth recording here:</p> - -<div class='nf-center-c0'> -<div class='nf-center c012'> - <div>“ACTIONS SUCH AS THESE—</div> - <div>SHOWING</div> - <div>STEADFAST PERFORMANCE OF DUTY IN THE FACE OF DEATH,</div> - <div>READY SELF-SACRIFICE FOR SAKE OF OTHERS,</div> - <div>RELIANCE ON GOD—</div> - <div>CONSTITUTE THE GLORIOUS HERITAGE OF OUR ENGLISH RACE.</div> - <div>THEY DESERVE PERPETUAL COMMEMORATION:</div> - <div>BECAUSE</div> - <div>AMONG THE TRIVIAL PLEASURES AND SORDID STRIFE OF THE WORLD</div> - <div>THEY REVEAL TO US FOR EVER</div> - <div>THE NOBILITY AND LOVE-WORTHINESS OF HUMAN NATURE.”</div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c007'>In Miss Cobbe’s nature a gift of humour was joined to strong -practical sense. No one who ever lived less deserved the -term “Faddist” or “Sentimentalist.” Miss Cobbe was impatient -of fads. She liked “normal” people best—those who -ate and drank, and dressed and lived according to ordinary -conventions. Though, for convenience sake, she had adopted -a style of dress for herself to which she kept, letting “Fashions” -come and go unheeded, she was not indifferent to dress in -other women, and admired colours and materials, or noted -eccentricities as quickly as anyone. She once referred -laughingly to her own dress as “obvious.” For many years -<span class='pageno' id='Page_xxiv'>xxiv</span>dressmaker’s dresses would have been impossible to her; -but she had no sympathy with the effort some women make -to look peculiar at all costs. She could thoroughly enjoy a -good story, or even a bit of amusing gossip. With her own -strong religious convictions, she had the utmost respect for -other people’s opinions. Her chosen friends held widely -different creeds, and I do not think that she ever dreamt of -proselytising.</p> - -<p class='c007'>No literary person, surely, ever had less self-conceit. -What she had written was not flourished in one’s face; -other people’s smallest doings were not ignored. One felt -always on leaving her that every one else was lacking in -something indefinable—was dull, uninteresting and common-place. -One felt, too, that the whole conception of -womanhood was raised. <em>This</em> was what a woman might be. -Whatever her faults, they were the faults of a great-hearted, -noble nature—faults which all generous persons would be -quick to forget. Nothing small or mean could be tolerated -by her.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Her character, as I read it, was drawn on large and -simple lines, and was of a type that is out of fashion to-day. -She had many points of resemblance to Samuel Johnson. -With a strong and logical brain, she scorned all sophistries, -evasions, compromises, and half measures, and was impatient -of the wire-drawn subtleties in which modern -moralists revel. With intensely warm affections, she was, -like the great doctor, “a good hater.” He would undoubtedly -have classified her as “a clubbable woman”; -and his famous saying, “Clear your mind of cant,” would -have come as appropriately from her lips as from his. If a -sin was hateful to her, she could not feel amiably towards -the sinner; and for the spiritual sins of selfishness, hypocrisy, -avarice, cruelty, and callousness, she had no mercy, ranking -them as far more fatal to character than the sins of the flesh. -<span class='pageno' id='Page_xxv'>xxv</span>Like Johnson, too, she valued good birth, good breeding, -and good manners, and was instinctively conservative, -though liberal in her religious and political opinions.</p> - -<p class='c007'>She intensely disliked the license of modern life, both in -manners and morals, and had no toleration for the laxity so -often pardoned in persons of social or intellectual eminence. -Her mind and her tastes were strictly pure, orderly, and -regular. It is characteristic of this type of mind that she -most admired the classical in architecture, the grand style -in art, the polished and finished verse of Pope and Tennyson -in poetry. These were the two whose words she most -frequently quoted, though she tells us that Shelley was her -favourite poet.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Her gift of order was exemplified in the smallest details -and the kindred power of organisation was equally well -marked. It was the combination of impulsiveness and -enthusiasm with practical judgment and a due sense of -proportion that made her so splendid a leader in any cause -she championed.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Miss Cobbe was what is often called “generous to a -fault.” It was a lesson in liberality to go with her into the -garden when she cut flowers to send away. She did not -look for the defective blooms, or for those which would not -be missed. It was always the best and the finest which she -gave. How often I have held the basket while she cut -rose after rose, or great sprays of rhododendron or azælea -with the knife she wielded so vigorously. “Take as much -as you like,” she would say, if she sent you to help yourself. -She gave not only material things, but affection, interest -sympathy, bountifully.</p> - -<p class='c007'>She hated a lie of any kind; her first instinct was always -to stamp it out when she came across one. Perhaps, in -her stronger days, she “drank delight of battle with her -peers,” and did not crave over much for peace. But she -<span class='pageno' id='Page_xxvi'>xxvi</span>was not quarrelsome, and could differ without wrangling, -and dispute without bitterness.</p> - -<p class='c007'>A woman without husband or child is fortunate if, in her -old age, she has one or two friends who really love her. -Miss Cobbe was devotedly loved by a large number of men -and women. Indeed, I do not think that anyone could -come close to her and not love her. She was so richly -gifted, and gave so freely of herself.</p> - -<p class='c007'>To many younger women she had become the inspiration -of and guide to a life of high endeavour, and the letters -of gratitude and devotion which were addressed to her -from all parts of the world bear witness, as nothing else -can, to the extent of her splendid influence upon the -characters of others. Only a day or two before her -death she received letters from strangers who had lately -read her autobiography and felt impelled to write and -thank her for this story of a brave life. It is in the hope -that through it her influence may go on growing, and that -her spirit of self-sacrifice, of service to humanity, and faithfulness -to the Divine law may spread until the causes she -fought for so valiantly are victorious, that this new edition -of the “Life of Frances Power Cobbe” is sent out.</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'><span class='sc'>Blanche Atkinson.</span></div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_xxvii'>xxvii</span> - <h2 class='c005'>AUTHOR’S PREFACE.</h2> -</div> - -<p class='c006'>My life has been an interesting one to live and I -hope that this record of it may not prove too dull to -read. The days are past when biographers thought -it necessary to apologize for the paucity of the -adventures which they could recall and the obscurity -of the achievements which their heroes might -accomplish. We have gone far in the opposite -direction, and are wont to relate <i><span lang="la" xml:lang="la">in extenso</span></i> details -decidedly trivial, and to reproduce in imposing type -correspondence which was scarcely worth the -postage of the original manuscript. Our sense of -the intrinsic interest of Humanity, as depicted either -in biography or fiction,—that is, of the character of -the <em>personages</em> of the drama going on upon our little -stage,—has continually risen, while that of the -<em>action</em> of the piece,—the “incidents” which our -fathers chiefly regarded,—has fallen into the second -plane. I fear I have been guilty in this book of -recording many trifling memories and of reproducing -some letters of little importance; but only -through small touches could a happy childhood and -youth be possibly depicted: and all the Letters have, -I think, a certain value as relics and tokens of friendship, -if not as expressions (as many of them are) of -opinions carrying the weight of honoured names.</p> - -<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_xxviii'>xxviii</span>As regards these Letters (exclusively, of course, -those of friends and correspondents now dead), I -earnestly beg the heirs of the writers to pardon me -if I have not asked their permission for the publication -of them. To have ascertained, in the first -place, who such representatives are and where they -might be addressed, would, in many cases, have -been a task presenting prohibitive difficulties; and -as the contents of the Letters are wholly honourable -to the heads and hearts of their authors, I may -fairly hope that surviving relatives will be pleased -that they should see the light, and will not grudge -the testimony they bear to kindly sentiments -entertained towards myself.<a id='r1' /><a href='#f1' class='c013'><sup>[1]</sup></a></p> - -<p class='c007'>There is in this book of mine a good deal of -“<cite>Old Woman’s Gossip</cite>,” (I hope of a harmless sort), -concerning many interesting men and women with -whom it was my high privilege to associate freely -twenty, thirty and forty years ago. But if it -correspond at all to my design, it is not only, or -chiefly, a collection of social sketches and friendly -correspondence. I have tried to make it the true -and complete history of a woman’s existence <em>as seen -from within</em>; a real <span class='sc'>Life</span>, which he who reads may -take as representing fairly the joys, sorrows and -interests, the powers and limitations, of one of my -sex and class in the era which is now drawing -<span class='pageno' id='Page_xxix'>xxix</span>to a close. The world when I entered it was a -very different place from the world I must shortly -quit, most markedly so as regards the position in it -of women and of persons like myself holding -heterodox opinions, and my experience practically -bridges the gulf which divides the English <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">ancien -régime</span></i> from the new.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Whether my readers will think at the end of -these volumes that such a life as mine was worth -<em>recording</em> I cannot foretell; but that it has been a -“<em>Life Worth Living</em>” I distinctly affirm; so well -worth it, that,—though I entirely believe in a higher -existence hereafter, both for myself and for those -whose less happy lives on earth entitle them -far more to expect it from eternal love and -justice,—I would gladly accept the permission to run -my earthly race once more from beginning to end, -taking sunshine and shade just as they have flickered -over the long vista of my seventy years. Even the -retrospect of my life in these volumes has been a -pleasure; a chewing of the cud of memories,—mostly -sweet, none very bitter,—while I lie still a little -while in the sunshine, ere the soon-closing night.</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>F. P. C.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_xxxi'>xxxi</span> - <h2 class='c005'>CONTENTS.</h2> -</div> - -<table class='table0' summary=''> - <tr> - <th class='c014'><span class='small'>CHAP.</span></th> - <th class='c015'> </th> - <th class='c016'><span class='small'>PAGE</span></th> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c014'> </td> - <td class='c015'>INTRODUCTION</td> - <td class='c016'><a href='#Page_v'>v</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c014'> </td> - <td class='c015'>PREFACE</td> - <td class='c016'><a href='#Page_xxvii'>xxvii</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c014'>I.</td> - <td class='c015'>FAMILY AND HOME</td> - <td class='c016'><a href='#Page_1'>1</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c014'>II.</td> - <td class='c015'>CHILDHOOD</td> - <td class='c016'><a href='#Page_29'>29</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c014'>III.</td> - <td class='c015'>SCHOOL AND AFTER</td> - <td class='c016'><a href='#Page_55'>55</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c014'>IV.</td> - <td class='c015'>RELIGION</td> - <td class='c016'><a href='#Page_79'>79</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c014'>V.</td> - <td class='c015'>MY FIRST BOOK</td> - <td class='c016'><a href='#Page_107'>107</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c014'>VI.</td> - <td class='c015'>IRELAND IN THE FORTIES. THE PEASANTRY</td> - <td class='c016'><a href='#Page_135'>135</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c014'>VII.</td> - <td class='c015'>IRELAND IN THE FORTIES. THE GENTRY</td> - <td class='c016'><a href='#Page_163'>163</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c014'>VIII.</td> - <td class='c015'>UPROOTED</td> - <td class='c016'><a href='#Page_201'>201</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c014'>IX.</td> - <td class='c015'>LONG JOURNEY</td> - <td class='c016'><a href='#Page_217'>217</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c014'>X.</td> - <td class='c015'>BRISTOL. REFORMATORIES AND RAGGED SCHOOLS</td> - <td class='c016'><a href='#Page_273'>273</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c014'>XI.</td> - <td class='c015'>BRISTOL. THE SICK IN THE WORKHOUSE</td> - <td class='c016'><a href='#Page_301'>301</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c014'>XII.</td> - <td class='c015'>BRISTOL. WORKHOUSE GIRLS</td> - <td class='c016'><a href='#Page_325'>325</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c014'>XIII.</td> - <td class='c015'>BRISTOL FRIENDS</td> - <td class='c016'><a href='#Page_341'>341</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c014'>XIV.</td> - <td class='c015'>ITALY. 1857–1879</td> - <td class='c016'><a href='#Page_363'>363</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c014'>XV.</td> - <td class='c015'>MY LITERARY LIFE IN LONDON</td> - <td class='c016'><a href='#Page_397'>397</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c014'><span class='pageno' id='Page_xxxii'>xxxii</span>XVI.</td> - <td class='c015'>MY JOURNALIST LIFE IN LONDON</td> - <td class='c016'><a href='#Page_427'>427</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c014'>XVII.</td> - <td class='c015'>MY SOCIAL LIFE IN LONDON IN THE SIXTIES AND SEVENTIES</td> - <td class='c016'><a href='#Page_441'>441</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c014'>XVIII.</td> - <td class='c015'>MY SOCIAL LIFE IN LONDON IN THE SEVENTIES AND EIGHTIES</td> - <td class='c016'><a href='#Page_517'>517</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c014'>XIX.</td> - <td class='c015'>THE CLAIMS OF WOMEN</td> - <td class='c016'><a href='#Page_581'>581</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c014'>XX.</td> - <td class='c015'>THE CLAIMS OF BRUTES</td> - <td class='c016'><a href='#Page_613'>613</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c014'>XXI.</td> - <td class='c015'>MY HOME IN WALES</td> - <td class='c016'><a href='#Page_693'>693</a></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c014'> </td> - <td class='c015'>INDEX</td> - <td class='c016'><a href='#Page_713'>713</a></td> - </tr> -</table> - -<div class='chapter'> - <h2 class='c005'>ERRATA</h2> -</div> - -<div class='lg-container-b c017'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>For Berwick read Bewick, p. <a href='#Page_179'>179</a>, last line.</div> - <div class='line'>For Goldsmiths read Goldschmidts, p. <a href='#Page_237'>237</a>, 8 lines from bottom.</div> - <div class='line'>For Goodwin read Godwin, p. <a href='#Page_257'>257</a>, line 12.</div> - <div class='line'>For Macpelah read Machpelah, p. <a href='#Page_237'>237</a>, line 12.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_1'>1</span> - <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER<br /> I.<br /> <span class='large'><em>FAMILY AND HOME.</em></span></h2> -</div> - -<p class='c006'><span class='pageno' id='Page_3'>3</span>I have enjoyed through life the advantage of being, in the -true sense of the words, “well-born.” My parents were -good and wise; honourable and honoured; sound in body -and in mind. From them I have inherited a physical frame -which, however defective even to the verge of grotesqueness -from the æsthetic point of view, has been, as regards health -and energy, a source of endless enjoyment to me. From -childhood till now in my old age—except during a few years -interval of lameness from an accident,—mere natural existence -has always been to me a positive pleasure. Exercise and -rest, food and warmth, work, play and sleep, each in its -turn has been delightful; and my spirits, though of course -now no longer as gay as in youth, have kept a level of -cheerfulness subject to no alternatives of depression save -under the stress of actual sorrow. How much of the -optimism which I am aware has coloured my philosophy -ought to be laid to the account of this bodily <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">bien être</span></i>, it -would be superfluous to enquire too nicely. At least I may -fairly maintain that, as Health is the normal condition of -existence, the views which a particularly healthy person takes -of things are presumably more sound than those adopted by -one habitually in the abnormal condition of an invalid.</p> - -<p class='c007'>As regards the inheritance of mental faculties, of which -so much has been talked of late years, I cannot trace it in -my own experience in any way. My father was a very able, -energetic man; but his abilities all lay in the direction of -administration, while those of my dear mother were of the -order which made the charming hostess and cultivated -<span class='pageno' id='Page_4'>4</span>member of society with the now forgotten grace of the -eighteenth century. Neither paternal nor maternal gifts or -graces have descended to me; and such faculties as have -fallen to my lot have been of a different kind; a kind which, -I fear, my good father and his forbears would have regarded -as incongruous and unseemly for a daughter of their house to -exhibit. Sometimes I have pictured to myself the shock -which “The old Master” would have felt could he have -seen me—for example—trudging three times a week for -seven years to an office in the purlieus of the Strand to -write articles for a half-penny newspaper. Not one of my -ancestors, so far as I have heard, ever dabbled in printer’s ink.</p> - -<p class='c007'>My brothers were all older than I; the eldest eleven, the -youngest five years older; and my mother, when I was born, -was in her forty-seventh year; a circumstance which -perhaps makes it remarkable that the physical energy and -high animal spirits of which I have just made mention came -to me in so large a share. My old friend Harriet St. Leger, -Fanny Kemble’s “dear H. S.,” who knew us all well, said -to me one day laughing: “You know <em>you</em> are your Father’s -<em>Son</em>!” Had I been a man, and had possessed my brother’s -facilities for entering Parliament or any profession,<a id='r2' /><a href='#f2' class='c013'><sup>[2]</sup></a> I have -<span class='pageno' id='Page_5'>5</span>sometimes dreamed I could have made my mark and done -some masculine service to my fellow-creatures. But the -woman’s destiny which God allotted to me has been, I do -not question, the best and happiest for me; nor have I -ever seriously wished it had been otherwise, albeit I have -gone through life without that interest which has been -styled “woman’s whole existence.” Perhaps if this book be -found to have any value it will partly consist in the evidence -it must afford of how pleasant and interesting, and withal, I -hope, not altogether useless a life is open to a woman, though -no man has ever desired to share it, nor has she seen -the man she would have wished to ask her to do so. -The days which many maidens my contemporaries and -acquaintances,—</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c018'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line in6'>“Lost in wooing</div> - <div class='line'>In watching and pursuing,”—</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c019'>(or in being pursued, which comes to the same thing); were -spent by me, free from all such distractions, in study and in -the performance of happy and healthful filial and housewifely -duties. Destiny, too, was kind to me, likewise, by relieving -me from care respecting the other great object of human -anxiety,—to wit, Money. The prophet’s prayer, “Give me -neither poverty nor riches” was granted to me, and I -have probably needed to spend altogether fewer thoughts on -£ s. d. than could happen to anyone who has either to -solve the problems “How to keep the Wolf from the door” -and “How to make both ends meet?” or “How, justly -and conscientiously, to expend a large income?” Wealth -has only come to me in my old age, and now it is easy to -know how to spend it. Thus it has happened that in early -womanhood and middle life I enjoyed a degree of real <em>leisure</em> -of mind possessed by few; and to it, I think, must be chiefly -attributed anything which in my doings may have worn the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_6'>6</span>semblance of exceptional ability. I had good, sound working -brains to start with, and much fewer hindrances than the -majority of women in improving and employing them. -<i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Voilà tout.</span></i></p> - -<p class='c007'>I began by saying that I was well-born in the true sense -of the words, being the child of parents morally good and -physically sound. I reckon it also to have been an -advantage,—though immeasurably a minor one,—to have -been well-born, likewise, in the conventional sense. My -ancestors, it is true, were rather like those of Sir Leicester -Dedlock, “chiefly remarkable for never having done anything -remarkable for so many generations.”<a id='r3' /><a href='#f3' class='c013'><sup>[3]</sup></a> But they were -honourable specimens of county squires; and never, during -the four centuries through which I have traced them, do they -<span class='pageno' id='Page_7'>7</span>seem to have been guilty of any action of which I need to be -ashamed.</p> - -<p class='c007'>My mother’s father was Captain Thomas Conway, of -Morden Park, representative of a branch of that family. Her -only brother was Adjutant General Conway, whose name -Lord Roberts has kindly informed me is still, after fifty years, -an “honoured word in Madras.” My father’s progenitors -were, from the fifteenth century, for many generations -owners of Swarraton, now Lord Ashburton’s beautiful -“Grange” in Hampshire; the scene of poor Mrs. Carlyle’s -mortifications. While at Swarraton the heads of the family -married, in their later generations, the daughters of -Welborne of Allington; of Sir John Owen; of Sir Richard -Norton of Rotherfield (whose wife was the daughter of Bishop -Bilson, one of the translators of the Bible); and of James -Chaloner, Governor of the Isle of Man, one of the Judges of -Charles I. The wife of this last remarkable man was Ursula -Fairfax, niece of Lord Fairfax.<a id='r4' /><a href='#f4' class='c013'><sup>[4]</sup></a></p> - -<p class='c007'>On one occasion only do the Cobbes of Swarraton seem -to have transcended the “Dedlock” programme. Richard -Cobbe was Knight of the Shire for Hants in Cromwell’s -short Parliament of 1656, with Richard Cromwell for a -colleague. What he did therein History saith not! The -grandson of this Richard Cobbe, a younger son named -Charles, went to Ireland in 1717 as Chaplain to the Duke of -Bolton with whom he was connected through the Norton’s; -and a few years later he was appointed Archbishop of Dublin,—a -post which he held with great honour until his death in -1765. On every occasion when penal laws against Catholics -were proposed in the Irish House of Lords Archbishop Cobbe -<span class='pageno' id='Page_8'>8</span>contended vigorously against them, dividing the House again -and again on the Bills; and his numerous letters and papers -in the Irish State-Paper office (as Mr. Froude has assured -me after inspection) bear high testimony to his liberality and -integrity in that age of corruption. Two traditions concerning -him have a certain degree of general interest. One, -that John Wesley called upon him at his country house,—my -old home, Newbridge;—and that the interview was perfectly -friendly; Wesley approving himself and his work to the -Archbishop’s mind. The other is; that when Handel came -to Dublin, bringing with him the MS. of the <cite>Messiah</cite>, of -which he could not succeed in obtaining the production in -London, Archbishop Cobbe, then Bishop of Kildare, took -lively interest in the work, and under his patronage, as well -as that of several Irishmen of rank, the great Oratorio was -produced in Dublin.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Good Archbishop Cobbe had not neglected the affairs of -his own household. He bought considerable estates in -Louth, Carlow, and Co. Dublin, and on the latter, about -twelve miles north of Dublin and two miles from the pretty -rocky coast of Portrane, he built his country house of -Newbridge, which has ever since been the home of our -family. As half my life is connected with this dear old -place, I hope the reader will look at the pictures of it which -must be inserted in this book and think of it as it was in my -youth, bright and smiling and yet dignified; bosomed among -its old trees and with the green, wide-spreading park opened -out before the noble granite <em>perron</em> of the hall door. There -is another country house on the adjoining estate, Turvey, the -property of Lord Trimleston, and I have often amused myself -by comparing the two. Turvey is really a <em>wicked-looking</em> -house, with half-moon windows which suggest leering eyes, -and partition walls so thick that secret passages run through -them; and bedrooms with tapestry and <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">ruelles</span></i> and hidden -<span class='pageno' id='Page_9'>9</span>doors in the wainscot. There were there, also, when I was -young, certain very objectionable pictures, beside several -portraits of the “beauties” of Charles II.’s court, (to the last -degree <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">decolletées</span></i>) who had been, no doubt, friends of the -first master of the house, their contemporary. In the -garden was a grotto with a deep cold bath in it, which, in -the climate of Ireland, suggested suicide rather than ablution. -Altogether the place had the same suggestiveness of “deeds -of darkness” which I remember feeling profoundly when I -went over Holyrood with Dr. John Brown; and it was quite -natural to attach to Turvey one of the worst of the -traditional Irish curses. This curse was pronounced by the -Abbess of the neighbouring convent (long in ruins) of -Grace-Dieu when Lord Kingsland, then lord of Turvey, had -by some nefarious means induced the English Government of -the day to make over the lands of the convent to himself. -On announcing this intelligence in his own hall to the -assembled nuns, the poor ladies took refuge very naturally in -malediction, went down simultaneously on their knees, and -repeated after their Abbess a denunciation of Heaven’s -vengeance on the traitor. “There should never want an -idiot or a lawsuit in the family; and the rightful heir should -never see the smoke of the chimney.” Needless to add, -lawsuits and idiots have been plentiful ever since, and, after -several generations of absentees, Turvey stands in a treeless -desert, and has descended in the world from lordly to humble -owners.</p> - -<p class='c007'>How different was Newbridge! Built not by a dissolute -courtier of Charles II., but by the sensible Whig, and -eminently Protestant Archbishop, it has as open and honest a -countenance as its neighbour has the reverse. The solid -walls, about three feet and a-half thick in most parts, keep -out the cold, but neither darken the large, lofty rooms, nor -afford space for devious and secret passages. The house -<span class='pageno' id='Page_10'>10</span>stands broadly-built and strong, not high or frowning; its -Portland-stone colour warm against the green of Irish woods -and grass. Within doors every room is airy and lightsome, -and more than one is beautiful. There is a fine staircase out -of the second hall, the walls of which are covered with old -family pictures which the Archbishop had obtained from his -elder brother, Col. Richard Chaloner Cobbe, who had somehow -lost Swarraton, and whose line ended in an heiress, wife -of the 11th Earl of Huntingdon. A long corridor downstairs -was, I have heard, formerly hung from end to end with arms -intended for defence in case of attack. When the Rebellion -of 1798 took place the weapons were hidden in a hole into -which I have peered, under the floor of a room off the great -drawing-room, but what became of them afterwards I do -not know. My father possessed only a few pairs of handsome -pistols, two or three blunderbusses, sundry guns of various -kinds, and his own regimental sword which he had used at -Assaye. All these hung in his study. The drawing-room -with its noble proportions and its fifty-three pictures by -Vandyke, Ruysdael, Guercino, Vanderveldt and other old -masters, was the glory of the house. In it the happiest -hours of my life were passed.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Of this house and of the various estates bought and leased -by the Archbishop his only surviving son, Thomas Cobbe, my -great-grandfather, came into possession in the year 1765. -Irreverently known to his posterity as “Old Tommy” this -gentleman after the fashion of his contemporaries muddled -away in keeping open house a good deal of the property, and -eventually sold one estate and (what was worse) his father’s -fine library. <i><span lang="la" xml:lang="la">Per contra</span></i> he made the remarkable collection of -pictures of which I have spoken as adorning the walls of -Newbridge. Pilkington, the author of the <cite>Dictionary of -Painters</cite>, was incumbent of the little Vicarage of Donabate, -and naturally somewhat in the relation of chaplain to the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_11'>11</span>squire of Newbridge, who had the good sense to send him to -Holland and Italy to buy the above-mentioned pictures, many -of which are described in the <cite>Dictionary</cite>. Some time -previously, when Pilkington had come out as an Art-critic, -the Archbishop had remonstrated with him on his unclerical -pursuit; but the poor man disarmed episcopal censure by -replying, “Your Grace, I have preached for a dozen years to -an old woman who <em>can’t</em> hear, and to a young woman who -<em>won’t</em> hear; and now I think I may attend to other things!”</p> - -<p class='c007'>Thomas Cobbe’s wife’s name has been often before the -public in connection with the story, told by Crabbe, Walter -Scott and many others, of the lady who wore a black -ribbon on her wrist to conceal the marks of a ghost’s -fingers. The real ghost-seer in question, Lady Beresford, -was confounded by many with her granddaughter Lady Eliza -Beresford, or, as she was commonly called after her marriage, -Lady Betty Cobbe. How the confusion came about I do not -know, but Lady Betty, who was a spirited woman much -renowned in the palmy days of Bath, was very indignant -when asked any questions on the subject. Once she received -a letter from one of Queen Charlotte’s Ladies-in-Waiting -begging her to tell the Queen the true story. Lady Betty in -reply “presented her compliments but was sure the Queen of -England would not pry into the private affairs of her subjects, -and had <em>no intention of gratifying the impertinent curiosity of a -Lady-in-Waiting</em>!” Considerable labour was expended some -years ago by the late Primate (Marcus Beresford) of Ireland, -another descendant of the ghost-seer in identifying the real -personages and dates of this curious tradition. The story -which came to me directly through my great-aunt, Hon. -Mrs. Henry Pelham, Lady Betty’s favourite daughter, was, -that the ghost was John Le Poer, Second Earl of Tyrone; -and the ghost-seer was his cousin, Nichola Hamilton, daughter -of Lord Glerawly, wife of Sir Tristram Beresford. The -<span class='pageno' id='Page_12'>12</span>cousins had promised each other to appear,—whichever of -them first departed this life,—to the survivor. Lady -Beresford, who did not know that Lord Tyrone was dead, -awoke one night and found him sitting by her bedside. He -gave her (so goes the story) a short, but, under the circumstances, -no doubt impressive lesson, in the elements of -orthodox theology; and then to satisfy her of the reality of -his presence, which she persisted in doubting, he twisted -the curtains of her bed through a ring in the ceiling, placed -his hand on a wardrobe and left on it the ominous mark of -five burning fingers (the late Hon. and Rev. Edward Taylor -of Ardgillan Castle told me he had seen this wardrobe!) and -finally touched her wrist, which shrunk incontinently and -never recovered its natural hue. Before he vanished the -Ghost told Lady Beresford that her son should marry his -brother’s daughter and heiress; and that she herself should -die at the birth of a child after a second marriage, in her -forty-second year. All these prophecies, of course, came to -pass. From the marriage of Sir Marcus Beresford with the -ghost’s niece, Catharine, Baroness Le Poer of Curraghmore, -has descended the whole clan of Irish Beresfords. He -was created Earl of Tyrone; his eldest son was the first -Marquis of Waterford; another son was Archbishop of Tuam, -created Lord Decies; and his fifth daughter was the Lady -Betty Cobbe, my great-grandmother, concerning whom I have -told this old story. In these days of Psychological Research -I could not take on myself to omit it, though my own private -impression is, that Lady Beresford accidentally gave her -wrist a severe blow against her bedstead while she was -asleep; and that, by a law of dreaming which I have endeavoured -to trace in my essay on the subject, her mind -instantly created the <em>myth</em> of Lord Tyrone’s apparition. -Allowing for a fair amount of subsequent agglomeration of -incidents and wonders in the tradition, this hypothesis, I think -<span class='pageno' id='Page_13'>13</span>quite meets the exigencies of the case; and in obedience to -the law of Parsimony, we need not run to a preternatural -explanation of the Black Ribbon on the Wrist, no doubt the -actual nucleus of the tale.</p> - -<p class='c007'>I do not <em>dis</em>believe in ghosts; but unfortunately I have -never been able comfortably to believe in any particular -ghost-story. The overwhelming argument against the -veracity of the majority of such narrations is, that they contradict -the great truth beautifully set forth by Southey—</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c018'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“They sin who tell us Love can die!—</div> - <div class='line'>With life all other passions fly</div> - <div class='line'>All others are but vanity—</div> - <div class='line'>In Heaven, Ambition cannot dwell,</div> - <div class='line'>Nor Avarice in the vaults of hell.</div> - <div class='line'>Earthly these passions as of earth,</div> - <div class='line'>They perish where they had their birth—</div> - <div class='line'>But Love is indestructible....”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c019'>The ghost of popular belief almost invariably exhibits the -survival of Avarice, Revenge, or some other thoroughly -earthly passion, while for the sake of the purest, noblest, -tenderest Love scarcely ever has a single Spirit of the -departed been even supposed to return to comfort the heart -which death has left desolate. The famous story of Miss Lee -is one exception to this rule, and so is another tale which I -found recorded in an MS. Memorandum in the writing of my -uncle the Rev. Henry Cobbe, Rector of Templeton (<em>died</em> 1823).</p> - -<p class='c007'>“Lady Moira<a id='r5' /><a href='#f5' class='c013'><sup>[5]</sup></a> was at one time extremely uneasy about her -sister, Lady Selina Hastings, from whom she had not heard -for a considerable time. One night she dreamed that her -sister came to her, sat down by her bedside, and said to her, -‘My dear sister, I am dying of fever. They will not tell you -of it because of your situation’ (she was then with child), -<span class='pageno' id='Page_14'>14</span>‘but I shall die, and the account will be brought to your -husband by letter directed like a foreign one in a foreign -hand.’ She told her dream to her attendant, Mrs. Moth, as -soon as she awoke, was extremely unhappy for letters, till -at length, the day after, there arrived one, directed as she -had been told, which contained an account of her sister’s -death. It had been written by her brother, Lord Huntingdon, -and in a feigned hand, lest she should ask to know the -contents.</p> - -<p class='c007'>“She had many other extraordinary dreams, and it is -very remarkable that after the death of her attendant, Moth, -who had educated her and her children, and was the niece of -the famous Bishop Hough, that she (Moth) generally took a -part in them, particularly if they related to any loss in her -family. Indeed, I believe she never dreamed of her except -when she was to undergo a loss. Lady Granard told me an -instance of this: Her second son Colonel Rawdon died very -suddenly. He had not been on good terms with Lady -Moira for some time. One night she dreamed that Moth -came into the room, and upon her asking her what she -wanted she said, ‘My lady, I am come to bring the Colonel -to you.’ Then he entered, came near her, and coming -within the curtains, sat on the bed and said, ‘My dearest -mother, I am going a very long journey, and I cannot bear -to go without the assurance of your forgiveness.’ Then she -threw her arms about his neck and said, ‘Dear Son, can -you doubt my forgiving you? But where are you going?’ -He replied, ‘A long journey, but I am happy now that I -have seen you.’ The next day she received an account of -his death.</p> - -<p class='c007'>“About a fortnight before her death, when Lady Granard -and Lady Charlotte Rawdon, her daughters, were sitting up -in her room, she awoke suddenly, very ill and very much -agitated, saying that she had dreamed that Mrs. Moth came -<span class='pageno' id='Page_15'>15</span>into her room. When she saw her she was so full of the idea -that evils always attended her appearance that she said, ‘Ah, -Moth, I fear you are come for my Selina’ (Lady G.). -Moth replied, ‘No, my Lady, but I am come for Mr. John.’ -They gave her composing drops and soothed her; she soon -fell asleep, and from that time never mentioned her son’s -name nor made any inquiry about him; but he died on the -very day of her dream, though she never knew it.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>Old Thomas Cobbe and after him his only son, Charles -Cobbe, represented the (exceedingly-rotten) Borough of Swords -for a great many years in the Irish Parliament, which was -then in its glory, resonant with the eloquence of Flood (who -had married Lady Betty’s sister, Lady Jane) and of Henry -Grattan. On searching the archives of Dublin, however, in -the hope of discovering that our great-grandfather had done -some public good in his time, my brother and I had the -mortification to find that on the only occasion when reference -was made to his name, it was in connection with charges of -bribery and corruption! On the other hand, it is recorded to -his honour that he was almost the only one among the Members -of the Irish Parliament who voted for the Union, and yet -refused either a peerage or money compensation for his seat. -Instead of these he obtained for Swords some educational -endowments by which I believe the little town still profits. -In the record of corruption sent by Lord Randolph Churchill -to the <cite>Times</cite> (May 29th, 1893), in which appears a charge of -interested motives against nearly every Member of the Irish -Parliament of 1784, “Mr. Cobbe” stands honourably alone -as without any “object” whatever.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Thomas Cobbe’s two daughters, my great-aunts and -immediate predecessors as the Misses Cobbe, of Newbridge, -(my grandfather having only sons) differed considerably in all -respects from their unworthy niece. They occupied, so -said tradition, the large cheerful room which afterwards -<span class='pageno' id='Page_16'>16</span>became my nursery. A beam across the ceiling still bore, -in my time, a large iron staple firmly fixed in the centre from -whence had dangled a hand-swing. On this swing my great-aunts -were wont to hang by their arms, to enable their maids -to lace their stays to greater advantage. One of them, afterwards -the Hon. Mrs. Henry Pelham, Lady-in-Waiting to -Queen Caroline, likewise wore the high-heeled shoes of the -period; and when she was an aged woman she showed -her horribly deformed feet to one of my brothers, and -remarked to him: “See, Tom, what comes of high-heeled -shoes!” I am afraid many of the girls now wearing -similarly monstrous foot-gear will learn the same lesson too -late. Mrs. Pelham, I have heard, was the person who practically -brought the house about the ears of the unfortunate -Queen Caroline; being the first to throw up her appointment -at Court when she became aware of the Queen’s private -on-goings. Her own character stood high; and the fact that -she would no longer serve the Queen naturally called attention -to all the circumstances. Bad as Queen Caroline was, -George the Fourth was assuredly worse than she. In his -old age he was personally very disgusting. My mother told -me that when she received his kiss on presentation at his -Drawing-Room, the contact with his face was sickening, like -that with a corpse. I still possess the dress she wore on -that occasion.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Mrs. Pelham’s sister married Sir Henry Tuite, of Sonnagh, -and for many years of her widowhood lived in the Circus, -Bath, and perhaps may still be remembered there by a few -as driving about her own team of four horses in her curricle, -in days when such doings by ladies were more rare than they -are now.</p> - -<p class='c007'>The only brother of these two Miss Cobbes of the past, -Charles Cobbe, of Newbridge, M.P., married Anne Power -Trench, of Garbally, sister of the first Earl of Clancarty. -<span class='pageno' id='Page_17'>17</span>The multitudinous clans of Trenches and Moncks, in addition -to Lady Betty’s Beresford relations, of course thenceforth -adopted the habit of paying visitations at Newbridge. -Arriving by coachloads, with trains of servants, they remained -for months at a time. A pack of hounds was kept, and the -whole <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">train de vie</span></i> was liberal in the extreme. Naturally, -after a certain number of years of this kind of thing, embarrassments -beset the family finances; but fortunately at the -crisis Lady Betty came under the influence of her husband’s -cousin, the Methodist Countess of Huntingdon, and ere long -renounced the vanities and pleasures of the world, and persuaded -her husband to retire with her and live quietly at -Bath, where they died and were buried in Weston churchyard. -Fifty years afterwards I found in the library at -Newbridge the little batch of books which had belonged to my -great-grandmother in this phase of her life, and were marked -by her pencil: <cite>Jacob Boehmen</cite> and the <cite>Life of Madame Guyon</cite> -being those which I now recall. The peculiar, ecstatic -pietism which these books breathe, differing <i><span lang="la" xml:lang="la">toto cœlo</span></i> from -the “other worldliness” of the divines of about 1810, with -whose works the “Good-book Rows” of our library were -replenished, impressed me very vividly.<a id='r6' /><a href='#f6' class='c013'><sup>[6]</sup></a></p> - -<p class='c007'>I have often tried to construct in my mind some sort of -picture of the society which existed in Ireland a hundred -years ago, and moved in those old rooms wherein the first -half of my life was spent, but I have found it a very baffling -<span class='pageno' id='Page_18'>18</span>undertaking. Apparently it combined a considerable amount -of æsthetic taste with traits of genuine barbarism; and high -religious pretension with a disregard of everyday duties and -a <em>penchant</em> for gambling and drinking which would now -place the most avowedly worldly persons under a cloud of -opprobrium. Card-playing was carried on incessantly. -Tradition says that the tables were laid for it on rainy days -at 10 o’clock in the morning in Newbridge drawing-room; -and on every day in the interminable evenings which -followed the then fashionable four o’clock dinner. My -grandmother was so excellent a whist-player that to extreme -old age in Bath she habitually made a small, but appreciable, -addition to her income out of her “card purse”; an ornamental -appendage of the toilet then, and even in my time, in -universal use. I was given one as a birthday present in my -tenth year. She was greatly respected by all, and beloved -by her five sons; every one of whom, however, she had sent -out to be nursed at a cottage in the park till they were three -years old. Her motherly duties were supposed to be -amply fulfilled by occasionally stopping her carriage to see -how the children were getting on.</p> - -<p class='c007'>As to the drinking among the men, (the women seem -not to have shared the vice) it must have prevailed to a -disgusting extent upstairs and downstairs. A fuddled -condition after dinner was accepted as the normal one of a -gentleman, and entailed no sort of disgrace. On the -contrary, my father has told me that in his youth his own -extreme sobriety gave constant offence to his grandfather, and -to his comrades in the army; and only by showing the latter -that he would sooner fight than be bullied to drink to excess -could he obtain peace. Unhappily, poor man! while his -grandfather, who seldom went to bed quite sober for forty -years, lived to the fine old age of 82, enjoying good health -to the last, his temperate grandson inherited the gout and in -<span class='pageno' id='Page_19'>19</span>his latter years was a martyr thereto. Among the exceedingly -beautiful old Indian and old Worcester china which -belonged to Thomas Cobbe and showed his good taste and also -the splendid scale of his entertainments (one dessert-service -for 36 persons was magnificent) there stands a large goblet -calculated to hold <em>three bottles</em> of wine. This glass (tradition -avers) used to be filled with claret, seven guineas were placed -at the bottom, and he who drank it pocketed the coin.</p> - -<p class='c007'>The behaviour of these Anglo-Irish gentry of the last -century to their tenants and dependants seems to have proceeded -on the truly Irish principle of being generous before -you are just. The poor people lived in miserable hovels -which nobody dreamed of repairing; but then they were -welcome to come and eat and drink at the great house on -every excuse or without any excuse at all. This state of -things was so perfectly in harmony with Celtic ideas that -the days when it prevailed are still sighed after as the “good -old times.” Of course there was a great deal of Lady -Bountiful business, and also of medical charity-work going -forward. Archbishop Cobbe was fully impressed with the -merits of the Tar-water so marvellously set forth by his -suffragan, Bishop Berkeley, and I have seen in his handwriting -in a book of his wife’s cookery receipts, a receipt -for making it, beginning with the formidable item: “Take -six gallons of the best French brandy.” Lady Betty was -a famous compounder of simples, and of things that were -not simple, and a “Chilblain Plaister” which bore her name, -was not many years ago still to be procured in the chemists’ -shops in Bath. I fear her prescriptions were not always of -so unambitious a kind as this. One day she stopped a man -on the road and asked his name—“Ah, then, my lady,” was -the reply, “don’t you remember me? Why, I am the -husband of the woman your ladyship gave the medicine to -<em>and she died the next day. Long life to your Ladyship!</em>”</p> - -<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_20'>20</span>As I have said, the open-housekeeping at Newbridge at last -came to an end, and the family migrated to No. 9 and No. 22, -Marlborough Buildings, Bath, where two generations spent -their latter years, died, and were buried in Weston churchyard, -where I have lately restored their tombstones.</p> - -<p class='c007'>My grandfather died long before his father, and my father, -another Charles Cobbe, found himself at eighteen pretty well -his own master, the eldest of five brothers. He had been -educated at Winchester, where his ancestors for eleven -generations went to school in the old days of Swarraton; -and to the end of his life he was wont to recite lines of -Anacreon learned therein. But his tastes were active rather -than studious, and disliking the idea of hanging about his -mother’s house till his grandfather’s death should put him in -possession of Newbridge, he listened with an enchanted ear -to a glowing account which somebody gave him of India, -where the Mahratta wars were just beginning.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Without much reflection or delay, he obtained a cornet’s -commission in the 19th Light Dragoons and sailed for -Madras. Very shortly he was engaged in active service -under Wellesley, who always treated him with special kindness -as another Anglo-Irish gentleman. He fought at many -minor battles and sieges, and also at Assaye and Argaum; -receiving his medal for these two, just fifty years afterwards. -I shall write of this again a little further on in this book.</p> - -<p class='c007'>At last he fell ill of the fever of the country, which in those -days was called “ague,” and was left in a remote place -absolutely helpless. He was lying in bed one day in his tent -when a Hindoo came in and addressed him very courteously, -asking after his health. My father incautiously replied that -he was quite prostrated by the fever. “What! Not able to -move at all, not to walk a step?” said his visitor. “No! I -cannot stir,” said my father. “Oh, in that case, then,” said -the man,—and without more ado he seized my father’s desk, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_21'>21</span>in which were all his money and valuables, and straightway -made off with it before my father could summon his servants. -His condition, thus left alone in an enemy’s country without -money, was bad enough, but he managed to send a trusty -messenger to Sir Arthur Wellesley, who promptly lent him -all he required.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Finding that there was no chance of his health being -sufficiently restored in India to permit of further active -service, and the Mahratta wars being practically concluded, -my father sold his commission of Lieutenant and returned to -England, quietly letting himself into his mother’s house in -Bath on his return by the latch-key, which he had carried -with him through all his journeys. All his life long the -impress made both on his outward bearing and character -by those five years of war were very visible. He -was a fine soldier-like figure, six feet high, and had -ridden eighteen stone in his full equipment. His face -was, I suppose, ugly, but it was very intelligent, very -strong willed, and very unmistakeably that of a gentleman. -He was under-jawed, very pale, with a large nose, -and small, grey, very lively eyes; but he had a beautiful -white forehead from which his hair, even in old age, grew -handsomely, and his head was very well set on his broad -shoulders. The photograph in the next volume represents -him at 76. He rode admirably, and a better figure on -horseback could not be seen. At all times there was an -aspect of strength and command about him, which his -vigorous will and (truth compels me to add) his not seldom -fiery temper, fully sustained. On the many occasions when -we had dinner parties at Newbridge, he was a charming, -gay and courteous host; and I remember being struck, when -he once wore a court dress and took me with him to pay -his respects to a Tory Lord Lieutenant, by the contrast -which his figure and bearing presented to that of nearly all -<span class='pageno' id='Page_22'>22</span>the other men in similar attire. <em>They</em> looked as if they were -masquerading, and he as if the lace-ruffles and plum coat and -sword were his habitual dress. He had beautiful hands, of -extraordinary strength.</p> - -<p class='c007'>One day he was walking with one of his lady cousins on -his arm in the street. A certain famous prize-fighting bully, -the Sayers or Heenan of the period, came up hustling and -elbowing every passenger off the pavement. When my -father saw him approach he made his cousin take his left -arm, and as the prize-fighter prepared to shoulder him, he -delivered with his right fist, without raising it, a blow which -sent the ruffian fainting into the arms of his companions. -Having deposited his cousin in a shop, my father went back -for the sequel of the adventure, and was told that the -“Chicken” (or whatever he was called) had had his ribs -broken.</p> - -<p class='c007'>After his return from India, my father soon sought a wife. -He flirted sadly, I fear, with his beautiful cousin, Louisa -Beresford, the daughter of his great-uncle, the Archbishop of -Tuam; and one of the ways in which he endeavoured to -ingratiate himself was to carry about at all times a -provision of bon-bons and barley-sugar with which to -ply the venerable and sweet-toothed prelate; who was -generally known as “The Beauty of Holiness.” How -the wooing would have prospered cannot be told, but -before it had reached a crisis a far richer lover appeared on -the scene—Mr. Hope. “Anastasius Hope,” as he was called -from the work of which he was the author, was immensely -wealthy, and a man of great taste in art, but he had the -misfortune to be so excessively ugly that a painter whom he -offended by not buying his picture, depicted him and Miss -Beresford as “Beauty and the Beast,” and exhibited his -painting at the Bath Pump-room, where her brother, John -Beresford (afterwards the second Lord Decies) cut it deliberately -<span class='pageno' id='Page_23'>23</span>to pieces. An engagement between Mr. Hope and Miss -Beresford was announced not long after the arrival of -Mr. Hope in Bath; and my mother, then Miss Conway, -going to pay a visit of congratulation to Miss Beresford, -found her reclining on a blue silk sofa appropriately -perusing <cite>The Pleasures of Hope</cite>. After the death of -Mr. Hope (by whom she was the mother of Mr. Beresford-Hope, Mr. Adrian and Mr. Henry Hope), Mrs. Hope -married the illegitimate son of her uncle, the Marquis of -Waterford—Field Marshal Lord Beresford—a fine old -veteran, with whom she long lived happily in the corner -house in Cavendish Square, where my father and brothers -always found a warm welcome.</p> - -<p class='c007'>At length, after some delays, my father had the great -good fortune to induce my dear mother to become his wife, -and they were married at Bath, March 13th, 1809. Frances -Conway was, as I have said, daughter of Capt. Thomas -Conway, of Morden Park. Her father and mother both -died whilst she was young and she was sent to the famous -school of Mrs. Devis, in Queen Square, Bloomsbury, of -which I shall have something presently to say, and afterwards -lived with her grandmother, who at her death bequeathed -to her a handsome legacy, at Southampton. When her -grandmother died, she being then sixteen years of age, -received an invitation from Colonel and Mrs. Champion to -live with them and become their adopted daughter. The -history of this invitation is rather touching. Mrs. -Champion’s parents had, many years before, suffered great -reverses, and my mother’s grandfather had done much to -help them, and, in particular, had furnished means for -Mrs. Champion to go out to India. She returned after -twenty years as the childless wife of the rich and -kindly old Colonel, the friend of Warren Hastings, -who having been commander-in-chief of the Forces of -<span class='pageno' id='Page_24'>24</span>the East India Company had had a good “shake of the -Pagoda tree.” She repaid to the grandchild the kindness -done by the grandfather; and was henceforth really a -mother to my mother, who dearly loved both her and -Col. Champion. In their beautiful house, No. 29, Royal -Crescent, she saw all the society of Bath in its palmiest -days, Mrs. Champion’s Wednesday evening parties being -among the most important in the place. My mother’s part -as daughter of the house was an agreeable one, and her -social talents and accomplishments fitted her perfectly for -the part. The gentle gaiety, the sweet dignity and ease of -her manners and conversation remain to me as the memory of -something exquisite, far different even from the best manner -and talk of my own or the present generation; and I know -that the same impression was always made on her visitors in -her old age. I can compare it to nothing but the delicate -odour of the dried rose leaves with which her china vases -were filled and her wardrobes perfumed.</p> - -<p class='c007'>I hardly know whether my mother were really beautiful, -though many of the friends who remembered her in early -womanhood spoke of her as being so. To me her face was -always the loveliest in the world; indeed it was the one -through which my first dawning perception of beauty -was awakened. I can remember looking at her as I lay -beside her on the sofa, where many of her suffering hours -were spent, and suddenly saying, “Mamma you are so -pretty!” She laughed and kissed me, saying, “I am glad -you think so my child;” but that moment really brought -the revelation to me of that wonderful thing in God’s -creation, the <em>Beautiful</em>! She had fine features, a particularly -delicate, rather thin-lipped mouth; magnificent chestnut -hair, which remained scarcely changed in colour or quantity -till her death at seventy years of age; and the clear, pale -complexion and hazel eyes which belong to such hair. She -<span class='pageno' id='Page_25'>25</span>always dressed very well and carefully. I never remember -seeing her downstairs except in some rich dark -silk, and with a good deal of fine lace about her cap and -old-fashioned <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">fichu</span></i>. Her voice and low laughter were -singularly sweet, and she possessed both in speaking and -writing a full and varied diction which in later years she -carefully endeavoured to make me share, instead of satisfying -myself, in school-girl fashion, with making one word serve a -dozen purposes. She was an almost omnivorous reader; -and, according to the standard of female education in her -generation, highly cultivated in every way; a good musician -with a very sweet touch of the piano, and speaking French -perfectly well.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Immediately after their marriage my parents took possession -of Newbridge, and my father began earnestly the fulfilment -of all the duties of a country gentleman, landlord and -magistrate. My mother, indeed, used laughingly to aver -that he “went to jail on their wedding day,” for he stopped -at Bristol on the road and visited a new prison with a view -to introducing improvements into Irish jails. It was due -principally to his exertions that the county jail, the now -celebrated Kilmainham, was afterwards erected.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Newbridge having been deserted for nearly thirty years, the -woods had been sorely injured and the house and out-buildings -dilapidated, but with my father’s energy and my mother’s -money things were put straight; and from that time till his -death in 1857 my father lived and worked among his people.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Though often hard pressed to carry out with a very -moderate income all his projects of improvements, he was -never in debt. One by one he rebuilt or re-roofed almost -every cottage on his estate, making what had been little -better than pig-styes, fit for human habitation; and when he -found that his annual rents could never suffice to do all that -was required in this way for his tenants in his mountain -<span class='pageno' id='Page_26'>26</span>property, he induced my eldest brother, then just of age, to -join with him in selling two of the pictures which were the -heirlooms of the family and the pride of the house, a Gaspar -Poussin and a Hobbema, which last now adorns the walls -of Dorchester House. I remember as a child seeing the -tears in his eyes as this beautiful painting was taken out of -the room in which it had been like a perpetual ray of -sunshine. But the sacrifice was completed, and 80 good -stone and slate “Hobbema Cottages,” as we called them, -soon rose all over Glenasmoil. Be it noted by those who -deny every merit in an Anglo-Irish landlord, that not a -farthing was added to the rent of the tenants who profited by -this real act of self-denial.</p> - -<p class='c007'>All this however refers to later years. I have now -reached to the period when I may introduce myself on the -scene. Before doing so, however, I am tempted to print -here a letter which my much valued friend, Miss Felicia -Skene, of Oxford, has written to me on learning that I am -preparing this autobiography. She is one of the very few -now living who can remember my mother, and I gratefully -quote what she has written of her as corroborating my own -memories, else, perhaps, discounted by the reader as coloured -by a daughter’s partiality.</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c009'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>April 4th, 1894.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='lg-container-l c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>My dearest Frances,—</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c010'>I know well that in recalling the days of your bright -youth in your grand old home, the most prominent figure -amongst those who surrounded you then, must be that of -your justly idolised mother, and I cannot help wishing to -add my testimony, as of one unbiassed by family ties, -to all that you possessed in her while she remained with -you; and all that you so sadly lost when she was taken from -you. To remember the <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">châtelaine</span></i> of Newbridge is to recall -one of the fairest and sweetest memories of my early life. -When I first saw that lovely, gracious lady with her almost -<span class='pageno' id='Page_27'>27</span>angelic countenance and her perfect dignity of manner, I -had just come from a gay Eastern capital,—my home from -childhood, where no such vision of a typical English gentlewoman -had ever appeared before me; and the impression -she made upon me was therefore almost a revelation of -what a refined, high-bred lady could be in all that was pure -and lovely and of good report, and yet I think I only shared -in the fascination which she exercised on all who came -within the sphere of her influence. To me, almost a -stranger, whom she welcomed as your friend under her roof, -her exquisite courtesy would alone have been most -charming, but for your sake she showed me all the tenderness -of her sweet sympathetic nature, and it was no marvel -to me that she was the idol of her children and the object -of deepest respect and admiration to all who knew her.</p> - -<p class='c010'>Beautiful Newbridge with its splendid hospitality is like -a dream to me now, of what a gentleman’s estate and -country home could be in those days when ancient race and -noble family traditions were still of some account.</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Ever affectionately yours,</div> - <div class='line in20'><span class='sc'>F. M. F. Skene</span>.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c010'>13, New Inn Hall Street, Oxford.</p> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_29'>29</span> - <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER<br /> II.<br /> <span class='large'><em>CHILDHOOD.</em></span></h2> -</div> -<div class='figcenter id001'> -<span class='pageno' id='Page_30'>30</span> -<img src='images/i_030.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -<div class='ic002'> -<p><em>Newbridge, Co. Dublin.</em></p> -</div> -</div> - -<p class='c006'><span class='pageno' id='Page_31'>31</span>I was born on the morning of the 4th December, 1822; -at sunrise. There had been a memorable storm during the -night, and Dublin, where my father had taken a house that -my mother might be near her doctor, was strewn with the -wrecks of trees and chimney pots. My parents had already -four sons, and after the interval of five years since the birth -of the youngest, a girl was by no means welcome. I have -never had reason, however, to complain of being less cared -for or less well treated in every way than my brothers. If I -have become in mature years a “Woman’s Rights’ Woman” -it has not been because in my own person I have been made -to feel a Woman’s Wrongs. On the contrary, my brothers’ -kindness and tenderness to me have been unfailing from my -infancy. I was their “little Fà’,” their pet and plaything -when they came home for their holidays; and rough words -not to speak of knocks,—never reached me from any of -them or from my many masculine cousins, some of whom, -as my father’s wards, I hardly distinguished in childhood -from brothers.</p> - -<p class='c007'>A few months after my birth my parents moved to a house -named Bower Hill Lodge in Melksham, which my father -hired, I believe, to be near his boys at school, and I have -some dim recollections of the verandah of the house, and also -of certain raisins which I appropriated, and of suffering -direful punishment at my father’s hands for the crime! -Before I was four years old we returned to Newbridge, and -I was duly installed with my good old Irish nurse, Mary -<span class='pageno' id='Page_32'>32</span>Malone, in the large nursery at the end of the north corridor—the -most charming room for a child’s abode I have ever seen. -It was so distant from the regions inhabited by my parents -that I was at full liberty to make any amount of noise I -pleased; and from the three windows I possessed a commanding -view of the stable yard, wherein there was always visible an -enchanting spectacle of dogs, cats, horses, grooms, gardeners, -and milkmaids. A grand old courtyard it is; a quadrangle -about a rood in size surrounded by stables, coach-houses, -kennels, a laundry, a beautiful dairy, a labourer’s room, a paint -shop, a carpenter’s shop, a range of granaries and fruitlofts -with a great clock in the pediment in the centre; -and a well in the midst of all. Behind the stables and the -kennels appear the tops of walnut and chestnut trees and over -the coach-houses on the other side can be seen the beautiful old -kitchen garden of six acres with its lichen-covered red brick -walls, backed again by trees; and its formal straight terraces -and broad grass walks.</p> - -<p class='c007'>In this healthful, delightful nursery, and in walks with my -nurse about the lawns and shrubberies, the first years of my -happy childhood went by; fed in body with the freshest milk -and eggs and fruit, everything best for a child; and in mind -supplied only with the simple, sweet lessons of my gentle -mother. No unwholesome food, physical or moral, was ever -allowed to come in my way till body and soul had almost -grown to their full stature. When I compare such a lot as -this (the common lot, of course, of English girls of the -richer classes, blessed with good fathers and mothers) with -the case of the hapless young creatures who are fed from -infancy with insufficient and unwholesome food, perhaps dosed -with gin and opium from the cradle, and who, even as they -acquire language, learn foul words, curses and blasphemies,—when -I compare, I say, my happy lot with the miserable one of -tens of thousands of my brother men and sister women, I -<span class='pageno' id='Page_33'>33</span>feel appalled to reflect, by how different a standard must they -and I be judged by eternal Justice!</p> - -<p class='c007'>In such an infancy the events were few, but I can -remember with amusement the great exercise of my little -mind concerning a certain mythical being known as “Peter.” -The story affords a droll example of the way in which fetishes -are created among child-minded savages. One day, (as my -mother long afterwards explained to me), I had been -hungrily eating a piece of bread and butter out of doors, -when one of the greyhounds, of which my father kept -several couples, bounded past me and snatched the bread and -butter from my little hands. The outcry which I was -preparing to raise on my loss was suddenly stopped by the -bystanders judiciously awakening my sympathy in Peter’s -enjoyment, and I was led up to stroke the big dog and make -friends with him. Seeing how successful was this diversion, -my nurse thenceforward adopted the practice of seizing -everything in the way of food, knives, &c., which it was -undesirable I should handle, and also of shutting objectionably -open doors and windows, exclaiming “O! Peter! Peter -has got it! Peter has shut it!”—as the case might be. -Accustomed to succumb to this unseen Fate under the name -of Peter, and soon forgetting the dog, I came to think there -was an all-powerful, invisible Being constantly behind the -scenes, and had so far pictured him as distinct from the real -original Peter that on one occasion when I was taken to visit -at some house where there was an odd looking end of a beam -jutting out under the ceiling, I asked in awe-struck tones: -“Mama! is that Peter’s head?”</p> - -<p class='c007'>My childhood, though a singularly happy, was an -unusually lonely one. My dear mother very soon after I -was born became lame from a trifling accident to her ankle -(ill-treated, unhappily, by the doctors) and she was never -once able in all her life to take a walk with me. Of course -<span class='pageno' id='Page_34'>34</span>I was brought to her continually; first to be nursed,—for she -fulfilled that sacred duty of motherhood to all her children, -believing that she could never be so sure of the healthfulness -of any other woman’s constitution as of her own. Later, I -seem to my own memory to have been often cuddled up close -to her on her sofa, or learning my little lessons, mounted on -my high chair beside her, or repeating the Lord’s Prayer at -her knee. All these memories are infinitely sweet to me. -Her low, gentle voice, her smile, her soft breast and arms, -the atmosphere of dignity which always surrounded her,—the -very odour of her clothes and lace, redolent of dried -roses, come back to me after three-score years with nothing -to mar their sweetness. She never once spoke angrily or -harshly to me in all her life, much less struck or punished -me; and I—it is a comfort to think it—never, so far as I can -recall, disobeyed or seriously vexed her. She had regretted -my birth, thinking that she could not live to see me grow to -womanhood, and shrinking from a renewal of the cares of -motherhood with the additional anxiety of a daughter’s -education. But I believe she soon reconciled herself to my -existence, and made me, first her pet, and then her companion -and even her counsellor. She told me, laughingly, how, -when I was four years old, my father happening to be away -from home she made me dine with her, and as I sat in great -state beside her on my little chair I solemnly remarked: -“Mama, is it not a very <em>comflin</em> thing to have a little girl?” -an observation which she justly thought went to prove that -she had betrayed sufficiently to my infantine perspicacity that -she enjoyed my company at least as much as hers was -enjoyed by me.</p> - -<p class='c007'>My nurse who had attended all my brothers, was already -an elderly woman when recalled to Newbridge to take -charge of me; and though a dear, kind old soul and an -excellent nurse, she was naturally not much of a playfellow -<span class='pageno' id='Page_35'>35</span>for a little child, and it was very rarely indeed that I had -any young visitor in my nursery or was taken to see any of -my small neighbours. Thus I was from infancy much -thrown on my own resources for play and amusement; and -from that time to this I have been rather a solitary mortal, -enjoying above all things lonely walks and studies; and -always finding my spirits rise in hours and days of isolation. -I think I may say I have <em>never</em> felt depressed when living -alone. As a child I have been told I was a very merry little -chick, with a round, fair face and abundance of golden hair; -a typical sort of Saxon child. I was subject then and for -many years after, to furious fits of anger, and on such -occasions I misbehaved myself exceedingly. “Nanno” was -then wont peremptorily to push me out into the long -corridor and bolt the nursery door in my face, saying in her -vernacular, “Ah, then! you <em>bould Puckhawn</em> (audacious -child of Puck)! I’ll get <em>shut</em> of you!” I think I feel now -the hardness of that door against my little toes, as I kicked -at it in frenzy. Sometimes, when things were very bad -indeed, Nanno conducted me to the end of the corridor at -the top of a very long winding stone stair, near the bottom -of which my father occasionally passed on his way to the -stables. “Yes, Sir! Yes, Sir! She’ll be good immadiently, -Sir, you needn’t come upstairs, Sir!” Then, <i><span lang="it" xml:lang="it">sotto voce</span></i>, to -me, “Don’t ye hear the Masther? Be quiet now, my -darlint, or he’ll come up the stairs!” Of course, “the -Masther” seldom or never was really within earshot on -these occasions. Had he been so Nanno would have been -the last person seriously to invoke his dreaded interference -in my discipline. But the alarm usually sufficed to reduce -me to submission. I had plenty of toddling about out of -doors and sitting in the sweet grass making daisy and dandelion -chains, and at home playing with the remnants of my -brother’s Noah’s Ark, and a magnificent old baby-house -<span class='pageno' id='Page_36'>36</span>which stood in one of the bedrooms, and was so large that I -can dimly remember climbing up and getting into the doll’s -drawing-room.</p> - -<p class='c007'>My fifth birthday was the first milestone on Life’s road -which I can recall. I recollect being brought in the morning -into my mother’s darkened bedroom (she was already then a -confirmed invalid), and how she kissed and blessed me, and -gave me childish presents, and also a beautiful emerald ring -which I still possess, and pearl bracelets which she fastened -on my little arms. No doubt she wished to make sure that -whenever she might die these trinkets should be known to be -mine. She and my father also gave me a Bible and Prayer -Book, which I could read quite well, and proudly took next -Sunday to church for my first attendance, when the solemn -occasion was much disturbed by a little girl in a pew below -howling for envy of my white beaver bonnet, displayed in -the fore-front of the gallery which formed our family seat. -“Why did little Miss Robinson cry?” I was deeply -inquisitive on the subject, having then and always during my -childhood regarded “best clothes” with abhorrence.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Two years later my grandmother, having bestowed on me, -at Bath, a sky-blue silk pelisse, I managed nefariously to -tumble down on purpose into a gutter full of melted snow -the first day it was put on, so as to be permitted to resume -my little cloth coat.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Now, aged five, I was emancipated from the nursery and -allowed to dine thenceforward at my parents’ late dinner, -while my good nurse was settled for the rest of her days in a -pretty ivy-covered cottage with large garden, at the end of -the shrubbery. She lived there for several years with an old -woman for servant, who I can well remember, but who must -have been of great age, for she had been under-dairymaid to -my great great-grandfather, the Archbishop, and used to tell -us stories of “old times.” This “old Ally’s” great grandchildren -<span class='pageno' id='Page_37'>37</span>were still living, recently, in the family service in the -same cottage which poor “Nanno” occupied. Ally was the -last wearer of the real old Irish scarlet cloak in our part of -the country; and I can remember admiring it greatly when -I used to run by her side and help her to carry her bundle of -sticks. Since those days, even the long blue frieze cloak -which succeeded universally to the scarlet—a most comfortable, -decent, and withal graceful peasant garment, very like -the blue cotton one of the Arab fellah-women—has itself -nearly or totally disappeared in Fingal.</p> - -<p class='c007'>On the retirement of my nurse, the charge of my little -person was committed to my mother’s maid and housekeeper, -Martha Jones. She came to my mother a blooming girl of -eighteen, and she died of old age and sorrow when I left -Newbridge at my father’s death half-a-century afterwards. -She was a fine, fair, broad-shouldered woman, with a certain -refinement above her class. Her father had been an -officer in the army, and she was educated (not very -extensively) at some little school in Dublin where her -particular friend was Moore’s (the poet’s) sister. She used -to tell us how Moore as a lad was always contriving to get -into the school and romping with the girls. The legend has -sufficient verisimilitude to need no confirmation!</p> - -<p class='c007'>“Joney” was indulgence itself, and under her mild sway, -and with my mother for instructress in my little lessons of -spelling and geography, Mrs. Barbauld, Dr. Watts and Jane -Taylor, I was as happy a little animal as well might be. -One day being allowed as usual to play on the grass before -the drawing-room windows I took it into my head that I -should dearly like to go and pay a visit to my nurse at her -cottage at the end of the shrubbery. “Joney” had taken -me there more than once, but still the mile-long shrubbery, -some of it very dark with fir trees and great laurels, complicated -with crossing walks, and containing two or three -<span class='pageno' id='Page_38'>38</span>alarming shelter-huts and <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">tonnelles</span></i> (which I long after -regarded with awe), was a tremendous pilgrimage to -encounter alone. After some hesitation I set off; ran as -long as I could, and then with panting chest and beating -heart, went on, daring not to look to right or left, till -(after ages as it seemed to me) I reached the little window -of my nurse’s house in the ivy wall; and set up—loud -enough no doubt—a call for “Nanno!” The good soul -could not believe her eyes when she found me alone but, -hugging me in her arms, brought me back as fast as she -could to my distracted mother who had, of course, discovered -my evasion. Two years later, when I was seven years old, -I was naughty enough to run away again, this time in the -streets of Bath, in company with a hoop, and the Town -Crier was engaged to “cry” me, but I found my way -home at last alone. How curiously vividly silly little -incidents like these stand out in the misty memory of childhood, -like objects suddenly perceived close to us in a fog! I -seem now, after sixty years, to see my nurse’s little brown -figure and white kerchief, as she rushed out and caught her -stray “darlint” in her arms; and also I see a dignified, -gouty gentleman leaning on his stick, parading the broad -pavement of Bath Crescent, up whose whole person my -misguided and muddy hoop went bounding in my second -escapade. I ought to apologise perhaps to the reader for -narrating such trivial incidents, but they have left a charm -in my memory.</p> - -<p class='c007'>At seven I was provided with a nursery governess, and my -dear mother’s lessons came to an end. So gentle and sweet -had they been that I have loved ever since everything she -taught me, and have a vivid recollection of the old map book -from whence she had herself learned Geography, and of Mrs. -Trimmer’s Histories, “<cite>Sacred</cite>” and “<cite>Profane</cite>”; not forgetting -the almost incredibly bad accompanying volumes of -<span class='pageno' id='Page_39'>39</span>woodcuts with poor Eli a complete smudge and Sesostris -driving the nine kings (with their crowns, of course) -harnessed to his chariot. Who would have dreamed we -should now possess photos of the mummy of the real -Sesostris (Rameses II.), who seemed then quite as mythical -a personage as Polyphemus? To remember the hideous -aberrations of Art which then illustrated books for children, -and compare them to the exquisite pictures in “<cite>Little Folks</cite>,” -is to realise one of the many changes the world has seen -since my childhood. Mrs. Trimmer’s books cost, I remember -being told, <em>ten shillings</em> apiece! My governess Miss -Kinnear’s lessons, though not very severe (our old doctor, -bless him for it! solemnly advised that I should never be -called on to study after twelve o’clock), were far from being -as attractive as those of my mother, and as soon as I learned -to write, I drew on the gravel walk this, as I conceived, -deeply touching and impressive sentence: “<em>Lessons! Thou -tyrant of the mind!</em>” I could not at all understand my -mother’s hilarity over this inscription, which proved so -convincingly my need, at all events of those particular -lessons of which Lindley Murray was the author. I envied -the peacock who could sit all day in the sun, and who ate -bowls-full of the griddle-bread of which I was so fond; and -never was expected to learn anything? Poor bird, he came -to a sad end. A dog terrified him one day and he took a -great flight and was observed to go into one of the tall limes -near the house but was never seen alive again. When the -leaves fell in the autumn the rain-washed feathers and -skeleton of poor Pe-ho were found wedged in a fork of the -tree. He had met the fate of “Lost Sir Massingberd.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>Some years later, my antipathy to lessons having not at -all diminished, I read a book which had just appeared, and -of which all the elders of the house were talking, Keith’s -<cite>Signs of the Times</cite>. In this work, as I remember, it was set -<span class='pageno' id='Page_40'>40</span>forth that a “Vial” was shortly to be emptied into or near -the Euphrates, after which the end of the world was to -follow immediately. The writer accordingly warned his -readers that they would soon hear startling news from the -Euphrates. From that time I persistently inquired of -anybody whom I saw reading the newspaper (a small sheet -which in the Thirties only came three times a week) or who -seemed well-informed about public affairs, “What news was -there from the Euphrates?” The singular question at last -called forth the inquiry, “Why I wanted to know?” and I -was obliged to confess that I was hoping for the emptying of -the “Vial” which would put an end to my sums and -spelling lessons.</p> - -<p class='c007'>My seventh year was spent with my parents at Bath, -where we had a house for the winter in James’ Square, -where brothers and cousins came for the holidays, and in -London, where I well remember going with my mother to see -the Diorama in the Colosseum in Regent’s Park, of St. -Peter’s, and a Swiss Cottage, and the statues of Tam o’ -Shanter and his wife (which I had implored her to be allowed -to see, having imagined them to be living ogres) and vainly -entreating to be taken to see the Siamese Twins. This last -longing, however, was gratified just thirty years afterwards. -We travelled back to Ireland, posting all the way to -Holyhead by the then new high road through Wales and -over the Menai Bridge. My chief recollection of the long -journey is humiliating. A box of Shrewsbury cakes, exactly -like those now sold in the town, was bought for me <i><span lang="la" xml:lang="la">in situ</span></i>, -and I was told to bring it over to Ireland to give to my little -cousin Charley. I was pleased to give the cakes to Charley, -but then Charley was at the moment far away, and the cakes -were always at hand in the carriage; and the road was -tedious and the cakes delicious; and so it came to pass -somehow that I broke off first a little bit, and then another -<span class='pageno' id='Page_41'>41</span>day a larger bit, till cake after cake vanished, and with -sorrow and shame I was obliged to present the empty box to -Charley on my arrival. Greediness alas! has been a -besetting sin of mine all my life.</p> - -<p class='c007'>This Charley was a dear little boy, and about this date -was occasionally my companion. His father, my uncle, -was Captain William Cobbe, R.N., who had fought under -Nelson, and at the end of the war, married and took -a house near Newbridge, where he acted as my father’s -agent. He was a fine, brave fellow, and much beloved -by every one. One day, long after his sudden, untimely -death, we heard from a coastguardsman who had been -a sailor in his ship, that he had probably caught the -disease of which he died in the performance of a gallant -action, of which he had never told any one, even his wife. A -man had fallen overboard from his ship one bitterly cold -night in the northern seas near Copenhagen. My uncle, on -hearing what had happened, jumped from his warm berth -and plunged into the sea, where he succeeded in rescuing the -sailor, but in doing so caught a chill which eventually -shortened his days. He had five children, the eldest being -Charley, some months younger than I. When my uncle -came over to see his brother and do business, Charley, as he -grew old enough to take the walk, was often allowed to come -with him; and great was my enjoyment of the unwonted -pleasure of a young companion. Considerably greater, I -believe, than that of my mother and governess, who justly -dreaded the escapades which our fertile little brains rarely -failed to devise. We climbed over everything climbable by -aid of the arrangement that Charley always mounted on my -strong shoulders and then helped me up. One day my -father said to us: “Children, there is a savage bull come, -you must take care not to go near him.” Charley and I looked -at each other and mutually understood. The next moment we -<span class='pageno' id='Page_42'>42</span>were alone we whispered, “We must get some hairs of his -tail!” and away we scampered till we found the new bull in a -shed in the cow-yard. Valiantly we seized the tail, and as the -bull fortunately paid no attention to his Lilliputian foes, we -escaped in triumph with the hairs. Another time, a lovely -April evening, I remember we were told it was damp, -and that we must not go out of the house. We had discovered, -however, a door leading out upon the roof,—and we -agreed that “<em>on</em>” the house could not properly be considered -“<em>out</em>” of the house; and very soon we were clambering up -the slates, and walking along the parapet at a height of -fifty or sixty feet from the ground. My mother, passing -through one of the halls, observed a group of servants looking -up in evident alarm and making signs to us to come down. -As quickly as her feebleness permitted she climbed to our door -of exit, and called to us over the roofs. Charley and I felt -like Adam and Eve on the fatal evening after they had eaten -the apple! After dreadful moments of hesitation we came -down and received the solemn rebuke and condemnation we -deserved. It was not a very severe chastisement allotted to -us, though we considered it such. We were told that the -game of Pope Joan, promised for the evening, should not be -played. That was the severest, if not the only punishment, -my mother ever inflicted on me.</p> - -<p class='c007'>On rainy days when Charley and I were driven to amuse -ourselves in the great empty rooms and corridors upstairs, -we were wont to discuss profound problems of theology. I -remember one conclusion relating thereto at which we -unanimously arrived. Both of us bore the name of “Power” -as a second name, in honour of our grandmother Anne -Trench’s mother, Fanny Power of Coreen. On this circumstance -we founded the certainty that we should both go to -Heaven, because we heard it said in church, “The Heavens -and <em>all the Powers</em> therein.”</p> - -<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_43'>43</span>Alas poor “Little Charley” as everybody called him, after -growing to be a fine six-foot fellow, and a very popular officer, -died sadly while still young, at the Cape.</p> - -<p class='c007'>In those early days, let us say about my tenth year, and -for long afterwards, it was my father’s habit to fill his house -with all the offshoots of the family at Christmas, and with a -good many of them for the Midsummer holidays, when my -two eldest brothers and the youngest came home from -Charterhouse and Oxford, and the third from Sandhurst. -These brothers of mine were kind, dear lads, always gentle -and petting to their little sister, who was a mere baby when -they were schoolboys, and of course never really a companion -to them. I recollect they once tried to teach me Cricket, and -straightway knocked me over with a ball; and then carried -me, all four in tears and despair, to our mother thinking -they had broken my ribs. I was very fond of them, and -thought a great deal about their holidays, but naturally in -early years saw very little of them.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Beside my brothers, and generally coming to Newbridge at -the same holiday seasons, there was a regiment of young -cousins, male and female. My mother’s only brother, -Adjutant General Conway, had five children, all of whom -were practically my father’s wards during the years of their -education at Haileybury and in a ladies’ boarding-school in -London. Then, beside my father’s youngest brother -William’s family of five, of whom I have already spoken, -his next eldest brother, George, of the Horse Artillery (Lieut. -General Cobbe in his later years), had five more, and -finally the third brother, Thomas, went out to India in his -youth as aide-de-camp to his cousin, the Marquis of Hastings, -held several good appointments (at Moorshedabad and -elsewhere), married and had ten children, (all of whom -passed into my father’s charge) and finally died, poor -fellow! on his voyage home from India, after thirty -<span class='pageno' id='Page_44'>44</span>years’ absence. Thus there were, in fact, including his own -children, thirty young people more or less my father’s wards, -and all of them looking to Newbridge as the place where -holidays were naturally spent, and to my father’s not very -long purse as the resource for everybody in emergencies. -One of them, indeed, carried this view of the case rather -unfortunately far. A gentleman visiting us, happening to -mention that he had lately been to Malta, we naturally asked -him if he had met a young officer of our name quartered -there? “Oh dear, yes! a delightful fellow! All the ladies -adore him. He gives charming picnics, and gets nosegays -for them all from Naples.” “I am afraid he can scarcely -afford that sort of thing,” someone timidly observed. “Oh, -he says,” replied the visitor, “that he has an old uncle -somewhere who——Good Lord! I am afraid I have -put my foot in it,” abruptly concluded our friend, noticing -the looks exchanged round the circle.</p> - -<p class='c007'>My father’s brother Henry, my god-father, died early and -unmarried. He was Rector of Templeton, and was very -intimate with his neighbours there, the Edgeworths and -Granards. The greater part of the library at Newbridge, as -it was in my time, had been collected by him, and included -an alarming proportion of divinity. The story of his life -might serve for such a novel as his friend, Miss Edgeworth, -would have written and entitled “<cite>Procrastination</cite>.” He was -much attached for a long time to a charming Miss Lindsay, -who was quite willing to accept his hand, had he offered it. -My poor uncle, however, continued to flirt and dangle and to -postpone any definite declaration, till at last the girl’s mother—who, -I rather believe, was a Lady Charlotte Lindsay, well -known in her generation—told her that a conclusion must be -put to this sort of thing. She would invite Mr. Cobbe to -their house for a fortnight, and during that time every -opportunity should be afforded him of making a proposal in -<span class='pageno' id='Page_45'>45</span>form, if he should be so minded. If, however, at the end of -this probation, he had said nothing, Miss Lindsay was to -give him up, and he was to be allowed no more chances of -addressing her. The visit was paid, and nothing could be -more agreeable or devoted than my uncle; but he did not -propose to Miss Lindsay! The days passed, and as the end -of the allotted time drew near, the lady innocently arranged -a few walks <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">en tête-à-tête</span></i>, and talked in a manner which -afforded him every opportunity of saying the words which -seemed always on the tip of his tongue. At last the final day -arrived. “My dear,” said Lady Charlotte (if such was the -mother’s name) to her daughter, “I shall go out with the -rest of the party for the whole day and leave you and Mr. -Cobbe together. When I return, it must be decided one way -or the other.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>The hours flew in pleasant and confidential talk—still no -proposal! Miss Lindsay, who knew that the final minutes -of grace were passing for her unconscious lover, once more -despairingly tried, being really attached to him, to make -him say something which she could report to her mother. -As he afterwards averred he was on the very brink of asking -her to marry him when he caught the sound of her mother’s -carriage returning to the door, and said to himself, “I’ll wait -for another opportunity.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>The opportunity was never granted to him. Lady -Charlotte gave him his <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">congé</span></i> very peremptorily next morning. -My uncle was furious, and in despair; but it was too late! -Like other disappointed men he went off rashly, and almost -immediately engaged himself (with no delay this time) to -Miss Flora Long of Rood Ashton, Wiltshire, a lady of -considerable fortune and attractions and of excellent connections, -but of such exceedingly rigid piety of the -Calvinistic type of the period, that I believe my uncle was -soon fairly afraid of his promised bride. At all events his -<span class='pageno' id='Page_46'>46</span>procrastinations began afresh. He remained at Templeton -on one excuse after another, till Miss Long wrote to ask; -“Whether he wished to keep their engagement?” My poor -uncle was nearly driven now to the wall, but his health was -bad and might prove his apology for fresh delays. Before -replying to his Flora, he went to Dublin and consulted Sir -Philip Crampton. After detailing his ailments, he asked -what he ought to do, hoping (I am afraid) that the great -surgeon would say, “O you must keep quiet!” Instead of -this verdict Crampton said, “Go and get married by all -means!” No further excuse was possible, and my poor -uncle wrote to say he was on his way to claim his -bride. Ere he reached her, however, while stopping at -his mother’s house in Bath, he was found dead in his -bed on the morning on which he should have gone -to Rood Ashton. He must have expired suddenly while -reading a good little book. All this happened somewhere -about 1823.</p> - -<p class='c007'>To return to our old life at Newbridge, about 1833 and -for many years afterwards, the assembling of my father’s -brothers, and brothers’ wives and children at Christmas was -the great event of the year in my almost solitary childhood. -Often a party of twenty or more sat down every day for -three or four weeks together in the dining-room, and we -younger ones naturally spent the short days and long -evenings in boyish and girlish sports and play. Certain -very noisy and romping games—Blindman’s buff, Prisoner’s -Bass, Giant, and Puss in the Corner and Hunt the Hare—as -we played them through the halls below stairs, and the -long corridors and rooms above, still appear to me as among -the most delightful things in a world which was then all -delight. As we grew a little older and my dear, clever -brother Tom came home from Oxford and Germany, -charades and plays and masquerading and dancing came into -<span class='pageno' id='Page_47'>47</span>fashion. In short ours was, for the time, like other large -country houses, full of happy young people, with the high -spirits common in those old days. The rest of the year, -except during the summer vacation, when brothers and -cousins mustered again, the place was singularly quiet, and -my life strangely solitary for a child. Very early I made a -<em>concordat</em> with each of my four successive governesses, that -when lessons were ended, precisely at twelve, I was free to -wander where I pleased about the park and woods, to row the -boat on the pond or ride my pony on the sands of the sea-shore -two miles from the house. I was not to be expected to -have any concern with my instructress outside the doors. -The arrangement suited them, of course, perfectly; and my -childhood was thus mainly a lonely one. I was so uniformly -happy that I was (what I suppose few children are) quite -conscious of my own happiness. I remember often thinking -whether other children were all as happy as I, and sometimes, -especially on a spring morning of the 18th March,—my -mother’s birthday, when I had a holiday, and used to make -coronets of primroses and violets for her,—I can recall -walking along the grass walks of that beautiful old garden -and feeling as if everything in the world was perfect, and -my life complete bliss for which I could never thank God -enough.</p> - -<p class='c007'>When the weather was too bad to spend my leisure hours -out of doors I plunged into the library at haphazard, often -making “discovery” of books of which I had never been -told, but which, thus found for myself, were doubly -precious. Never shall I forget thus falling by chance on -<cite>Kubla Khan</cite> in its first pamphlet-shape. I also gloated over -Southey’s <cite>Curse of Kehama</cite>, and <cite>The Cid</cite> and Scott’s earlier -works. My mother did very wisely, I think, to allow me -thus to rove over the shelves at my own will. By degrees a -genuine appetite for reading awoke in me, and I became a -<span class='pageno' id='Page_48'>48</span>studious girl, as I shall presently describe. Beside the -library, however, I had a play-house of my own for wet days. -There were, at that time, two garrets only in the house (the -bedrooms having all lofty coved ceilings), and these two -garrets, over the lobbies, were altogether disused. I took -possession of them, and kept the keys lest anybody should pry -into them, and truly they must have been a remarkable sight! -On the sloping roofs I pinned the eyes of my peacock’s feathers -in the relative positions of the stars of the chief constellations; -one of my hobbies being Astronomy. On another wall I -fastened a rack full of carpenter’s tools, which I could use -pretty deftly on the bench beneath. The principal wall was -an armoury of old court-swords, and home-made pikes, -decorated with green and white flags (I was an Irish patriot -at that epoch), sundry javelins, bows and arrows, and a -magnificently painted shield with the family arms. On the -floor of one room was a collection of shells from the neighbouring -shore, and lastly there was a table with pens, ink -and paper; implements wherewith I perpetrated, <i><span lang="la" xml:lang="la">inter alia</span></i>, -several poems of which I can just recall one. The <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">motif</span></i> of -the story was obviously borrowed from a stanza in Moore’s -Irish Melodies. Even now I do not think the verses very -bad for 12 or 13 years old.</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c018'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>THE FISHERMAN OF LOUGH NEAGH.</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>The autumn wind was roaring high</div> - <div class='line'>And the tempest raved in the midnight sky,</div> - <div class='line'>When the fisherman’s father sank to rest</div> - <div class='line'>And left O’Nial the last and best</div> - <div class='line'>Of a race of kings who once held sway</div> - <div class='line'>From far Fingal to dark Lough Neagh.<a id='r7' /><a href='#f7' class='c013'><sup>[7]</sup></a></div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>The morning shone and the fisherman’s bark</div> - <div class='line'>Was wafted o’er those waters dark.</div> - <div class='line'><span class='pageno' id='Page_49'>49</span>And he thought as he sailed of his father’s name</div> - <div class='line'>Of the kings of Erin’s ancient fame,</div> - <div class='line'>Of days when ‘neath those waters green</div> - <div class='line'>The banners of Nial were ever seen,</div> - <div class='line'>And where the Knights of the Blood-Red-Tree</div> - <div class='line'>Had held of old their revelry;</div> - <div class='line'>And where O’Nial’s race alone</div> - <div class='line'>Had sat upon the regal throne.</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>While the fisherman thought of the days of old</div> - <div class='line'>The sun had left the western sky</div> - <div class='line'>And the moon had risen a lamp of gold,</div> - <div class='line'>Ere O’Nial deemed that the eve was nigh,</div> - <div class='line'>He turned his boat to the mountain side</div> - <div class='line'>And it darted away o’er the rippling tide;</div> - <div class='line'>Like arrow from an Indian bow</div> - <div class='line'>Shot o’er the waves the glancing prow.</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>The fisherman saw not the point beneath</div> - <div class='line'>Which beckoned him on to instant death.</div> - <div class='line'>It struck—yet he shrieked not, although his blood</div> - <div class='line'>Ran chill at the thought of that fatal flood;</div> - <div class='line'>And the voice of O’Nial was silent that day</div> - <div class='line'>As he sank ‘neath the waters of dark Lough Neagh;</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Like when Adam rose from the dust of earth</div> - <div class='line'>And felt the joy of his glorious birth,</div> - <div class='line'>And where’er he gazed, and where’er he trod,</div> - <div class='line'>He felt the presence and smile of God,—</div> - <div class='line'>Like the breath of morning to him who long</div> - <div class='line'>Has ceased to hear the warblers’ song,</div> - <div class='line'>And who, in the chamber of death hath lain</div> - <div class='line'>With a sickening heart and a burning brain;</div> - <div class='line'>So rushed the joy through O’Nial’s mind</div> - <div class='line'>When the waters dark above him joined,</div> - <div class='line'>And he felt that Heaven had made him be</div> - <div class='line'>A spirit of light and eternity.</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>He gazed around, but his dazzled sight</div> - <div class='line'>Saw not the spot from whence he fell,</div> - <div class='line'>For beside him rose a spire so bright</div> - <div class='line'>No mortal tongue could its splendours tell</div> - <div class='line'>Nor human eye endure its light.</div> - <div class='line'><span class='pageno' id='Page_50'>50</span>And he looked and saw that pillars of gold</div> - <div class='line'>The crystal column did proudly hold;</div> - <div class='line'>And he turned and walked in the light blue sea</div> - <div class='line'>Upon a silver balcony,</div> - <div class='line'>Which rolled around the spire of light</div> - <div class='line'>And laid on the golden pillars bright.</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Descending from the pillars high,</div> - <div class='line'>He passed through portals of ivory</div> - <div class='line'>E’en to the hall of living gold</div> - <div class='line'>The palace of the kings of old.</div> - <div class='line'>The harp of Erin sounded high</div> - <div class='line'>And the crotal joined the melody,</div> - <div class='line'>And the voice of happy spirits round</div> - <div class='line'>Prolonged and harmonized the sound.</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“All hail, O’Nial!”—</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c019'>and so on, and so on! I wrote a great deal of this sort of -thing then and for a few years afterwards; and of course, -like everyone else who has ever been given to waste paper and -ink, I tried my hand on a tragedy. I had no real power or -originality, only a little Fancy perhaps, and a dangerous facility -for flowing versification. After a time my early ambition -to become a Poet died out under the terrible hard mental -strain and very serious study through which I passed in -seeking religious faith. But I have always passionately loved -poetry of a certain kind, specially that of Shelley; and -perhaps some of my prose writings have been the better for my -early efforts to cultivate harmony and for my delight in good -similes. This last propensity is even now very strong in me, -and whenever I write <i><span lang="it" xml:lang="it">con amore</span></i>, comparisons and metaphors -come tumbling out of my head, till my difficulty is to exclude -mixed ones!</p> - -<p class='c007'>My education at this time was of a simple kind. After -Miss Kinnear left us to marry, I had another nursery -governess, a good creature properly entitled “Miss Daly,” -but called by my profane brothers, “the Daily Nuisance.” -<span class='pageno' id='Page_51'>51</span>After her came a real governess, the daughter of a bankrupt -Liverpool merchant who made my life a burden with her -strict discipline and her “I-have-seen-better-days” airs; -and who, at last, I detected in a trick which to me appeared -one of unparalleled turpitude! She had asked me to let her -read something which I had written in a copy-book and I had -peremptorily declined to obey her request, and had locked up -my papers in my beloved little writing-desk which my dear -brother Tom had bought for me out of his school-boy’s -pocket-money. The keys of this desk I kept with other -things in one of the old-fashioned pockets which everybody -then wore, and which formed a separate article of -under clothing. This pocket my maid naturally placed at -night on the chair beside my little bed, and the curtains -of the bed being drawn, Miss W. no doubt after a time -concluded I was asleep and cautiously approached the chair -on tiptoe. As it happened I was wide awake, having -at that time the habit of repeating certain hymns and -other religious things to myself before I went to sleep; and -when I perceived through the white curtain the shadow of -my governess close outside, and then heard the slight jingle -made by my keys as she abstracted them from my pocket, I -felt as if I were witness of a crime! Anything so base I -had never dreamed as existing outside story books of -wicked children. Drawing the curtain I could see that -Miss W. had gone with her candle into the inner room -(one of the old “powdering closets” attached to all the -rooms in Newbridge) and was busy with the desk which -lay on the table therein. Very shortly I heard the desk -close again with an angry click,—and no wonder! Poor -Miss W., who no doubt fancied she was going to detect -her strange pupil in some particular naughtiness, found the -MS. in the desk, to consist of solemn religious “Reflections,” -in the style of Mrs. Trimmer; and of a poetical description -<span class='pageno' id='Page_52'>52</span>(in round hand) of the <cite>Last Judgment</cite>! My governess -replaced the bunch of keys in my pocket and noiselessly -withdrew, but it was long before I could sleep for sheer -horror; and next day I, of course, confided to my mother the -terrible incident. Nothing, I think, was said to Miss W. -about it, but she was very shortly afterwards allowed to -return to her beloved Liverpool, where, for all I know, she -may be living still.</p> - -<p class='c007'>My fourth and last governess was a remarkable woman, a -Mdlle. Montriou, a person of considerable force of character, -and in many respects an admirable teacher. With her I read -a good deal of solid history, beginning with Rollin and going -on to Plutarch and Gibbon; also some modern historians. -She further taught me systematically a scheme of chronology -and royal successions, till I had an amount of knowledge of -such things which I afterwards found was not shared by any -of my schoolfellows. She had the excellent sense also to -allow me to use a considerable part of my lesson hours with -a map book before me, asking her endless questions on all -things connected with the various countries; and as she was -extremely well and widely informed, this was almost the best -part of my instruction. I became really interested in these -studies, and also in the great poets, French and English, to -whom she introduced me. Of course my governess taught -me music, including what was then called <em>Thorough Bass</em>, and -now <em>Harmony</em>; but very little of the practical part of performance -could I learn then or at any time. Independently of her, -I read every book on Astronomy which I could lay hold of, -and I well remember the excitement wherewith I waited for -years for the appearance of the Comet of 1835, which one of -these books had foretold. At last a report reached me that -the village tailor had seen the comet the previous night. Of -course I scanned the sky with renewed ardour, and thought I -had discovered the desired object in a misty-looking star of -which my planisphere gave no notice. My father however -pooh-poohed this bold hypothesis, and I was fain to wait till -the next night. Then, as soon as it was dark, I ran up to a -window whence I could command the constellation wherein -the comet was bound to show itself. A small hazy star—and a -<em>long train of light from it</em>—greeted my enchanted eyes! My -limbs could hardly bear me as I tore downstairs into the -drawing-room, nor my voice publish the triumphant intelligence, -“It <em>is</em> the comet!” “It <em>has</em> a tail!” Everybody (in -far too leisurely a way as I considered) went up and saw it, -and confessed that the comet it certainly must be, with that -appendage of the tail! Few events in my long life have -caused me such delightful excitement. This was in 1835.</p> -<div class='figcenter id003'> -<img src='images/i_052.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -<div class='ic001'> -<p><em>Newbridge, Co. Dublin.</em></p> -</div> -</div> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_55'>55</span> - <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER<br /> III.<br /> <span class='large'><em>SCHOOL AND AFTER.</em></span></h2> -</div> - -<p class='c006'><span class='pageno' id='Page_57'>57</span>When my father, in 1836, had decided, by my governess’s -advice, to send me to school, my dear mother, though already -old and feeble, made the journey, long as it was in those -days, from Ireland to Brighton to see for herself where I -was to be placed, and to invoke the kindness of my schoolmistresses -for me. We sailed to Bristol—a 30 hours’ -passage usually, but sometimes longer,—and then travelled -by postchaises to Brighton, taking, I think, three days on -the road and visiting Stonehenge by the way, to my mother’s -great delight. My eldest brother, then at Oxford, attended -her and acted courier. When we came in sight of Brighton -the lamps were lighted along the long perspective of the -shore. Gas was still sufficiently a novelty to cause this -sight to be immensely impressive to us all.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Next day my mother took me to my future tyrants, and -fondly bargained (as she was paying enormously) that I -should have sundry indulgences, and principally a bedroom to -myself. A room was shown to her with only one small bed -in it, and this she was told would be mine. When I went to -it next night, heart broken after her departure, I found that -another bed had been put up, and a schoolfellow was already -asleep in it. I flung myself down on my knees by my own -and cried my heart out, and was accordingly reprimanded -next morning before the whole school for having been seen -to cry at my prayers.<a id='r8' /><a href='#f8' class='c013'><sup>[8]</sup></a></p> - -<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_58'>58</span>The education of women was probably at its lowest ebb -about half-a-century ago. It was at that period more pretentious -than it had ever been before, and infinitely more -costly than it is now; and it was likewise more shallow and -senseless than can easily be believed. To inspire young -women with due gratitude for their present privileges, won -for them by my contemporaries, I can think of nothing better -than to acquaint them with some of the features of school life -in England in the days of their mothers. I say advisedly -the days of their mothers, for in those of their grandmothers, -things were by no means equally bad. There was much less -pretence and more genuine instruction, so far as it extended.</p> - -<p class='c007'>For a moment let us, however, go back to these earlier -grandmothers’ schools, say those of the year 1790 or thereabouts. -From the reports of my own mother, and of a -friend whose mother was educated in the same place, I can -accurately describe a school which flourished at that date in -the fashionable region of Queen Square, Bloomsbury. The -mistress was a certain Mrs. Devis, who must have been a -woman of ability for she published a very good little English -Grammar for the express use of her pupils; also a Geography, -and a capital book of maps, which possessed the inestimable -advantage of recording only those towns, cities, rivers, and -mountains which were mentioned in the Geography, and not -confusing the mind (as maps are too apt to do) with extraneous -and superfluous towns and hills. I speak with personal -gratitude of those venerable books, for out of them chiefly I -obtained such inklings of Geography as have sufficed generally -for my wants through life; the only disadvantage they entailed -being a firm impression, still rooted in my mind, that there is a -“Kingdom of Poland” somewhere about the middle of Europe.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Beside Grammar and Geography and a very fair share of -history (“Ancient” derived from Rollin, and “Sacred” -from Mrs. Trimmer), the young ladies at Mrs. Devis’ school -<span class='pageno' id='Page_59'>59</span>learned to speak and read French with a very good accent, -and to play the harpsichord with taste, if not with a very -learned appreciation of “severe” music. The “Battle of -Prague” and Hook’s Sonatas were, I believe, their -culminating achievements. But it was not considered in -those times that packing the brains of girls with facts, or -even teaching their fingers to run over the keys of instruments, -or to handle pen and pencil, was the Alpha and -Omega of education. William of Wykeham’s motto, -“Manners makyth Manne,” was understood to hold good -emphatically concerning the making of Woman. The abrupt -speaking, courtesy-neglecting, slouching, slangy young -damsel who may now perhaps carry off the glories of a -University degree, would have seemed to Mrs. Devis still -needing to be taught the very rudiments of feminine knowledge. -“Decorum” (delightful word! the very sound of -which brings back the smell of Maréchale powder) was the -imperative law of a lady’s inner life as well as of her -outward habits; and in Queen Square nothing that was not -decorous was for a moment admitted. Every movement of -the body in entering and quitting a room, in taking a seat -and rising from it, was duly criticised. There was kept, in -the back premises, a carriage taken off the wheels, and -propped up <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">en permanence</span></i>, for the purpose of enabling the -young ladies to practise ascending and descending with calmness -and grace, and without any unnecessary display of their -ankles. Every girl was dressed in the full fashion of the -day. My mother, like all her companions, wore hair-powder -and rouge on her cheeks when she entered the school a -blooming girl of fifteen; that excellent rouge at five guineas -a pot, which (as she explained to me in later years) did not -spoil the complexion like ordinary compounds, and which I -can witness really left a beautiful, clear skin when disused -thirty years afterwards.</p> - -<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_60'>60</span>Beyond these matters of fashion, however,—so droll now -to remember,—there must have been at Mrs. Devis’ -seminary a great deal of careful training in what may be -called the great Art of Society; the art of properly paying -and receiving visits, of saluting acquaintances in the street -and drawing-room; and of writing letters of compliment. -When I recall the type of perfect womanly gentleness and -high breeding which then and there was formed, it seems to -me as if, in comparison, modern manners are all rough and -brusque. We have graceful women in abundance still, but -the peculiar old-fashioned suavity, the tact which made -everybody in a company happy and at ease,—most of all the -humblest individual present,—and which at the same time -effectually prevented the most audacious from transgressing -<i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">les bienséances</span></i> by a hair; of that suavity and tact we seem -to have lost the tradition.</p> - -<p class='c007'>The great Bloomsbury school, however, passed away at -length, good Mrs. Devis having departed to the land where I -trust the Rivers of Paradise formed part of her new study of -Geography. Nearly half-a-century later, when it came to -my turn to receive education, it was not in London but in -Brighton that the ladies’ schools most in estimation were to be -found. There were even then (about 1836) not less than a -hundred such establishments in the town, but that at -No. 32, Brunswick Terrace, of which Miss Runciman and -Miss Roberts were mistresses, and which had been founded -some time before by a celebrated Miss Poggi, was supposed -to be <i><span lang="la" xml:lang="la">nec pluribus impar</span></i>. It was, at all events, the most -outrageously expensive, the nominal tariff of £120 or £130 -per annum representing scarcely a fourth of the charges for -“extras” which actually appeared in the bills of many of -the pupils. My own, I know, amounted to £1,000 for two -years’ schooling.</p> - -<p class='c007'>I shall write of this school quite frankly, since the two -<span class='pageno' id='Page_61'>61</span>poor ladies, well-meaning but very unwise, to whom it -belonged have been dead for nearly thirty years, and it can -hurt nobody to record my conviction that a better system -than theirs could scarcely have been devised had it been -designed to attain the maximum of cost and labour and the -minimum of solid results. It was the typical Higher Education -of the period, carried out to the extreme of expenditure -and high pressure.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Profane persons were apt to describe our school as a -Convent, and to refer to the back door of our garden, whence -we issued on our dismal diurnal walks, as the “postern.” -If we in any degree resembled nuns, however, it was -assuredly not those of either a Contemplative or Silent -Order. The din of our large double schoolrooms was something -frightful. Sitting in either of them, four pianos might -be heard going at once in rooms above and around us, while -at numerous tables scattered about the rooms there were -girls reading aloud to the governesses and reciting lessons in -English, French, German, and Italian. This hideous -clatter continued the entire day till we went to bed at -night, there being no time whatever allowed for recreation, -unless the dreary hour of walking with our teachers -(when we recited our verbs), could so be described -by a fantastic imagination. In the midst of the uproar -we were obliged to write our exercises, to compose -our themes, and to commit to memory whole pages -of prose. On Saturday afternoons, instead of play, there -was a terrible ordeal generally known as the “Judgment -Day.” The two schoolmistresses sat side by side, solemn -and stern, at the head of the long table. Behind them sat -all the governesses as Assessors. On the table were the -books wherein our evil deeds of the week were recorded; -and round the room against the wall, seated on stools of -penitential discomfort, we sat, five-and-twenty “damosels,” -<span class='pageno' id='Page_62'>62</span>anything but “Blessed,” expecting our sentences according -to our ill-deserts. It must be explained that the fiendish -ingenuity of some teacher had invented for our torment a -system of imaginary “cards,” which we were supposed to -“lose” (though we never gained any) whenever we had not -finished all our various lessons and practisings every night -before bed-time, or whenever we had been given the mark -for “stooping,” or had been impertinent, or had been -“turned” in our lessons, or had been marked “P” by -the music master, or had been convicted of “disorder” -(<em>e.g.</em>, having our long shoe-strings untied), or, lastly, had -told lies! Any one crime in this heterogeneous list entailed -the same penalty, namely, the sentence, “You have lost your -card, Miss So and so, for such and such a thing;” and when -Saturday came round, if three cards had been lost in the -week, the law wreaked its justice on the unhappy sinner’s -head! Her confession having been wrung from her at the -awful judgment-seat above described, and the books having -been consulted, she was solemnly scolded and told to sit in -the corner for the rest of the evening! Anything more -ridiculous than the scene which followed can hardly be -conceived. I have seen (after a week in which a sort of -feminine barring-out had taken place) no less than nine young -ladies obliged to sit for hours in the angles of the three -rooms, like naughty babies, with their faces to the wall; -half of them being quite of marriageable age, and all dressed, -as was <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">de rigueur</span></i> with us every day, in full evening attire -of silk or muslin, with gloves and kid slippers. Naturally, -Saturday evenings, instead of affording some relief to the -incessant overstrain of the week, were looked upon with -terror as the worst time of all. Those who escaped the fell -destiny of the corner were allowed, if they chose to write to -their parents, but our letters were perforce committed at -night to the schoolmistress to seal, and were not as may be -<span class='pageno' id='Page_63'>63</span>imagined, exactly the natural outpouring of our sentiments -as regarded those ladies and their school.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Our household was a large one. It consisted of the two -schoolmistresses and joint proprietors, of the sister of one of -them and another English governess; of a French, an -Italian, and a German lady teacher; of a considerable staff of -respectable servants; and finally of twenty-five or twenty-six -pupils, varying in age from nine to nineteen. All the pupils -were daughters of men of some standing, mostly country -gentlemen, members of Parliament, and offshoots of the -peerage. There were several heiresses amongst us, and one -girl whom we all liked and recognised as the beauty of the -school, the daughter of Horace Smith, author of <cite>Rejected -Addresses</cite>. On the whole, looking back after the long interval, -it seems to me that the young creatures there assembled were -full of capabilities for widely extended usefulness and -influence. Many were decidedly clever and nearly all were -well disposed. There was very little malice or any other -vicious ideas or feelings, and no worldliness at all amongst us. -I make this last remark because the novel of <cite>Rose, Blanche -and Violet</cite>, by the late Mr. G. H. Lewes, is evidently -intended in sundry details to describe this particular -school, and yet most falsely represents the girls as -thinking a great deal of each other’s wealth or comparative -poverty. Nothing was further from the fact. One of -our heiresses, I well remember, and another damsel of high -degree, the granddaughter of a duke, were our constant butts -for their ignorance and stupidity, rather than the objects of -any preferential flattery. Of vulgarity of feeling of the kind -imagined by Mr. Lewes, I cannot recall a trace.</p> - -<p class='c007'>But all this fine human material was deplorably wasted. -Nobody dreamed that any one of us could in later life be -more or less than an “Ornament of Society.” That a pupil -in that school should ever become an artist, or authoress, would -<span class='pageno' id='Page_64'>64</span>have been looked upon by both Miss Runciman and Miss -Roberts as a deplorable dereliction. Not that which was -good in itself or useful to the community, or even that which -would be delightful to ourselves, but that which would make -us admired in society, was the <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">raison d’être</span></i> of each acquirement. -Everything was taught us in the inverse ratio -of its true importance. At the bottom of the scale were -Morals and Religion, and at the top were Music and Dancing; -miserably poor music, too, of the Italian school then in vogue, -and generally performed in a showy and tasteless manner on -harp or piano. I can recall an amusing instance in which -the order of precedence above described was naïvely betrayed -by one of our schoolmistresses when she was admonishing one -of the girls who had been detected in a lie. “Don’t you -know, you naughty girl,” said Miss R. impressively, before -the whole school: “don’t you know we had <em>almost</em> rather -find you have a P——” (the mark of Pretty Well) “in your -music, than tell such falsehoods?”</p> - -<p class='c007'>It mattered nothing whether we had any “music in our -souls” or any voices in our throats, equally we were driven -through the dreary course of practising daily for a couple of -hours under a German teacher, and then receiving lessons -twice or three times a week from a music master (Griesbach -by name) and a singing master. Many of us, myself in -particular, in addition to these had a harp master, a Frenchman -named Labarre, who gave us lessons at a guinea apiece, while -we could only play with one hand at a time. Lastly there -were a few young ladies who took instructions in the new -instruments, the concertina and the accordion!</p> - -<p class='c007'>The waste of money involved in all this, the piles of useless -music, and songs never to be sung, for which our parents had -to pay, and the loss of priceless time for ourselves, were -truly deplorable; and the result of course in many cases (as -in my own) complete failure. One day I said to the good -<span class='pageno' id='Page_65'>65</span>little German teacher, who nourished a hopeless attachment -for Schiller’s Marquis Posa, and was altogether a sympathetic -person, “My dear Fraulein, I mean to practise this piece of -Beethoven’s till I conquer it.” “My dear,” responded the -honest Fraulein, “you do practice that piece for seex hours a -day, and you do live till you are seexty, at the end you will -<em>not</em> play it!” Yet so hopeless a pupil was compelled to learn -for years, not only the piano, but the harp and singing!</p> - -<p class='c007'>Next to music in importance in our curriculum came -dancing. The famous old Madame Michaud and her husband -both attended us constantly, and we danced to their direction -in our large play-room (<i><span lang="la" xml:lang="la">lucus a non lucendo</span></i>), till we had -learned not only all the dances in use in England in that -ante-polka epoch, but almost every national dance in Europe, -the Minuet, the Gavotte, the Cachucha, the Bolero, the -Mazurka, and the Tarantella. To see the stout old lady in her -heavy green velvet dress, with furbelow a foot deep of sable, -going through the latter cheerful performance for our ensample, -was a sight not to be forgotten. Beside the dancing we had -“calisthenic” lessons every week from a “Capitaine” Somebody, -who put us through manifold exercises with poles and -dumbbells. How much better a few good country scrambles -would have been than all these calisthenics it is needless to say, -but our dismal walks were confined to parading the esplanade -and neighbouring terraces. Our parties never exceeded six, a -governess being one of the number, and we looked down -from an immeasurable height of superiority on the processions -of twenty and thirty girls belonging to other schools. The -governess who accompanied us had enough to do with her -small party, for it was her duty to utilise these brief hours of -bodily exercise by hearing us repeat our French, Italian or -German verbs, according to her own nationality.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Next to Music and Dancing and Deportment, came Drawing, -but that was not a sufficiently <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">voyant</span></i> accomplishment, and no -<span class='pageno' id='Page_66'>66</span>great attention was paid to it; the instruction also being of a -second-rate kind, except that it included lessons in perspective -which have been useful to me ever since. Then followed -Modern Languages. No Greek or Latin were heard of at -the school, but French, Italian and German were chattered -all day long, our tongues being only set at liberty at six -o’clock to speak English. <em>Such</em> French, such Italian, and -such German as we actually spoke may be more easily -imagined than described. We had bad “Marks” for speaking -wrong languages, <em>e.g.</em>, French when we bound to speak -Italian or German, and a dreadful mark for bad French, -which was transferred from one to another all day long, and -was a fertile source of tears and quarrels, involving as it did -a heavy lesson out of Noel et Chapsal’s Grammar on the -last holder at night. We also read in each language every -day to the French, Italian and German ladies, recited lessons -to them, and wrote exercises for the respective masters who -attended every week. One of these foreign masters, by the -way, was the patriot Berchet; a sad, grim-looking man of -whom I am afraid we rather made fun; and on one occasion, -when he had gone back to Italy, a compatriot, whom we -were told was a very great personage indeed, took his classes -to prevent them from being transferred to any other of the -Brighton teachers of Italian. If my memory have not played -me a trick, this illustrious substitute for Berchet was Manzoni, -the author of the <cite><span lang="it" xml:lang="it">Promessi Sposi</span></cite>; a distinguished-looking -middle-aged man, who won all our hearts by pronouncing -everything we did admirable, even, I think, on the occasion -when one young lady freely translated Tasso,—</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c018'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“<span lang="it" xml:lang="it">Fama e terre acquistasse</span>,”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c019'>into French as follows:—</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c018'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“<span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Il acquit la femme et la terre!</span>”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_67'>67</span>Naturally after (a very long way after) foreign languages -came the study of English. We had a writing and arithmetic -master (whom we unanimously abhorred and despised, though -one and all of us grievously needed his instructions) and an -“English master,” who taught us to write “themes,” and to -whom I, for one, feel that I owe, perhaps, more than to any -other teacher in that school, few as were the hours which we -were permitted to waste on so insignificant an art as composition -in our native tongue!</p> - -<p class='c007'>Beyond all this, our English studies embraced one long, -awful lesson each week to be repeated to the schoolmistress -herself by a class, in history one week, in geography the week -following. Our first class, I remember, had once to commit -to memory—Heaven alone knows how—no less than thirteen -pages of Woodhouselee’s <cite>Universal History</cite>!</p> - -<p class='c007'>Lastly, as I have said, in point of importance, came our -religious instruction. Our well-meaning schoolmistresses -thought it was obligatory on them to teach us something of -the kind, but, being very obviously altogether worldly women -themselves, they were puzzled how to carry out their intentions. -They marched us to church every Sunday when it did -not rain, and they made us on Sunday mornings repeat the -Collect and Catechism; but beyond these exercises of body -and mind, it was hard for them to see what to do for our -spiritual welfare. One Ash Wednesday, I remember, they -provided us with a dish of salt-fish, and when this was -removed to make room for the roast mutton, they addressed -us in a short discourse, setting forth the merits of fasting, -and ending by the remark that they left us free to take meat -or not as we pleased, but that they hoped we should fast; -“it would be good for our souls <span class='fss'>AND OUR FIGURES</span>!”</p> - -<p class='c007'>Each morning we were bound publicly to repeat a text out -of certain little books, called <cite>Daily Bread</cite>, left in our bedrooms, -and always scanned in frantic haste while “doing-up” -<span class='pageno' id='Page_68'>68</span>our hair at the glass, or gabbled aloud by one damsel so -occupied while her room-fellow (there were never more than -two in each bed-chamber) was splashing about behind the -screen in her bath. Down, when the prayer-bell rang, both -were obliged to hurry and breathlessly to await the chance of -being called on first to repeat the text of the day, the penalty -for oblivion being the loss of a “card.” Then came a -chapter of the Bible, read verse by verse amongst us, and then -our books were shut and a solemn question was asked. On -one occasion I remember it was: “What have you just -been reading, Miss S——?” Miss S—— (now a lady of -high rank and fashion, whose small wits had been woolgathering) -peeped surreptitiously into her Bible again, and -then responded with just confidence, “The First Epistle, -Ma’am, of <em>General Peter</em>.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>It is almost needless to add, in concluding these reminiscences, -that the heterogeneous studies pursued in this helter-skelter -fashion were of the smallest possible utility in later life; -each acquirement being of the shallowest and most imperfect -kind, and all real education worthy of the name having to be -begun on our return home, after we had been pronounced -“finished.” Meanwhile the strain on our mental powers of -getting through daily, for six months at a time, this mass of -ill-arranged and miscellaneous lessons, was extremely great -and trying.</p> - -<p class='c007'>One droll reminiscence must not be forgotten. The pupils -at Miss Runciman’s and Miss Roberts’ were all supposed to -have obtained the fullest instruction in Science by attending -a course of Nine Lectures delivered by a gentleman named -Walker in a public room in Brighton. The course comprised -one Lecture on Electricity, another on Galvanism, another -on Optics, others I think, on Hydrostatics, Mechanics, and -Pneumatics, and finally three, which gave me infinite -satisfaction, on Astronomy.</p> - -<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_69'>69</span>If true education be the instilling into the mind, not so -much Knowledge, as the desire for Knowledge, mine at -school certainly proved a notable failure. I was brought -home (no girl could travel in those days alone) from -Brighton by a coach called the <em>Red Rover</em>, which performed, -as a species of miracle, in one day the journey to Bristol, -from whence I embarked for Ireland. My convoy-brother -naturally mounted the box, and left me to enjoy the interior -all day by myself; and the reflections of those solitary hours -of first emancipation remain with me as lively as if they had -taken place yesterday. “What a delightful thing it is,” -so ran my thoughts “to have done with study! Now I may -really enjoy myself! I know as much as any girl in our -school, and since it is the best school in England, I <em>must</em> -know all that it can ever be necessary for a lady to know. -I will not trouble my head ever again with learning anything; -but read novels and amuse myself for the rest of my life.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>This noble resolve lasted I fancy a few months, and -then, depth below depth of my ignorance revealed itself -very unpleasantly! I tried to supply first one deficiency and -then another, till after a year or two, I began to educate -myself in earnest. The reader need not be troubled with a -long story. I spent four years in the study of History—constructing -while I did so some Tables of Royal Successions -on a plan of my own which enabled me to see at a glance -the descent, succession and date of each reigning sovereign -of every country, ancient and modern, possessing any History -of which I could find a trace. These Tables I still have by -me, and they certainly testify to considerable industry. -Then the parson of our parish, who had been a tutor in -Dublin College, came up three times a week for several -years, and taught me a little Greek (enough to read the -Gospels and to stumble through Plato’s <cite>Krito</cite>), and rather -more geometry, to which science I took an immense -<span class='pageno' id='Page_70'>70</span>fancy, and in which he carried me over Euclid and -Conic Sections, and through two most delightful books -of Archimedes’ spherics. I tried Algebra, but had as -much disinclination for that form of mental labour as I had -enjoyment in the reasoning required by Geometry. My tutor -told me he was able to teach me in one lesson as many -propositions as he habitually taught the undergraduates of -Dublin College in two. I have ever since strongly recommended -this study to women as specially fitted to counteract -our habits of hasty judgment and slovenly statement, and to -impress upon us the nature of real demonstration.</p> - -<p class='c007'>I also read at this time, by myself, as many of the great -books of the world as I could reach; making it a rule always -(whether bored or not) to go on to the end of each, and also -following generally Gibbon’s advice, viz., to rehearse in one’s -mind in a walk before beginning a great book all that one -knows of the subject, and then, having finished it, to take -another walk, and register how much has been added to our -store of ideas. In these ways I read all the <cite>Faery Queen</cite>, -all Milton’s poetry, and the <cite>Divina Commedia</cite> and <cite><span lang="it" xml:lang="it">Gerusalemme -Liberata</span></cite> in the originals. Also (in translations) I read -through the Iliad, Odyssey, Æneid, Pharsalia, and all -or nearly all, Æschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, Ovid, -Tacitus, Xenophon, Herodotus, Thucydides, &c. There was -a fairly good library at Newbridge, and I could also go when -I pleased, and read in Archbishop Marsh’s old library in -Dublin, where there were splendid old books, though none I -think more recent than a hundred and fifty years before my -time. My mother possessed a small collection of classics—Dryden, -Pope, Milton, Horace, &c., which she gave me, -and I bought for myself such other books as I needed out of -my liberal pin-money. Happily, I had at that time a really -good memory for literature, being able to carry away almost -the words of passages which much interested me in prose or -<span class='pageno' id='Page_71'>71</span>verse, and to bring them into use when required, though I -had, oddly enough, at the same period so imperfect a recollection -of persons and daily events that, being very anxious -to do justice to our servants, I was obliged to keep a book of -memoranda of the characters and circumstances of all who left -us, that I might give accurate and truthful recommendations.</p> - -<p class='c007'>By degrees these discursive studies—I took up various -hobbies from time to time—Astronomy, Architecture, -Heraldry, and many others—centred more and more on the -answers which have been made through the ages by -philosophers and prophets to the great questions of the -human soul. I read such translations as were accessible in -those pre-Müller days, of Eastern Sacred books; Anquetil du -Perron’s <cite><span lang="nd" xml:lang="nd">Zend Avesta</span></cite> (twice); and Sir William Jones’s -<cite>Institutes of Menu</cite>; and all I could learn about the Greek and -Alexandrian philosophers from Diogenes Laertius and the old -translators (Taylor, of Norwich, and others) and a large -Biographical Dictionary which we had in our library. Having -always a passion for Synopses, I constructed, somewhere -about 1840, a Table, big enough to cover a sheet of double-elephant -paper, wherein the principal Greek philosophers -were ranged,—their lives, ethics, cosmogonies and special -doctrines,—in separate columns. After this I made a similar -Table of the early Gnostics and other heresiarchs, with the -aid of Mosheim, Sozomen, and Eusebius.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Does the reader smile to find these studies recorded as the -principal concern of the life of a young lady from 16 to 20, -and in fact to 35 years of age? It was even so! They -<em>were</em> (beside Religion, of which I shall speak elsewhere) my -supreme interest. As I have said in the beginning, I had -neither cares of love, or cares of money to occupy my mind -or my heart. My parents wished me to go a little into -society when I was about 18, and I was, for the moment, -pleased and interested in the few balls and drawing-rooms (in -<span class='pageno' id='Page_72'>72</span>Dublin) to which my father and afterwards my uncle, General -George Cobbe, conducted me. But I was rather bored -than amused by my dancing partners, and my dear mother, -already in declining years and completely an invalid, could -never accompany me, and I pined for her motherly presence -and guidance, the loss of which was only half compensated -for by her comments on the long reports of all I had -seen and said and done, as I sat on her bed, on my return -home. By degrees also, my thoughts came to be so gravely -employed by efforts to find my way to religious truth, that -the whole glamour of social pleasures disappeared and became -a weariness; and by the time I was 19 I begged to be -allowed to stay at home and only to receive our own guests, -and attend the occasional dinners in our neighbourhood. -With some regret my parents yielded the point, and except -for a visit every two or three years to London for a few -weeks of sightseeing, and one or two trips in Ireland to -houses of our relations, my life, for a long time, was -perfectly secluded. I have found some verses in which I -described it.</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c018'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“I live! I live! and never to man</div> - <div class='line'>More joy in life was given,</div> - <div class='line'>Or power to make, as I can make,</div> - <div class='line'>Of this bright world a heaven.</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“My mind is free; my limbs are clad</div> - <div class='line'>With strength which few may know,</div> - <div class='line'>And every eye smiles lovingly;</div> - <div class='line'>On earth I have no foe.</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“With pure and peaceful pleasures blessed</div> - <div class='line'>Speed my calm and studious days,</div> - <div class='line'>While the noblest works of mightiest minds</div> - <div class='line'>Lie open to my gaze.”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c007'>In one of our summer excursions I remember my father -and one of my brothers and I lionized Winchester, and came -<span class='pageno' id='Page_73'>73</span>upon an exquisite chapel, which was at that time, and perhaps -still is, a sort of sanctuary of books, in the midst of a lovely, -silent cloister. To describe the longing I felt then, and long -after, to spend all my life studying there in peace and -undisturbed, “hiving learning with each studious year,”—would -be impossible!</p> - -<p class='c007'>I think there is a great, and it must be said lamentable, -difference between the genuine passion for study such as -many men and women in my time and before it experienced, -and the hurried anxious <em>gobbling up</em> of knowledge which has -been introduced by competitive examinations, and the eternal -necessity for <em>getting something else beside knowledge</em>; something -to be represented by M.A. or B.Sch., or, perhaps, by £ s. d.! -When I was young there were no honours, no rewards of -any kind for a woman’s learning; and as there were no -examinations, there was no hurry or anxiety. There was -only healthy thirst for knowledge of one kind or another, and -of one kind after another. When I came across a reference -to a matter which I did not understand, it was not then -necessary, as it seems to be to young students now, to hasten -over it, leaving the unknown name, or event, or doctrine, -like an enemy’s fortress on the road of an advancing army. -I stopped and sat down before it, perhaps for days and -weeks, but I conquered it at last, and then went on my way -strengthened by the victory. Recently, I have actually -heard of students at a college for ladies being advised -by their “coach” to <em>skip a number of propositions in -Euclid</em>, as it was certain they would not be examined -in them! One might as well help a climber by taking -rungs out of his ladder! I can make no sort of pretensions -to have acquired, even in my best days, anything like -the instruction which the young students of Girton and -Newnham and Lady Margaret Hall are so fortunate as to -possess; and much I envy their opportunities for obtaining -<span class='pageno' id='Page_74'>74</span>accurate scholarship. But I know not whether the method -they follow can, on the whole, convey as much of the pure -delight in learning as did my solitary early studies. When -the summer morning sun rose over the trees and shone as it -often did into my bedroom finding me still over my books -from the evening before, and when I then sauntered out to -take a sleep on one of the garden seats in the shrubbery, the -sense of having learned something, or cleared up some hitherto -doubted point, or added a store of fresh ideas to my mental -riches, was one of purest satisfaction.</p> - -<p class='c007'>As to writing as well as reading, I had very early a great love -of the art and frequently wrote small essays and stories, -working my way towards something of good style. Our -English master at school on seeing my first exercise (on -Roman History, I think it was), had asked Miss Runciman -whether she were sure I had written it unaided, and -observed that the turn of the sentences was not girl-like, -and that he “thought I should grow up to be a fine -writer.” My schoolmistress laughed, of course, at the -suggestion, and I fancy she thought less of poor Mr. -Turnbull for his absurd judgment. But as men and women -who are to be good musicians love their pianos and -violins as children, so I early began to love that noble -instrument, the English Language, and in my small way to -study how to play upon it. At one time when quite young -I wrote several imitations of the style of Gibbon and other -authors, just as an exercise. Eventually without of course -copying anybody in particular, I fell into what I must suppose -to be a style of my own, since those familiar with it easily -detect passages of my writing wherever they come across -them. I was at a later time much interested in seeing many -of my articles translated into French (chiefly in the French -Protestant periodicals) and to note how little it is possible to -render the real feeling of such words as those with which -<span class='pageno' id='Page_75'>75</span><em>our</em> tongue supplies us by those of that language. At -a still later date, when I edited the <cite>Zoophile</cite>, I was perpetually -disappointed by the failures of the best translators I -could engage, to render my meaning. Among the things for -which to be thankful in life, I think we, English, ought to -assign no small place to our inheritance of that grand legacy -of our forefathers, the English Language.</p> - -<p class='c007'>While these studies were going on, from the time I left -school in 1838 till I left Newbridge in 1857, it may be noted -that I had the not inconsiderable charge of keeping house for -my father. My mother at once put the whole responsibility -of the matter in my hands, refusing even to be told beforehand -what I had ordered for the rather formal dinner parties -of those days, and I accepted the task with pleasure, both -because I could thus relieve her, and also because then and -ever since I have really liked housekeeping. I love a well-ordered -house and table, rooms pleasantly arranged and -lighted, and decorated with flowers, hospitable attentions to -guests, and all the other pleasant cares of the mistress of a -family. In the midst of my studies I always went every -morning regularly to my housekeeper’s room and wrote out -a careful <em>menu</em> for the upstairs and downstairs meals. I -visited the larders and the fine old kitchen frequently, and -paid the servants’ wages on every quarter day; and once a -year went over my lists of everything in the charge of either -the men or women servants. In particular I took very -special care of the china, which happened to be magnificent; -and hereby hangs the memory of a droll incident with which -I may close this chapter.</p> - -<p class='c007'>A certain dignified old lady, the Hon. Mrs. X., had paid a -visit to Newbridge with her daughters, and in return she -invited one of my brothers and myself to spend some days at -her “show” place in ——. While stopping there I talked -with the enthusiasm of my age to her very charming young -<span class='pageno' id='Page_76'>76</span>daughters of the pleasures of study, urging them strenuously -to learn Greek and Mathematics. Mrs. X., overhearing me, -intervened in the conversation, and said somewhat tartly, -“I do not at all agree with you, Miss Cobbe! I think the -duty of a lady is to attend to her house, and to her husband -and children. I beg you will not incite my girls to take up -your studies.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>Of course I bowed to the decree, and soon after began -admiring some of the china about the room. “There is,” -said Mrs. X., “some very fine old china belonging to this -house. There is one dessert-service which is said to have -cost £800 forty or fifty years ago. Would you like to see -it?”</p> - -<p class='c007'>Having gratefully accepted the invitation, I followed my -hostess to the basement of the house, and there, for the first -time in my life, I recognised that condition of disorder and -slatternliness which I had heard described as characteristic -of Irish houses. At last we reached an underground china -closet, and after some delay and reluctance on the part of the -servant, a key was found and the door opened. There, on -the shelves and the floor, lay piled, higgledy-piggledy, dishes -and plates of exquisite china mixed up with the commonest -earthenware jugs, basins, cups, and willow-pattern kitchen -dishes; and the great dessert-service among the rest—<em>with -the dessert of the previous summer rotting on the plates</em>! -Yes! there was no mistake. Some of the superb plates -handed to me by the servant for examination by the light -of the window, had on them peach and plum-stones -and grape-stalks, obviously left as they had been -taken from the table in the dining-room many months -before! Poor Mrs. X. muttered some expressions of -dismay and reproach to her servants, which of course -I did not seem to hear, but I had not the strength of mind -to resist saying: “Indeed this is a splendid service; <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Style de -<span class='pageno' id='Page_77'>77</span>l’Empire</span></i> I should call it. We have nothing like it, but when -next you do us the pleasure to come to Newbridge I shall like -to show you our Indian and Worcester services. Do you -know I always take up all the plates and dishes myself when -they have been washed the day after a party, and put them -on their proper shelves with my own hands,—<em>though I do -know a little Greek and geometry</em>, Mrs. X.!”</p> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_79'>79</span> - <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER<br /> IV.<br /> <span class='large'><em>RELIGION.</em></span></h2> -</div> - -<p class='c006'><span class='pageno' id='Page_81'>81</span>I do not think that any one not being a fanatic, can regret -having been brought up as an Evangelical Christian. I do -not include Calvinistic Christianity in this remark; for it -must surely cloud all the years of mortal life to have received -the first impressions of Time and Eternity through that -dreadful, discoloured glass whereby the “Sun is turned into -darkness and the moon into blood.” I speak of the mild, -devout, philanthropic Arminianism of the Clapham School, -which prevailed amongst pious people in England and Ireland -from the beginning of the century till the rise of the Oxford -movement, and of which William Wilberforce and Lord -Shaftesbury were successively representatives. To this -school my parents belonged. The conversion of my father’s -grandmother by Lady Huntingdon, of which I have spoken, -had, no doubt, directed his attention in early life to religion, -but he was himself no Methodist, or Quietist, but a typical -Churchman as Churchmen were in the first half of the -century. All our relatives far and near, so far as I have ever -heard, were the same. We had five archbishops and a bishop -among our near kindred,—Cobbe, Beresfords, and Trenchs, -great-grandfather, uncle, and cousins,—and (as I have -narrated) my father’s ablest brother, my god-father, -was a clergyman. I was the first heretic ever known -amongst us.</p> - -<p class='c007'>My earliest recollections include the lessons of both my -father and mother in religion. I can almost feel myself now -kneeling at my dear mother’s knees repeating the Lord’s -Prayer after her clear sweet voice. Then came learning the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_82'>82</span>magnificent Collects, to be repeated to my father on Sunday -mornings in his study; and later the church catechism and -a great many hymns. Sunday was kept exceedingly strictly -at Newbridge in those days; and no books were allowed -except religious ones, nor any amusement, save a walk after -church. Thus there was abundant time for reading the -Bible and looking over the pictures in various large editions, -and in Calmet’s great folio <cite>Dictionary</cite>, beside listening to the -sermon in church, and to another sermon which my father -read in the evening to the assembled household. Of course, -every day of the week there were Morning Prayers in the -library,—and a “Short Discourse” from good, prosy old -Jay, of Bath’s “Exercises.” In this way, altogether I -received a good deal of direct religious instruction, beside -very frequent reference to God and Duty and Heaven, in the -ordinary talk of my parents with their children.</p> - -<p class='c007'>What was the result of this training? I can only suppose -that my nature was a favourable soil for such seed, for it -took root early and grew apace. I cannot recall any time -when I could not have been described by any one who knew -my little heart (I was very shy about it, and few, if any, did -know it)—as a very religious child. Religious ideas were -from the first intensely interesting and exciting to me. In -great measure I fancy it was the element of the sublime in -them which moved me first, just as I was moved by the -thunder, and the storm and was wont to go out alone -into the woods or into the long, solitary corridors to enjoy -them more fully. I recollect being stirred to rapture by a -little poem which I can repeat to this day, beginning:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c018'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Where is Thy dwelling place?</div> - <div class='line'>Is it in the realms of space,</div> - <div class='line'>By angels and just spirits only trod?</div> - <div class='line'>Or is it in the bright</div> - <div class='line'>And ever-burning light</div> - <div class='line'>Of the sun’s flaming disk that Thou art throned, O God?</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_83'>83</span>One of the stanzas suggested that the Divine seat might be -in some region of the starry universe:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c018'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Far in the unmeasured, unimagined Heaven,</div> - <div class='line'>So distant that its light</div> - <div class='line'>Could never reach our sight</div> - <div class='line'>Though with the speed of thought for endless ages driven.”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c019'>Ideas like these used to make my cheek turn pale and lift me -as if on wings; and naturally Religion was the great storehouse -of them. But I think, even in childhood, there was -in me a good deal beside of the <em>moral</em>, if not yet the <em>spiritual</em> -element of real Religion. Of course the great beauty and -glory of Evangelical Christianity, its thorough amalgamation -of the ideas of Duty and Devotion (elsewhere often so -lamentably distinct), was very prominent in my parents’ -lessons. God was always to me the All-seeing Judge. His -eye looking into my heart and beholding all its naughtiness -and little duplicities (which of course I was taught to consider -serious sins) was so familiar a conception that I might be -said to live and move in the sense of it. Thus my life in -childhood morally, was much the same as it is physically to -live in a room full of sunlight. Later on, the evils which -belong to this Evangelical training, the excessive self-introspection -and self-consciousness, made themselves painfully -felt, but in early years there was nothing that was not -perfectly wholesome in the religion which I had so readily -assimilated.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Further, I was, as I have said, a very happy child, even -conscious of my own happiness; and gratitude to God or -man has always come to me as a sentiment enhancing my -enjoyment of the good for which I have been thankful. -Thus I was,—not conventionally merely,—but genuinely and -spontaneously grateful to the Giver of all the pleasures which -were poured on my head. I think I may say, that I <em>loved -God</em>, when I was quite a young child. I can even remember -<span class='pageno' id='Page_84'>84</span>being dimly conscious that my good father and mother -performed their religious exercises more <em>as a duty</em>,—whereas -to me such things, so far as I could understand them, were -real <em>pleasures</em>; like being taken to see somebody I loved. I -have since recognised that both my parents were, in -Evangelical parlance, “under the law;” while in my childish -heart the germ of the mysterious New Life was already -planted. I think my mother was aware of something of the -kind and looked with a little wonder, blended with her -tenderness at my violent outbursts of penitence, and at my -strange fancy for reading the most serious books in my -playhours. My brothers had not exhibited any such -symptoms, but then they were healthy schoolboys, always -engaged eagerly in their natural sports and pursuits; while -I was a lonely, dreaming girl.</p> - -<p class='c007'>When I was seven years old, my father undertook to read -the <cite>Pilgrim’s Progress</cite> to my brothers, then aged from 12 to -18, and I was allowed to sit in the room and provided with a -slate and sums. The sums, it appeared, were never worked, -while my eyes were fixed in absorbed interest on the reader, -evening after evening. Once or twice when the delightful -old copy of Bunyan was left about after the lesson, my slate -was covered with drawings of Apollyon and Great Heart -which were pronounced “wonderful for the child.” By the -time Christian had come to the Dark River, all pretence of -arithmetic was abandoned and I was permitted, proud and -enchanted, to join the group of boys and listen with my -whole soul to the marvellous tale. When the reading was -over my father gave the volume (which had belonged to -his grandmother) to me, for my “very own”; and I -read it over and over continually for years, till the -idea it is meant to convey,—Life a progress to Heaven—was -engraved indelibly on my mind. It seems to me that -few of those who have praised Bunyan most loudly have -<span class='pageno' id='Page_85'>85</span>recognized that he was not only a great religious genius, but -a born poet, a <em>Puritan-Tinker-Shelley</em>; possessed of what is -almost the highest gift of poetry, the sense of the analogy -between outward nature and the human soul. He used -allegory instead of metaphor, a clumsier vehicle by far, but -it carried the same exquisite thoughts. I have the dear old -book still, and it is one of my treasures with its ineffably -quaint old woodcuts and its delicious marginal notes; as, for -example, when “Giant Despair” is said to be unable one -day to maul the pilgrims in his dungeon, because he had fits. -“For sometimes,” says Bunyan, “in sunshiny weather -Giant Despair has fits.” Could any one believe that this gem -of poetical thought and deep experience is noted by the words -in the margin, “<em>His Fits!</em>”? My father wrote on the flyleaf -of the blessed old book these still legible words:—</p> - -<div class='nf-center-c0'> -<div class='nf-center c009'> - <div>1830.</div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c010'>“This book, which belonged to my grandmother, was -given as a present to my dear daughter Fanny upon -witnessing her delight in reading it. May she keep the -Celestial City steadfastly in view; may she surmount the -dangers and trials she must meet with on the road; and, -finally, be re-united with those she loved on earth in singing -praises for ever and ever to Him who loved them and gave -himself for them, is the fervent prayer of her affectionate -father,</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“<span class='sc'>Charles Cobbe</span>.”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c006'>The notion of “getting to Heaven” by means of a faithful -pilgrimage through this “Vale of Tears” was the prominent -feature I think, always, in my father’s religion, and naturally -took great hold on me. When the day came whereon I -began to doubt whether there were any Heaven to be reached, -that moral earthquake, as was inevitable, shook not only my -religion but my morality to their foundations; and my -experience of the perils of those years, has made me ever since -<span class='pageno' id='Page_86'>86</span>anxious to base religion in every young mind, on ground -liable to no such catastrophes. The danger came to me on -this wise.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Up to my eleventh year, my little life inward and outward -had flown in a bright and even current. Looking back at it -and comparing my childhood with that of others I seem to -have been—probably from the effects of solitude—<em>devout</em> -beyond what was normal at my age. I used to spend a great -deal of time secretly reading the Bible and that dullest of dull -books <cite>The Whole Duty of Man</cite> (the latter a curious foretaste -of my subsequent life-long interest in the study of ethics)—not -exactly enjoying them but happy in the feeling that I was -somehow approaching God. I used to keep awake at night -to repeat various prayers and (wonderful to remember!) the -Creed and Commandments! I made all sorts of severe rules -for myself, and if I broke them, manfully mulcted myself -of any little pleasures or endured some small self-imposed -penance. Of none of these things had any one, even my -dear mother, the remotest idea, except once when I felt -driven like a veritable Cain, by my agonised conscience to go -and confess to her that I had said in a recent rage (to myself) -“<em>Curse them all!</em>” referring to my family in general and to -my governess in particular! The tempest of my tears and -sobs on this occasion evidently astonished her, and I remember -lying exhausted on the floor in a recess in her bedroom, for a -long time before I was able to move.</p> - -<p class='c007'>But the hour of doubt and difficulty was approaching. The -first question which ever arose in my mind was concerning -the miracle of the Loaves and Fishes. I can recall the -scene vividly. It was a winter’s night, my father was -reading the Sunday evening Sermon in the dining-room. -The servants, whose attendance was <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">de rigueur</span></i>, were -seated in a row down the room. My father faced them, -and my mother and I and my governess sat round the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_87'>87</span>fire near him. I was opposite the beautiful classic black -marble mantelpiece, surmounted with an antique head of -Jupiter Serapis (all photographed on my brain even now), -and listening with all my might, as in duty bound, to the -sermon which described the miracle of the Loaves and Fishes. -“How did it happen exactly?” I began cheerfully to think, -quite imagining I was doing the right thing to try to understand -it all. “Well! first there were the fishes and the -loaves. But what was done to them? Did the fish grow -and grow as they were eaten and broken? And the bread -the same? No! that is nonsense. And then the twelve -basketsful taken up at the end, when there was not -nearly so much at the beginning. It is not possible!” -“O! Heavens! (was the next thought) <em>I am doubting the -Bible!</em> God forgive me! I must never think of it again.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>But the little rift had begun, and as time went on other -difficulties arose. Nothing very seriously, however, distracted -my faith or altered the intensity of my religious -feelings for the next two years, till in October, 1836, I was -sent to school as I have narrated in the last chapter, at -Brighton and a new description of life opened. At school I -came under influence of two kinds. One was the preaching -of the Evangelical Mr. Vaughan, in whose church (Christ -Church) were our seats; and I recall vividly the emotion -with which one winter’s night I listened to his sermon on -the great theme, “Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall -be white as wool.” The sense of “the exceeding sinfulness -of sin,” the rapturous joy of purification therefrom, came -home to me, and as I walked back to school with the waves -thundering up the Brighton beach beside us and the wind -tossing the clouds in the evening sky overhead, the whole -tremendous realities of the moral life seemed borne in on my -heart. On the other hand, the perpetual overstrain of schoolwork, -and unjust blame and penalty for failure to do what it -<span class='pageno' id='Page_88'>88</span>was impossible to accomplish in the given time, drove me to -all sorts of faults for which I hated and despised myself. -When I knelt by my bed at night, after the schoolfellow who -shared my room was, as I fancied, asleep, she would get up -and pound my head with a bolster, laughing and crying out, -“Get up, you horrid hypocrite; get up! I’ll go on beating -you till you do!” It was not strange if, under such -circumstances, my beautiful childish religion fell into -abeyance and my conscience into disquietude. But, as -I have narrated, I came home at sixteen, and then, -once more able to enjoy the solitude of the woods and -of my own bedroom and its inner study where no one -intruded, the old feelings, tinged with deep remorse for the -failures of my school life and for many present faults (amongst -others a very bitter and unforgiving temper) come back with -fresh vigour. I have always considered that in that summer -in my seventeenth year I went through what Evangelical -Christians call “conversion.” Religion became the supreme -interest of life; and the sense that I was pardoned its -greatest joy. I was, of course, a Christian of the usual -Protestant type, finding infinite pleasure in the simple old -“Communion” of those pre-ritualistic days, and in endless -Bible readings to myself. Sometimes I rose in the early -summer dawn and read a whole Gospel before I dressed. I -think I never ran up into my room in the daytime for any -change of attire without glancing into the book and carrying -away some echo of what I believed to be “God’s Word.” -Nobody knew anything about all this, of course; but as time -went on there were great and terrible perturbations in my -inner life, and these perhaps I did not always succeed in -concealing from the watchful eyes of my dear mother.</p> - -<p class='c007'>So far as I can recall, the ideas of Christ and of God the -Father, were for all practical religious purposes identified in -my young mind. It was as God upon earth,—the Redeemer -<span class='pageno' id='Page_89'>89</span>God, that I worshipped Jesus. To be pardoned through his -“atonement” and at death to enter Heaven, were the -religious objects of life. But a new and most disturbing -element here entered my thoughts. How did anybody know -all that story of Galilee to be true? How could we believe -the miracles? I had read very carefully Gibbon’s XV. and -XVI. chapters, and other books enough to teach me that -everything in historical Christianity had been questioned; -and my own awakening critical, and reasoning, and above -all, ethical,—faculties supplied fresh crops of doubts of the -truth of the story and of the morality of much of the Old -Testament history, and of the scheme of Atonement itself.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Then ensued four years on which I look back as pitiful in -the extreme. In complete mental solitude and great -ignorance, I found myself facing all the dread problems of -human existence. For a long time my intense desire to -remain a Christian predominated, and brought me back -from each return to scepticism in a passion of repentance -and prayer to Christ to take my life or my reason -sooner than allow me to stray from his fold. In -those days no such thing was heard of as “Broad” interpretations -of Scripture doctrines. We were fifty years before -<cite><span lang="la" xml:lang="la">Lux Mundi</span></cite> and thirty before even <cite>Essays and Reviews</cite>. To -be a “Christian,” then, was to believe implicitly in the -verbal inspiration of every word of the Bible, and to adore -Christ as “very God of very God.” With such implicit -belief it was permitted to hope we might, by a good life and -through Christ’s Atonement, attain after death to Heaven. -Without the faith or the good life, it was certain we should -go to hell. It was taught us all that to be good only from -fear of Hell was not the highest motive; the <em>highest</em> motive -was the hope of Heaven! Had anything like modern -rationalising theories of the Atonement, or modern expositions -of the Bible stories, or finally modern loftier doctrines of -<span class='pageno' id='Page_90'>90</span>disinterested morality and religion, been known to me at this -crisis of my life, it is possible that the whole course of my -spiritual history would have been different. But of all such -“raising up the astral spirits of dead creeds,” as Carlyle -called it, or as Broad churchmen say, “Liberating the kernel -of Christianity from the husk,” I knew, and could know -nothing. Evangelical Christianity in 1840 presented itself -as a thing to be taken whole, or rejected wholly; and for -years the alternations went on in my poor young heart and -brain, one week or month of rational and moral disbelief, and -the next of vehement, remorseful return to the faith which I -supposed could alone give me the joy of religion. As time -went on, and my reading supplied me with a little more -knowledge and my doubts deepened and accumulated, the -returns to Christian faith grew fewer and shorter, and, as I -had no idea of the possibility of reaching any other vital -religion, I saw all that had made to me the supreme joy and -glory of life fade out of it, while that motive which had been -presented to me as the mainspring of duty and curb of -passion, namely, the Hope of Heaven, vanished as a dream. -I always had, as I have described, somewhat of that -<i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">mal-du-ciel</span></i> which Lamartine talks of, that longing, as from -the very depths of our being for an Eden of Divine eternal -love. I could scarcely in those days read even such poor -stuff as the song of the Peri in Moore’s <cite>Lalla Rookh</cite> (not to -speak of Bunyan’s vision of the Celestial City) without tears -rushing to my eyes. But this, I saw, must all go with the -rest. If, as Clough was saying, all unknown to me, about -that same time,—</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c018'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Christ is not risen, no!</div> - <div class='line'>He lies and moulders low.”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c019'>If all the Christian revelation were a mass of mistakes and -errors, no firmer ground on which to build than the promises -<span class='pageno' id='Page_91'>91</span>of Mahomet, or of Buddha, or of the Old Man of the -Mountain,—of course there was (so far as I saw) no reason -left for believing in any Heaven at all, or any life after -death. Neither had the Moral Law, which had come to me -through that supposed revelation on Sinai and the Mount of -Galilee, any claim to my obedience other than might be made -out by identifying it with principles common to heathen and -Christian alike; an identity of which, at that epoch, I had as -yet only the vaguest ideas. In short my poor young soul -was in a fearful dilemma. On the one hand I had the choice -to accept a whole mass of dogmas against which my reason -and conscience rebelled; on the other, to abandon those -dogmas and strive no more to believe the incredible, or to -revere what I instinctively condemned; and then, as a -necessary sequel, to cast aside the laws of Duty which I had -hitherto cherished; to cease to pray or take the sacrament; -and to relinquish the hope of a life beyond the grave.</p> - -<p class='c007'>It was not very wonderful if, as I think I can recall, my -disposition underwent a considerable change for the worse -while all these tremendous questions were being debated in -my solitary walks in the woods and by the sea-shore, and in -my room at night over my Gibbon or my Bible. I know I -was often bitter and morose and selfish; and then came the -alternate spell of paroxysms of self-reproach and fanciful -self-tormentings.</p> - -<p class='c007'>The life of a young woman in such a home as mine is so -guarded round on every side and the instincts of a girl are -so healthy, that the dangers incurred even in such a spiritual -landslip as I have described are very limited compared to -what they must inevitably be in the case of young men or of -women less happily circumstanced. It has been my -profound sense of the awful perils of such a downfall of faith -as I experienced, the peril of moral shipwreck without -compass or anchorage amid the tempests of youth, which -<span class='pageno' id='Page_92'>92</span>has spurred me ever since to strive to forestall for others the -hour of danger.</p> - -<p class='c007'>At last my efforts to believe in orthodox Christianity -ceased altogether. In the summer after my twentieth -birthday I had reached the end of the long struggle. The -complete downfall of Evangelicalism,—which seems to have -been effected in George Eliot’s strong brain in a single -fortnight of intercourse with Mr. and Mrs. Bray,—had taken -in my case four long years of miserable mental conflict and -unspeakable pain. It left me with something as nearly like -a <i><span lang="la" xml:lang="la">Tabula rasa</span></i> of faith as can well be imagined. I definitely -disbelieved in human immortality and in a supernatural -revelation. The existence of God I neither denied nor -affirmed. I felt I had no means of coming to any knowledge -of Him. I was, in fact (long before the word was invented), -precisely—an Agnostic.</p> - -<p class='c007'>One day, while thus literally creedless, I wandered out -alone as was my wont into a part of our park a little more -wild than the rest, where deer were formerly kept and sat -down among the rocks and the gorse which was then in -its summer glory of odorous blossoms, ever since rich to -me with memories of that hour. It was a sunny day in May, -and after reading a little of my favourite Shelley, I fell, as -often happened, into mournful thought. I was profoundly -miserable; profoundly conscious of the deterioration and -sliding down of all my feelings and conduct from the high -ambitions of righteousness and holiness which had been mine -in the days of my Christian faith and prayer; and at the -same time I knew that the whole scaffolding of that higher -life had fallen to pieces and could never be built up again. -While I was thus musing despairingly, something stirred -within me, and I asked myself, “Can I not rise once more, -conquer my faults, and live up to my own idea of what is -right and good? Even though there be no life after death, I -<span class='pageno' id='Page_93'>93</span>may yet deserve my own respect here and now, and, if there -be a God, He must approve me.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>The resolution was made very seriously. I came home to -begin a new course and to cultivate a different spirit. Was -it strange that in a few days I began instinctively, and almost -without reflection, to pray again? No longer did I make -any kind of effort to believe this thing or the other about -God. I simply addressed Him as the Lord of conscience, -whom I implored to strengthen my good resolutions, to -forgive my faults, “to lift me out of the mire and clay and -set my feet upon a rock and order my goings.” Of course, -there was Christian sentiment and the results of Christian -training in all I felt and did. I could no more have cast -them off than I could have leaped off my shadow. But of -dogmatical Christianity there was never any more. I have -never from that time, now more than fifty years ago, -attached, or wished I could attach, credence to any part of -what Dr. Martineau has called the <em>Apocalyptic side of -Christianity</em>, nor (I may add with thankfulness) have I ever -lost faith in God.</p> - -<p class='c007'>The storms of my youth were over. Henceforth through -many years there was a progressive advance to Theism as I -have attempted to describe it in my books; and there were -many, many hard moral fights with various Apollyons all -along the road; but no more spiritual revolutions.</p> - -<p class='c007'>About thirty years after that day, to me so memorable, I -read in Mr. Stopford Brooke’s <cite>Life of Robertson</cite>, these words -which seem truly to tell my own story and which I believe -recorded Robertson’s own experience, a little while later:</p> - -<p class='c007'>“It is an awful moment when the soul begins to find that -the props on which it blindly rested are many of them rotten.... -I know but one way in which a man can come -forth from this agony scatheless: it is by holding fast to -those things which are certain still. In the darkest hour -<span class='pageno' id='Page_94'>94</span>through which a human soul can pass, whatever else is -doubtful, this at least is certain. If there be no God and no -future state, even then <em>it is better to be generous than selfish, -better to be true than false, better to be brave than a coward</em>. -Blessed beyond all earthly blessedness is the man who in the -tempestuous darkness of the soul has dared to hold fast to -these landmarks. I appeal to the recollection of any man -who has passed through that agony and stood upon the rock -at last, with a faith and hope and trust no longer traditional -but his own.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>It may be asked, “What was my creed for those first years -of what I may call <em>indigenous</em> religion?” Naturally, with no -better guide than the inductive philosophy of Locke and -Bacon, I could have no outlook beyond the Deism of the last -century. Miracles and miraculous inspiration being formally -given up, there remained only (as I supposed) as testimony -to the existence and character of God such inductions as were -drawn in <cite>Paley’s Theology</cite> and the <cite>Bridgwater Treatises</cite>; with -all of which I was very familiar. Voltaire’s “<i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Dieu Toutpuissant, -Remunerateur Vengeur</span></i>,” the God whose garb (as -Goethe says,) is woven in “Nature’s roaring loom”; the -Beneficent Creator, from whom came all the blessings which -filled my cup; these were the outlines of Deity for me -for the time. The theoretical connection between such a God -and my own duty I had yet to work out through much hard -study, but fortunately moral instinct was practically sufficient -to identify them; nay, it was, as I have just narrated, -<em>through</em> such moral instincts that I was led back straight to -religion, and began to pray to my Maker as my Moral Lord, -so soon as ever I strove in earnest to obey my conscience.</p> - -<p class='c007'>There was nothing in such simple Deism to warrant a -belief in a future life, and I deliberately trained myself to -abandon a hope which was always very dear to me. As -regards Christ, there was inevitably, at first, some reaction -<span class='pageno' id='Page_95'>95</span>in my mind from the worship of my Christian days. I almost -felt I had been led into idolatry, and I bitterly resented then -(and ever since) the paramount prominence, the genuflexions -at the creed, and the especially reverential voice and language -applied constantly by Christians to the Son, rather than to the -Father. But after I had read F. W. Newman’s book of the <cite>Soul</cite>, -I recognised, with relief, how many of the phenomena of -the spiritual life which Christians are wont to treat as exclusively -bound up with their creed are, in truth, phases of the -natural history of all devout spirits; and my longing has ever -since been rather to find grounds of sympathy with believers -in Christ and for union with them on the broadest bases of -common gratitude, penitence, restoration and adoration, -rather than to accentuate our differences. The view which -I eventually reached of Christ as an historical human -character, is set forth at large in my <cite>Broken Lights</cite>. He -was, I think, the man whose life was to the life of Humanity -what Regeneration is to the individual soul.</p> - -<p class='c007'>I may here conclude the story of my religious life extending -through the years after the above described momentous -change. After a time, occupied in part with study and with -efforts to be useful to our poor neighbours and to my parents, -my Deism was lifted to a higher plane by one of those -inflowings of truth which seem the simplest things in the -world, but are as rain on the dry ground in summer to the -mind which receives them. One day while praying quietly, -the thought came to me with extraordinary lucidity: “God’s -Goodness is what <em>I mean</em> by Goodness! It is not a mere title, -like the ‘Majesty’ of a King. He has really that -character which we call ‘Good.’ He is Just, as I understand -Justice, only more perfectly just. He is Good as I -understand Goodness, only more perfectly good. He is not -good in time and tremendous in eternity; not good to some -of His creatures and cruel to others, but wholly, eternally, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_96'>96</span>universally good. If I could know and understand all His -acts from eternity, there would not be one which would not -deepen my reverence and call forth my adoring praise.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>To some readers this discovery may seem a mere platitude -and truism: the assertion of a thing which they have never -failed to understand. To me it was a real revelation which -transformed my religion from one of reverence only into one -of vivid love for that Infinite Goodness which I then beheld -unclouded. The deep shadow left for years on my soul by -the doctrine of eternal Hell had rolled away at last. Another -truth came home to me many years later, and not till after I -had written my first book. It was one night, after sitting up -late in my room reading (for once) no grave work, but a pretty -little story by Mrs. Gaskell. Up to that time I had found the -pleasures of knowledge the keenest of all, and gloried in the old -philosopher’s <i><span lang="la" xml:lang="la">dictum</span></i>, “Man was created to know and to contemplate.” -I looked on the pleasures of the affections as -secondary and inferior to those of the intellect, and I strove to -perform my duties to those around me, rather in a spirit of -moral rectitude and obedience to law than in one of lovingkindness. -Suddenly again it came to me to see that Love is -greater than Knowledge; that it is more beautiful to serve our -brothers freely and tenderly, than to “hive up learning with -each studious year,” to compassionate the failures of others and -ignore them when possible, rather than undertake the hard -process (I always found it so!) of forgiveness of injuries; -to say, “What may I be allowed to do to help and bless this -one—or that?” rather than “What am I bound by duty to -do for him, or her; and how little will suffice?” As these -thoughts swelled in my heart, I threw myself down in a -passion of happy tears, and passed most of the night thinking -how I should work out what I had learned. I had scarcely -fallen asleep towards morning when I was wakened by the -intelligence that one of the servants, a young laundress, was -<span class='pageno' id='Page_97'>97</span>dying. I hurried to the poor woman’s room which was at a -great distance from mine, and found all the men and women -servants collected round her. She wished for some one to -pray for her, and there was no one to do it but myself, and -so, while the innocent girl’s soul passed away, I led, for the -first and only time, the prayers of my father’s household.</p> - -<p class='c007'>I had read a good number of books by Deists during the -preceding years. Gibbon’s Miscellaneous Works (which I -greatly admired), Hume, Tindal, Collins, Voltaire, beside as -many of the old heathen moralists and philosophers as I -could reach; Marcus Aurelius, Seneca, Epictetus, Plutarch’s -<cite>Moralia</cite>, Xenophon’s <cite>Memorabilia</cite>, and a little of Plato. But -of any modern book touching on the particular questions -which had tortured me I knew nothing till, by the merest -good fortune, I fell in with <cite>Blanco White’s Life</cite>. How much -comfort and help I found in his <cite>Meditations</cite> the reader may -guess. Curiously enough, long years afterwards, Bishop -Colenso told me that the same book, falling into his hands in -Natal by the singular chance of a colonist possessing the -volumes, had determined him to come over to England and -bring out his <cite>Pentateuch</cite>. Thus poor Blanco White, after all -prophesied rightly when he said that he was “one of those -who, falling in the ditch, help other men to pass over”!</p> - -<p class='c007'>Another book some years later was very helpful to me—F. -W. Newman’s <cite>Soul</cite>. Dean Stanley told me that he -thought in the far future that single book would be held to -outweigh in value all that the author’s brother, Cardinal -Newman, had ever written. I entered not long after into -correspondence with Professor Newman, and have had the -pleasure of calling him my friend ever since. We have -interchanged letters, or at least friendly greetings, at short -intervals now for nearly fifty years.</p> - -<p class='c007'>But the epoch-making book for me was Theodore Parker’s -<cite>Discourse of Religion</cite>. Reading a notice of it in the <cite>Athenæum</cite>, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_98'>98</span>soon after its publication (somewhere about the year 1845), -I sent for it, and words fail to tell the satisfaction and -encouragement it gave me. One must have been isolated and -care-laden as I to estimate the value of such a book. I had -come, as I have narrated above, to the main conclusions of -Parker,—namely, the absolute goodness of God and the -non-veracity of popular Christianity,—three years before; so -that it has been a mistake into which some of my friends -have fallen when they have described me as converted from -orthodoxy by Parker. But his book threw a flood of light on -my difficult way. It was, in the first place, infinitely satisfactory -to find the ideas which I had hammered out painfully -and often imperfectly, at last welded together, set forth in lucid -order, supported by apparently adequate erudition and heartwarmed -by fervent piety. But, in the second place, the <cite>Discourse</cite> -helped me most importantly by teaching me to regard Divine -Inspiration no longer as a miraculous and therefore incredible -thing; but as normal, and in accordance with the natural -relations of the infinite and finite spirit; a Divine inflowing -of <em>mental</em> Light precisely analogous to that <em>moral</em> influence -which divines call Grace. As every devout and obedient -soul may expect to share in Divine Grace, so the devout and -obedient souls of all the ages have shared (as Parker taught) -in Divine Inspiration. And, as the reception of Grace, even -in large measure, does not render us <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">impeccable</span></i>, so neither -does the reception of Inspiration make us <em>Infallible</em>. It is -at this point that Deism stops and Theism begins; namely, -when our faith transcends all that can be gleaned from the -testimony of the bodily senses and accepts as supremely -trustworthy the direct Divine teaching, the “original revelation” -of God’s holiness and love in the depths of the soul. -Theodore Parker adopted the alternative synonym to mark -the vital difference in the philosophy which underlies the -two creeds; a theoretic difference leading to most important -<span class='pageno' id='Page_99'>99</span>practical consequences in the whole temper and spirit of -Theism as distinct from Deism. I saw all this clearly ere -long, and ranged myself thenceforth as a <span class='sc'>Theist</span>: a name -now familiar to everybody, but which, when my family came -to know I took it, led them to tell me with some contempt -that it was “a word in a Dictionary, not a Religion.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>A few months after I had absorbed Parker’s <cite>Discourse</cite>, the -great sorrow of my life befell me. My mother, whose health -had been feeble ever since I could remember her, and who -was now seventy years of age, passed away from a world -which has surely held few spirits so pure and sweet. She -died with her weeping husband and sons beside her bed and -with her head resting on my breast. Almost her last words -were to tell me I had been “the pride and joy” of her life. -The agony I suffered when I realised that she was gone I -shall not try to tell. She was the one being in the world -whom I truly loved through all the passionate years of youth -and early womanhood; the only one who really loved me. -Never one word of anger or bitterness had passed from her -lips to me, nor (thank God!) from mine to her in the twenty-four -years in which she blessed my life; and for the latter -part of that time her physical weakness had drawn a thousand -tender cares of mine around her. No relationship in all -the world, I think, can ever be so perfect as that of mother -and daughter under such circumstances, when the strength of -youth becomes the support of age, and the sweet dependance -of childhood is reversed.</p> - -<p class='c007'>But it was all over—I was alone; no more motherly love -and tenderness were ever again to reach my thirsting heart. -But this was not as I recall it, the worst pang in that dreadful -agony. I had (as I said above) ceased to believe in a future -life, and therefore I had no choice but to think that that most -beautiful soul which was worth all the kingdoms of earth had -actually <em>ceased to be</em>. She was a “Memory;” nothing more</p> - -<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_100'>100</span>I was not then or at any time one of those fortunate -people who can suddenly cast aside the conclusions which -they have reached by careful intellectual processes, and leap -to opposite opinions at the call of sentiment. I played no -tricks with my convictions, but strove as best I could to -endure the awful strain, and to recognise the Divine Justice -and Goodness through the darkness of death. I need not -and cannot say more on the subject.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Happily for me, there were many duties waiting for me, -and I could recognise even then that, though <em>pleasure</em> seemed -gone for ever, yet it was a relief to feel I had still <em>duties</em>. -“Something to do for others” was an assuagement of misery. -My father claimed first and much attention, and the position -I now held of the female head of the family and household -gave me a good deal of employment. To this I added -teaching in my village school a mile from our house two or -three times a week, and looking after all the sick and hungry -in the two villages of Donabate and Balisk. Those were the -years of Famine and Fever in Ireland, and there was -abundant call for all our energies to combat them. I shall -write of these matters in the next chapter.</p> - -<p class='c007'>I had, though with pain, kept my heresies secret during -my mother’s declining years and till my father had somewhat -recovered from his sorrow. I had continued to attend family -prayers and church services, with the exception of the -Communion, and had only vaguely allowed it to be understood -that I was not in harmony with them all. When my -poor father learned the full extent of my “infidelity,” it was -a terrible blow to him, for which I have, in later years, -sincerely pitied him. He could not trust himself to speak to -me, but though I was in his house, he wrote to tell me I -had better go away. My second brother, a barrister, had -a year before given up his house in Queen Anne Street -under a terrible affliction, and had gone, broken-hearted, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_101'>101</span>to live on a farm which he hired in the wilds of Donegal. -There I went as my father desired and remained for -nearly a year; not knowing whether I should ever be -permitted to return home and rather expecting to be -disinherited. He wrote to me two or three times and said -that if my doubts only extended in certain directions he could -bear with them, “but if I rejected Christ and disbelieved the -Bible, a man was called upon to keep the plague of such -opinions from his own house.” Then he required me to -answer him on those points categorically. Of course I did -so plainly, and told him I did <em>not</em> believe that Christ was -God; and I did <em>not</em> (in his sense) believe in the inspiration -or authority of the Bible. After this ensued a very long -silence, in which I remained entirely ignorant of my destiny -and braced myself to think of earning my future livelihood. -I was absolutely lonely; my brother, though always very -kind to me, had not the least sympathy with my heresies, -and thought my father’s conduct (as I do) quite natural; -and I had not a friend or relative from whom I could look for -any sort of comfort. A young cousin to whom I had spoken -of them freely, and who had, in a way, adopted my ideas, -wrote to me to say she had been shown the error of them, -and was shocked to think she had been so misguided. This -was the last straw. After I received this letter I wandered -out in the dusk as usual down to a favourite nook—a natural -seat under the bank in a bend of the river which ran through -Bonny Glen,—and buried my face in the grass. As I did -so my lips touched a primrose which had blossomed in that -precise spot since I had last been there, and the soft, sweet -flower which I had in childhood chosen for my mother’s -birthday garland seemed actually to kiss my face. No -one who has not experienced <em>utter</em> loneliness can perhaps -quite imagine how much comfort such an incident can -bring.</p> - -<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_102'>102</span>As I had no duties in Donegal, and seldom saw our few -neighbours, I occupied myself, often for seven or eight or -even nine hours a day, in writing an <cite>Essay on True Religion</cite>. -I possess this MS. still, and have been lately examining it. -Of course, as a first literary effort, it has many faults, and my -limited opportunities for reference render parts of it very -incomplete; but it is not a bad piece of work. The first part -is employed in setting forth my reasons for belief in God. -The second, those for not believing in (the apocalyptic part of) -Christianity. The chapter on <cite>Miracles</cite> and Prophecy (written -from the literal and matter-of-fact standpoint of that epoch) -are not ill-done, while the moral failure of the Bible and of -the orthodox theology, the histories of Jacob, Jael, David, &c., -and the dogmas of Original Sin, the Atonement, a Devil and -eternal Hell, are criticised pretty successfully. A considerable -part of the book consists in a comparison in parallel -columns of moral precepts from the Old and New Testaments -on one side, and from non-Christian writers, Euripides, -Socrates (Xenophon), Plutarch, Sextius, Marcus Aurelius, -Epictetus, Seneca, the Zend Avesta (Anquetil du Perron’s), -The Institutes of Menu (Sir W. Jones’), the Damma Padan, -the Talmud, &c., on the other. For years I had seized every -opportunity of collecting the most striking ethical <i><span lang="la" xml:lang="la">dicta</span></i>, and -I thus marshalled them to what appeared to me good -purpose, namely, the disproof of the originality or exceptional -loftiness of Christian Morals. I did not apprehend till later -years, how the supreme achievement of Christianity was not -the inculcation of a <em>new</em>, still less of a <em>systematic</em> Morality; -but the introduction of a new spirit into Morality; as Christ -himself said, a leaven into the lump.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Reading Parker’s <cite>Discourse</cite>, as I did very naturally in my -solitude once again, it occurred to me to write to him and ask -him to tell me on what ground he based the faith which I -perceived he held, in a life after death? It had seemed to me -<span class='pageno' id='Page_103'>103</span>that the guarantee of Revelation having proved worthless, -there remained no sufficient reason for hope to counter-weigh -the obvious difficulty of conceiving of a survival of the soul. -Parker answered me in a most kind letter, accompanied by -his <cite>Sermon of the Immortal Life</cite>. Of course I studied this -with utmost care and sympathy, and by slow, very slow -degrees, as I came more to take in the full scope of the -Theistic, as distinguished from the Deistic view, I saw my -way to a renewal of <em>the Hope of the Human Race</em> which, -twenty years later, I set forth as best as I could in the little -book of that name. I learned to trust the intuition of -Immortality which is “written in the heart of man by a -Hand which writes no falsehoods.” I deemed also that I -could see (as Parker says) the evidence of “a summer yet to -be in the buds which lie folded through our northern winter;” -the presence in human nature of many efflorescences—and -they the fairest of all—quite unaccountable and unmeaning on -the hypothesis that the end of the man is in the grave. In -later years I think, as the gloom of the evil and cruelty of -the world has shrouded more the almost cloudless skies of -my youth, I have almost fervently held by the doctrine of -Immortality because it is, to me <em>the indispensable corollary of -that of the Goodness of God</em>. I am not afraid to repeat the -words, which so deeply shocked, when they were first -published, my old friend, F. W. Newman. “<em>If Man be not -immortal, God is not Just.</em>”</p> - -<p class='c007'>Recovering this faith, as I may say, rationally and not by -any gust of emotion, I had the inexpressible happiness of -thinking henceforth of my mother as still existing in God’s -universe, and (as well as I knew) loving me wherever she -might be, and under whatever loftier condition of being. To -meet her again “spirit to spirit, ghost to ghost,” has been -to me for forty years, the sweetest thought connected with -death. Ere long, now, it must be realised.</p> - -<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_104'>104</span>After nine or ten months of this, by no means harsh, -exile, my father summoned me to return home. I resumed -my place as his daughter in doing all I could for his -comfort, and as the head of his house; merely thenceforth -abstaining from attendance either at Church or at family -prayer. I had several favourite nooks and huts near and -far in the woods, which I made into little Oratories for -myself, and to one or other of them I resorted almost every -evening at dusk; making it a habit—not broken for many -years afterwards, to repeat a certain versified Litany of -Thanksgiving which I had written and read to my mother. -On Sundays, when the rest of the family went to the village -church, I had the old garden for a beautiful cathedral. -Having let myself in with my own key, and locked the doors, -I knew I had the lovely six acres within the high walls, -free for hours from all observation or intrusion. How much -difference it makes in life to have at command such peace -and solitude it is hard to estimate. I look back to some -of the summer forenoons spent alone in that garden as to -the flowering time of my seventy years. God grant that the -afterglow of such hours may remain with me to the last, -and that “at eventide it may be light!”</p> - -<p class='c007'>I knew that there were Unitarian chapels in Dublin at -this time, and much wished to attend them now and -then; but I would not cause annoyance to my father by -the notice which my journey to the town on a Sunday -would have attracted. Only on New Year’s Day I -thought I might go unobserved and interpolate attendance -at the service among my usual engagements. I went -accordingly to Dublin one 1st of January and drove to the -chapel of which I had heard in Eustace Street. It was a -big, dreary place with scarcely a quarter of the seats occupied, -and a middle-class congregation apparently very cool and -indifferent. The service was a miserable, hybrid affair, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_105'>105</span>neither Christian as I understood Christianity, nor yet -Theistic; but it was a pleasure to me merely to stand and -kneel with other people at the hymns and prayers. At last, -the sermon, for which I might almost say, I was hungry, -arrived. The old Minister in his black-gown ascended the -pulpit, having taken with him—what?—could I believe my -eyes? It was an <em>old printed book</em>, bound in the blue and -drab old fuzzy paper of the year 1810 or thereabouts, and -out of this he proceeded to read an erudite discourse by some -father of English Socinianism, on the precise value of the -Greek article when used before the word Θεός! My -disappointment not to say disgust were such that,—as it was -easy from my seat to leave the place without disturbing any -one,—I escaped into the street, never (it may be believed) -to repeat my experiment.</p> - -<p class='c007'>It was an anomalous position that which I held at -Newbridge from the time of my return from Donegal, till my -father’s death eight years later. I took my place as head of -the household at the family table and in welcoming our -guests, but I was all the time in a sort of moral Coventry, -under a vague atmosphere of disapprobation wherein -all I said was listened to cautiously as likely to conceal -some poisonous heresy. Everything of this kind, however, -wears down and becomes easier and softer as time goes -on, and most so when people are, <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">au fond</span></i>, just-minded -and good-hearted; and the years during which I remained -at home till my father’s death, though mentally very lonely, -were far from unhappy. In particular, the perfect clearness -and straightforwardness of my position was, and has ever -since been, a source of strength and satisfaction to me, for -which I have thanked God a thousand times. My inner life -was made happy by my simple faith in God’s infinite and -perfect love; and I never had any doubt whether I had erred -in abandoning the creed of my youth. On the contrary, as -<span class='pageno' id='Page_106'>106</span>the whole tendency of modern science and criticism showed -itself stronger and stronger against the old orthodoxy, my -hopes were unduly raised of a not distant New Reformation -which I might even live to see. These sanguine hopes have -faded. As Dean Stanley seems to have felt, there was, somewhere -between the years ’74 and ’78, a turn in the tide of -men’s thoughts (due, I think, to the paramount influence and -insolence which physical science then assumed), which has -postponed any decisive “broad” movement for years beyond -my possible span of life. But though nothing appears quite -so bright to my old eyes as all things did to me -in youth, though familiarity with human wickedness and -misery, and still more with the horrors of scientific cruelty -to animals, have strained my faith in God’s justice sometimes -even to agony,—I know that no form of religious creed could -have helped me any more than my own or as much as it -has done to bear the brunt of such trial; and I remain to -the present unshaken both in respect to the denials and the -affirmations of Theism. There are great difficulties, soul-torturing -difficulties besetting it; but the same or worse, -beset every other form of faith in God; and infinitely more, -and to my mind insurmountable ones, beset Atheism.</p> - -<p class='c007'>For fifty years Theism has been my staff of life. I must -soon try how it will support me down the last few steps of -my earthly way. I believe it will do so well.</p> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_107'>107</span> - <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER<br /> V.<br /> <span class='large'><em>MY FIRST BOOK.</em></span></h2> -</div> - -<p class='c006'><span class='pageno' id='Page_109'>109</span>When I was thirty years of age I had an attack of -bronchitis from which I nearly died. When very ill and -not expecting to recover, I reflected that while my own life -had been made happy and strong by the faith which had been -given to me, I had done nothing to help any other human -soul to find that solution of the dread problem which had -brought such peace to me. I felt, as Mrs. Browning says, -that a Truth was “like bread at Sacrament” to be passed -on. When, unexpectedly to myself, I slowly recovered after -a sojourn in Devonshire, I resolved to set about writing -something which should convey as much as possible of my -own convictions to whosoever should read it. For a time I -thought of enlarging and completing my MS. <cite>Essay on True -Religion</cite>, written for my own instruction; but the more I -reflected the less I cared to labour to pull down hastily the -crumbling walls which yet sheltered millions of souls, and -the more I longed to build up anew on solid base a stronghold -of refuge for those driven like myself from the old -ground of faith in God and Duty. Especially I felt that as the -worst dangers of such transitions lay in the sudden snapping -of the supposed bond of Morality, and collapse of the -hopes of heaven and terrors of hell which had been used as -motives of virtue and deterrents from vice; so the most -urgent need lay in the direction of a system of ethics which -should base Duty on ground absolutely apart from that of the -supposed supernatural revelation and supply sanctions and -motives unconnected therewith. As it happened at this very -time, my good (orthodox) friend, Miss Felicia Skene, had -<span class='pageno' id='Page_110'>110</span>recommended me to read Kant’s <cite>Metaphysic of Ethics</cite>, and I -had procured Semple’s translation and found it almost -dazzlingly enlightening to my mind. It would be presumptuous -for me to say that then, or at any time, I have -thoroughly mastered either this book or the <i><span lang="de" xml:lang="de">Reinun Vernunft</span></i> -of this greatest of thinkers; but, so far as I have been able -to do so, I can say for my own individual mind (as his -German disciples were wont to do for themselves), -“God said, Let there be Light! and there was—the -Kantian Philosophy.” It has been, and no doubt -will be still further, modified by succeeding metaphysicians -and sometimes it may appear to have been superseded, but -I cannot think otherwise than that Kant was and will -finally be recognised to have been the Newton of the laws of -Mind.</p> - -<p class='c007'>I shall now endeavour to explain the purpose of my first -book (which is also my <i><span lang="la" xml:lang="la">magnum opus</span></i>) by quoting the -Preface at some length; and, as the third edition has long -been out of print and is unattainable in England or America, -I shall permit myself to embody in this chapter a general -account of the drift of it, with extracts sufficient to -serve as samples of the whole. Looking over it now, after -the lapse of just forty years, I can see that my reading at -that time had lain so much among old books that the style -is almost that of a didactic Treatise of the seventeenth -century; and the ideas, likewise, are necessarily exclusively -those of the pre-Darwinian Era. Conceptions so familiar to us -now as that of an “hereditary set of the brain,” and of the -“Capitalised experience of the tribe,” were then utterly -unthought of. I have been well aware that it would, consequently, -have been necessary,—had the book been republished -any time during the last twenty years,—to rewrite much of -it and define the standpoint of an Intuitionist as regards -the theory of Evolution in its bearing on the foundation of -<span class='pageno' id='Page_111'>111</span>ethics. For this task, however, I have always lacked -leisure: and my article on “<cite>Darwinism in Morals</cite>” -(reprinted in the book of that name) has been the best -effort I have made in such direction. I may here, perhaps, -nevertheless be allowed to say as a last word in favour of -this Essay, namely, that such as it is, it has served me, -personally, as a scaffolding for all my life-work, a key to -open most of the locks which might have barred my way. -If now I feel (as men and women are wont to do at three-score -years and ten), that I hold all philosophic opinions -with less tenacious grasp, less “cocksureness” than in -earlier days, and know that the great realities to which they -led, will remain realities for me still should those opinions -prove here and there unstable,—it is not that I am disposed -in any way to abandon them, still less that I have found any -other systems of ethics or theology more, or equally, sound -and self-consistent.</p> - -<p class='c007'>I wrote the “<cite>Essay on the Theory of Intuitive Morals</cite>” -between my thirtieth and thirty-third years. I had a great -deal else to do—to amuse and help my father (then growing -old); to direct our household, entertain our guests, carry -on the feminine correspondence of the family, teach in my -village school twice a week or so, and to attend every -case of illness or other tribulation in Donabate and Balisk. -My leisure for writing and for the preliminary reading -for writing, was principally at night or in the early -morning; and at last it was accomplished. No one but my -dear old friend, Harriet St. Leger, had seen any part of the -MS., and, as I have said, nobody belonging to my family had -ever (so far as I know) employed a printer or publisher -before. I took the MS. with me to London, where my -father and I were fortunately going for a holiday, and called -with it in Paternoster Row, on Mr. William Longman, to -whom I had a letter of business introduction from my Dublin -<span class='pageno' id='Page_112'>112</span>bookseller. When I opened my affair to Mr. Longman, it -was truly a case of Byron’s address to Murray—</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c018'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“To thee with hope and terror dumb,</div> - <div class='line'>The unfledged MS. authors come;</div> - <div class='line'>Thou printest all, and sellest some,</div> - <div class='line in32'>My Murray!”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c007'>Mr. Longman politely veiled a smile, and adopted the voice -of friendly dissuasion from my enterprise, looking no doubt -on a young lady (as I still was) as a very unpromising -author for a treatise on Kantian ethics! My spirit, however, -rose with the challenge. I poured out for some minutes much -that I had been thinking over for years, and as I paused at -last, Mr. Longman said briefly, but decidedly, “<em>I’ll publish -your book.</em>”</p> - -<p class='c007'>After this fateful interview, I remember going into -St. Paul’s and sitting there a long while alone.</p> - -<p class='c007'>The sheets of the book passed rapidly through the press, -and I usually took them to the British Museum to verify -quotations and work quietly over difficulties, for in the house -which we occupied in Connaught Square I had no study to -myself. The foot-notes to the book (collected some in the -Museum, some from my own books and some from old -works in Archbishop Marsh’s Library) were themselves a -heavy part of the work. Glancing over the pages as I write, -I see extracts, for example, from the following:—Cudworth -(I had got at some inedited MSS. of his in the British -Museum), Montesquieu, Philo, Hooker, Proclus, Thomas -Aquinas, Aristotle, Descartes, Müller, Whewell, Mozley, -Leibnitz, St. Augustine, Phillipsohn, Strabo, St. Chrysostom, -Morell, Lewes, Dugald Stewart, Mill, Oërsted, the Adée-Grunt’h -(sacred book of the Sikhs), Herbert Spencer, Hume, -Maximus Tyriensis, Institutes of Menu, Victor Cousin, -Sir William Hamilton, Lucian, Seneca, Cory’s Fragments, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_113'>113</span>St. Gregory the Great, Justin Martyr, Jeremy Taylor, -the Yajur Veda, Shaftesbury, Plato, Marcus Aurelius, -Diogenes Laertius, Cicero, Confucius, and many more. -There are also in the Notes sketches of the history of the -doctrines of Predestination, and of Original Sin, which -involved very considerable research.</p> - -<p class='c007'>At last the proofs were corrected, the Notes verified, and -the time had come when the Preface must be written! How -was I to find a quiet hour to compose it? Like most women -I was bound hand and foot by a fine web of little duties and -attentions, which men never feel or brush aside remorselessly, -(it was only Hooker, who rocked a cradle with his -foot while he wrote the Ecclesiastical Polity!); and it was a -serious question for me when I could find leisure and solitude. -Luckily, just on the critical day, my father was seized with -a fancy to go to the play, and, equally luckily, I had so bad -a cold that it was out of question that I should, as usual, -accompany him. Accordingly I had an evening all alone, -and wrote fast and hard the pages which I shall presently -quote, finishing the last sentence of my <cite>Preface</cite> as I heard -my father’s knock at the hall door.</p> - -<p class='c007'>I had all along told my father (though, alas; to his -displeasure), that I was going to publish a book; of course, -anonymously, to save him annoyance. When the printing -was completed, the torn and defaced sheets of the MS. lay -together in a heap for removal by the housemaid. Pointing -to this, my poor father said solemnly to me: “Don’t leave -those about; <em>you don’t know into whose hands they may fall</em>.” -It was needless to observe to him, that I was on the point of -<em>publishing</em> the “perilous stuff”!</p> - -<p class='c007'>The book was brought out by Longmans that year (1855) -and afterwards by Crosby and Nichols in Boston, and again -by Trübner in London. It was reviewed rather largely -and, on the whole, very kindly, considering it was by an -<span class='pageno' id='Page_114'>114</span>unknown and altogether unfriended author; but sometimes -also in a manner which it is pleasant to know has gone out -of fashion in these latter days. It was amusing to see that -not one of my critics had a suspicion they were dealing with -a woman’s work. They all said, “<em>He</em> reasons clearly.” -“<em>His</em> spirit and manner are particularly well suited to -ethical discussion.” “<em>His</em> treatment of morals” (said the -<cite>Guardian</cite>) “is often both true and beautiful.” “It is a -most noble performance,” (said the <cite>Caledonian Mercury</cite>), -“the work of a <em>masculine</em> and lofty mind.” “It is -impossible,” (said the <cite>Scotsman</cite>), “to deny the ability of -the writer, or not to admire <em>his</em> high moral tone, -his earnestness and the fulness of his knowledge.” But -the heresy of the book brought down heavy denunciation -from the “religious” papers on the audacious writer who, -“instead of walking softly and humbly on the firm ground -and taking the Word of God as a lamp,” &c., had indulged -in “insect reasonings.” A rumour at last went out that -a woman was the author of this “able and attractive but -deceptive and dangerous work,” and then the criticisms were -barbed with sharper teeth. “The writer” (says the <cite>Christian -Observer</cite>), “we are told, is a lady, but there is nothing feeble -or even feminine in the tone of the work.... Our -dislike is increased when we are told it is a female (!) who -has propounded so unfeminine and stoical a theory ... -and has contradicted openly the true sayings of the living -God!” The <cite>Guardian</cite> (November 21st, 1855) finally had -this delightful paragraph: “The author professes great admiration -for Theodore Parker and Francis Newman, but his own -pages are not disfigured by the arrogance of the one or the -shallow levity of the other” (think of the <em>shallow levity</em> of -Newman’s book of the <cite>Soul</cite>!). “He writes gravely, not -defiantly, as befits a man giving utterance to thoughts which -he knows <em>will be generally regarded as impious</em>.”</p> - -<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_115'>115</span>I shall now offer the reader a few extracts; and first from -the <cite>Preface</cite>:—</p> - -<p class='c008'>“It cannot surely be questioned but that we want a -System of Morals better than any of those which are current -amongst us. We want a system which shall neither be too -shallow for the requirements of thinking men, nor too -abstruse for popular acceptation; but which shall be based -upon the ultimate grounds of philosophy, and be developed -with such distinctness as to be understood by every one -capable of studying the subject. We want a System of -Morals which shall not entangle itself with sectarian creeds, -nor imperil its authority with that of tottering Churches, -but which shall be indissolubly blended with a Theology -fulfilling all the demands of the Religious Sentiment—a -Theology forming a part, and the one living part, of all the -theologies which ever have been or shall be. We want a -system which shall not degrade the Law of the Eternal -Right by announcing it as a mere contrivance for the -production of human happiness, or by tracing our knowledge -of it to the experience of the senses, or by cajoling us into -obeying it as a matter of expediency; but a system which -shall ascribe to that Law its own sublime office in -the universe, which shall recognise in man the faculties by -which he obtains a supersensible knowledge of it, and -which shall inculcate obedience to it on motives so pure -and holy, that the mere statement of them shall awaken in -every breast that higher and better self which can never -be aroused by the call of interest or expediency.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“It would be in itself a presumption for me to disclaim -the ability necessary for supplying such a want as this. In -writing this book, I have aimed chiefly at two objects. -First. I have sought to unite into one homogeneous and self-consistent -whole the purest and most enlarged theories -hitherto propounded on ethical science. Especially I have -endeavoured to popularise those of Kant, by giving the -simplest possible presentation to his doctrines regarding -the Freedom of the Will and the supersensible source of -<span class='pageno' id='Page_116'>116</span>our knowledge of all Necessary Truths, including those of -Morals. I do not claim however, even so far as regards -these doctrines, to be an exact exponent of Kant’s -opinions.... Secondly. I have sought (and this -has been my chief aim) to place for the first time, at the -foundation of ethics, the great but neglected truth that -the End of Creation is not the Happiness, but the Virtue, -of Rational Souls. I believe that this truth will be found -to throw most valuable light, not only upon the Theory, but -upon all the details of Practical Morals. Nay, more, I -believe that we must look to it for such a solution of the -‘Riddle of the World’ as shall satisfy the demands of the -Intellect while presenting to the Religious Sentiment that -same God of perfect Justice and Goodness whose ideal it -intuitively conceives and spontaneously adores. Only with -this view of the Designs of God can we understand how -His Moral Attributes are consistent with the creation of a -race which is indeed ‘groaning in sin’ and ‘travailing in -sorrow’; but by whose freedom to sin and trial of sorrow -shall be worked out at last the most blessed End which -Infinite Love could devise. With this clew, we shall also -see how (as the Virtue of each individual must be produced -by himself, and is the share committed to him in the grand -end of creation) all Duties must necessarily range themselves -accordingly—the Personal before the Social—in a -sequence entirely different from that which is comformable -with the hypothesis that Happiness is ‘our being’s end and -aim’; but which is, nevertheless, precisely the sequence -in which Intuition has always peremptorily demanded that -they should be arranged. We shall see how (as the -bestowal of Happiness on man must always be postponed -by God to the still more blessed aim of conducing to his -Virtue) the greatest outward woes and trials, so far from -inspiring us with doubts of His Goodness, must be taken -as evidences of the glory of that End of Virtue to which -they lead, even as the depths of the foundations of a -cathedral may show how high the towers and spires will -one day ascend.”—<cite>Pref.</cite>, pp. V.–X.</p> - -<p class='c006'><span class='pageno' id='Page_117'>117</span>In the first chapter, entitled <cite>What is the Moral Law?</cite> I -take for motto Antigone’s great speech:—</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c018'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line in26'>“<span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ἄγραπτα κᾀσφαλῆ θεῶν</span></div> - <div class='line'><span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">νόμιμα....</span></div> - <div class='line'><span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">οὐ γἀρ τι νῦν γε κᾀχθὲς, ἀλλ’ ἀεί ποτε</span></div> - <div class='line'><span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">ζῇ ταῦτα, κοὐδεὶς οἶδεν ἐξ ὅτου ‘φάνη.</span></div> - <div class='line in32'><span lang="grc" xml:lang="grc">Σοφ. Ἀντιγ. 454.</span>”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c007'>I begin by defining Moral actions and sentiments as those -of Rational Free Agents, to which alone may be applied the -terms of Right or Wrong, Good or Evil, Virtuous or -Vicious. I then proceed to say:—</p> - -<p class='c008'>“This moral character of good or evil is a real, universal -and eternal distinction, existing through all worlds and for -ever, wherever there are rational creatures and free agents. -As one kind of line is a straight line, and another a crooked -line, and as no line can be both straight and crooked, so -one kind of action or sentiment is right, and another is -wrong, and no action or sentiment can be both right or -wrong. And as the same line which is straight on this -planet would be straight in Sirius or Alcyone, and what -constitutes straightness in the nineteenth century will -constitute straightness in the nineteenth millennium, so -that sentiment or action which is right in our world, is -right in all worlds; and that which constitutes righteousness -now will constitute righteousness through all eternity. -And as the character of straightness belongs to the line, by -whatsoever hand it may have been traced, so the character -of righteousness belongs to the sentiment or action, by what -rational free agent soever it may have been felt or -performed.”</p> - -<p class='c010'>“And of this distinction language affords a reliable -exponent. When we have designated one kind of figure by -the word Circle, and another by the word Triangle, those -terms, having become the names of the respective figures, -cannot be transposed without transgression of the laws of -language. Thus it would be absurd to argue that the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_118'>118</span>figure we call a circle, may not be a circle; that a ‘plane -figure, containing a point from which all right lines drawn -to the circumference shall be equal,’ may not be a circle, -but a triangle. In like manner, when we have designated -one kind of sentiment or action as Right, and another as -Wrong, it becomes an absurdity to say that the kind of -sentiments or actions we call Right may, perhaps, be -Wrong. If a figure be not a circle, according to our sense -of the word, it is not a circle at all, but an Ellipse, a -Triangle, Trapezium, or something else. If a sentiment or -action be not Right, according to our sense of the word, it -is not Right at all, but, according to the laws of language, -must be called Wrong.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“It is not maintained that we can commit no error in -affixing the <em>name</em> of Circle to a particular figure, or of -Right to a particular sentiment or action. We may at -a hasty glance pronounce an ellipse to be a circle; -but when we have proved the radii to be unequal, -needs must we arrive at a better judgment. Our -error was caused by our first haste and misjudgment, -not by our inability to decide whether an object presented -to us bears or does not bear a character to which we have -agreed to affix a certain name. In like manner, from haste -or prejudice, we may pronounce a faulty sentiment or action -to be Right; but when we have examined it in all its -bearings, we ourselves are the first to call it Wrong.”—Pp. 4–7.</p> - -<p class='c006'>After much more on the <em>positive</em> nature of Good, and the -negative nature of Evil, and on the relation of the Moral -Law to God as <em>impersonated</em> in His Will, and not the result -(as Ockham taught) of his arbitrary decree,—I sum up the -argument of this first chapter. To the question, What is the -Moral Law? I answer:—</p> - -<p class='c008'>“The Moral Law is the embodiment of the eternal -Necessary obligation of all Rational Free Agents to do and feel -those actions and sentiments which are Right. The identification -<span class='pageno' id='Page_119'>119</span>of this law with His will constitutes the <em>Holiness</em> of -the infinite God. Voluntary and disinterested obedience to -this law constitutes the <em>Virtue</em> of all finite creatures. Virtue -is capable of infinite growth, of endless approach to the -Divine nature, and to perfect conformity with the law. -God has made all rational free agents for virtue, and -(doubtless) all worlds for rational free agents. The Moral -Law, therefore, not only reigns throughout His creation (its -behests being finally enforced therein by His power), but is -itself the reason why that creation exists. The material -universe, with all its laws, and all the events which result -therefrom, has one great purpose, and tends to one great -end. It is that end which infinite Love has designed, and -which infinite Power shall surely accomplish,—the everlasting -approximation of all created souls to Goodness and -to God.”—(Pp. 62, 63.)</p> - -<p class='c006'>The second chapter undertakes to answer the question, -<em>Where is the Moral Law Found?</em> and begins by a brief -analysis of the two great classes of human knowledge as a -preliminary to ascertaining to which of these our knowledge -of ethics belongs.</p> - -<p class='c008'>“All sciences are either Exact or Physical (or are -applications of Exact to Physical science).</p> - -<p class='c010'>“Exact sciences are deduced from axiomatic Necessary -truths and results in universal propositions, each of which -is a Necessary Truth.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“Physical sciences are induced from Experimental Contingent -truths, and result in General Propositions, each of -which is a contingent truth.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“We obtain our knowledge of the Experimental -Contingent Truths from which Physical science is induced, -by the united action of our bodily senses and of our minds -themselves, which must both in each case contribute their -proper quota to make knowledge possible. Every perception -necessitates this double element of sensation and intuition,—the -objective and subjective factor in combination.</p> - -<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_120'>120</span>“We obtain our knowledge of the axiomatic Necessary -Truths from which Exact science is deduced, by the -<i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">à priori</span></i> operation of the mind alone, and (<i><span lang="la" xml:lang="la">quoad</span></i> the exact -science in question) without the aid of sensation (not, -indeed, by <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">à priori</span></i> operation of a mind which has never -worked with sensation, for such a mind would be altogether -barren; but of one which has reached normal development -under normal conditions; which conditions involve the -continual united action productive of perceptions of -contingent truths).</p> - -<p class='c010'>“In this distinction between the sources of our knowledge -lies the most important discovery of philosophy. -Into whatsoever knowledge the element of Sensation -necessarily enters as a constituent part, therein there can -be no absolute certainty of truth; the fallibility of -Sensation being recognised on all hands, and neutralising -the certainty of the pure mental element. But when we -discover an order of sciences which, without aid from -sensation, are deduced by the mind’s own operation from -those Necessary truths which we hold on a tenure marking -indelibly their distinction from all contingent truths whatsoever, -then we obtain footing in a new realm....</p> - -<p class='c010'>“In the ensuing pages I shall endeavour to demonstrate -that the science of Morals belongs to the class of Exact -sciences, and that it has consequently a right to that -credence wherewith we hold the truths of arithmetic and -geometry....”</p> - -<p class='c006'>The test which divides the two classes is as follows:—</p> - -<p class='c008'>“What truth soever is <em>Necessary</em> and of universal extent -is derived by the mind from its own operation, and does -not rest on observation or experience; as, conversely, -what truth or perception soever is present to the mind -with a consciousness, not of its Necessity, but of its -Contingency, is ascribable not to the original agency of -the mind itself, but derives its origin from observation and -experience.”</p> - -<p class='c006'><span class='pageno' id='Page_121'>121</span>After lengthened discussion on this head and on the -supposed mistakes of moral intuition, I go on to say:</p> - -<p class='c008'>“The consciousness of the Contingency, or the -consciousness of the Necessity (<em>i.e.</em>, the consciousness -that the truth <em>cannot</em> be contingent, but must hold good in -all worlds for ever), these consciousnesses are to be -relied on, for they have their origin in, and are -the marks of, the different elements from which they -have been derived.<a id='r9' /><a href='#f9' class='c013'><sup>[9]</sup></a> We may apply them to the fundamental -truths of any science, and by observing whether the -reception of such truths into our minds be accompanied by -the consciousness of Necessity or of Contingency, we may -decide whether the science be rightfully Exact or Physical, -deductive or inductive.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“For example, we take the axioms of arithmetic and -geometry, and we find that we have distinct consciousness -that they are Necessary truths. We cannot conceive them -altered any where or at any time. The sciences which are -deduced from these and from similar axioms are then, -Exact sciences.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“Again: we take the ultimate facts of geology and -anatomy, and we find that we have distinct consciousness -that they are Contingent truths. We can readily suppose -them other than we find them. The sciences, then, which -are induced from these and similar facts are not Exact -sciences.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“If, then, morals can be shown to bear this test equally -with mathematics,—if there be any fundamental truths of -morals holding in our minds the status of those axioms of -geometry and arithmetic of whose Necessity we are conscious, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_122'>122</span>then these fundamental truths of morals are entitled -to be made the basis of an Exact science the subsequent -theorems of which must all be deduced from them.—(P. 76.)...</p> - -<p class='c010'>“Men like Hume traverse the history of our race, to -collect all the piteous instances of aberrations which have -resulted from neglect or imperfect study of the moral -consciousness; and then they cry, ‘Behold what it teaches!’ -Yet I suppose that it will be admitted that Man is an animal -capable of knowing geometry; though, if we were to go up -and down the world, asking rich and poor, Englishman and -Esquimaux, what are the ratios of solidity and superficies of -a sphere, a right cylinder and an equilateral cone circumscribed -about it, there are sundry chances that we should -hear of other ratios besides the sesquialterate.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“He who should argue that, because people ignorant of -geometry did not know the sesquialterate ratio of the -sphere, cylinder and cone, therefore no man could know -it, or that because they disputed it, that therefore it was -uncertain, would argue no more absurdly than he who -urges the divergencies of half civilised and barbarian -nations as a reason why no man could know, or know with -certainty, the higher propositions of morals.”</p> - -<p class='c006'>After analysing the Utilitarian and other theories which -derive Morality from Contingent truths, I conclude that “the -truths of Morals are Necessary Truths. The origin of our -knowledge of them is Intuitive, and their proper treatment -is Deductive.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>The third Chapter treats of the proposition, “That the -Moral Law can be obeyed,” and discusses the doctrine of -Kant, that the true self of Man, the <i><span lang="la" xml:lang="la">Homo Noumenon</span></i>, is -free, self-legislative of Law fit for Law Universal; while as -the <i><span lang="la" xml:lang="la">Homo Phenomenon</span></i>, an inhabitant of the world of sense, -he is a mere link in the chain of causes and effects, and his -actions are locked up in mechanic laws which, had he no -other rank, would ensue exactly according to the physical -<span class='pageno' id='Page_123'>123</span>impulses given by the instincts and solicitations in the -sensory. But as an inhabitant (also) of the supersensitive -world his position is among the causalities which taking their -rise therein, are the intimate ground of phenomena. The -discussion in this chapter on the above proposition cannot be -condensed into any space admissible here.</p> - -<p class='c007'>The fourth Chapter seeks to determine <cite>Why the Moral -Law should be Obeyed</cite>. It begins thus:—</p> - -<p class='c008'>“In the last Chapter (Chapter III.) I endeavoured to -demonstrate that the pure Will, the true self of man, is by -nature righteous; self-legislative of the only Universal -Law, viz., the Moral; and that by this spontaneous autonomy -would all his actions be squared, were it not for his lower -nature, which is by its constitution unmoral, neither -righteous nor unrighteous, but capable only of determining -its choice by its instinctive propensities and the gratifications -offered to them. Thus these two are contrary one to -another, ‘and the spirit lusteth against the flesh, and the -flesh against the spirit.’ In the valour of the higher -nature acquired by its victory over the lower, in the virtue -of the tried and conquering soul, we look for the glorious -end of creation, the sublime result contemplated by -Infinite Benevolence in calling man into existence and -fitting him with the complicated nature capable of -developing that Virtue which alone can be the crown of -finite intelligences. The great practical problem of human -life is this: ‘How is the Moral Will to gain the victory -over the unmoral instincts, the <i><span lang="la" xml:lang="la">Homo Noumenon</span></i> over the -<i><span lang="la" xml:lang="la">Homo Phenomenon</span></i>, Michael over the Evil One, Mithras over -Hyle?’”</p> - -<p class='c006'>In pursuing this enquiry of how the Moral Will is to be -rendered victorious, I am led back to the question: Is -Happiness “our end and aim?” What relation does it -bear to Morality as a motive?</p> - -<p class='c008'>“I have already argued, in Chapter I., that Happiness, -properly speaking, is the gratification of <em>all</em> the desires of -<span class='pageno' id='Page_124'>124</span>our compound nature, and that moral, intellectual, affectional, -and sensual pleasures are all to be considered as -integers, whose sum, when complete, would constitute -perfect Happiness. From this multiform nature of Happiness -it has arisen, that those systems of ethics which set -it forth as the proper motive of Virtue have differed -immensely from one another, according as the Happiness -they respectively contemplated was thought of as consisting -in the pleasures of our Moral, or of our Intellectual, Affectional, -and Sensual natures; whether the pleasures were -to be sought by the virtuous man for his own enjoyment, or -for the general happiness of the community.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“The pursuit of Virtue for the sake of its intrinsic, <em>i.e.</em>, -Moral pleasure, is designated <span class='sc'>Euthumism</span>.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“The pursuit of Virtue for the sake of the extrinsic -Affectional, Intellectual, and Sensual pleasure resulting -from it, is designated <span class='sc'>Eudaimonism</span>.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“Euthumism is of one kind only, for the individual can -only seek the intrinsic pleasure of Virtue for his own enjoyment -thereof.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“Eudaimonism, on the contrary, is of two most distinct -lands. That which I have called <span class='sc'>Public Eudaimonism</span> sets -forth the intellectual, affectional, and sensual pleasures of -<em>all mankind</em> as the proper object of the Virtue of each -individual. <span class='sc'>Private Eudaimonism</span> sets forth the same -pleasures of the <em>individual himself</em> as the proper object of -his Virtue.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“These two latter systems are commonly confounded -under the name of ‘<span class='sc'>Utilitarian Ethics</span>.’ Their principles, -as I have stated them, will be seen to be wide asunder; -yet there are few of the advocates of either who have not -endeavoured to stand on the grounds of both, and even to -borrow elevation from those of the Euthumist. Thus, by -appealing alternately to philanthropy<a id='r10' /><a href='#f10' class='c013'><sup>[10]</sup></a> and to a gross and -a refined Selfishness, they suit the purpose of the moment, -and prevent their scheme from deviating too far from the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_125'>125</span>intuitive conscience of mankind. It may be remarked, -also, that the Private Eudaimonists insist more particularly -on the pleasure of a <em>Future Life</em>; and in the exposition of -them necessarily approach nearer to the Euthumists.”</p> - -<p class='c006'>I here proceeded to discuss the three systems which have -arisen from the above-defined different views of Happiness; -each contemplating it as the proper motive of Virtue: -namely, 1st, Euthumism; 2nd, Public Eudaimonism; and -3rd, Private Eudaimonism.</p> - -<p class='c008'>“1st. Euthumism. This system, as I have said, sets forth -the <em>Moral Pleasure</em>, the peace and cheerfulness of mind, and -applause of conscience enjoyed in Virtue, as the proper -motive for its practice. Conversely, it sets forth as the -dissuadent from Vice, the pain of remorse, the inward -uneasiness and self-contempt which belong to it.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“Democritus appears to have been the first who gave clear -utterance to this doctrine, maintaining that Εύθυμία was -the proper End of human actions, and sharply distinguishing -it from the ‘Ηδονή’ proposed as such by Aristippus. The -claims of a ‘<i><span lang="la" xml:lang="la">mens conscia recti</span></i>’ to be the ‘Summum -Bonum,’ occupied, as is well known, a large portion of -the subsequent disputes of the Epicureans, Cynics, -Stoics and Academics, and were eagerly argued by -Cicero, and even down to the time of Boethius. Many of -these sects, however, and in particular the Stoics, though -maintaining that Virtue alone is sufficient for Happiness -(that is, that the inward joy of Virtue is enough to -constitute Happiness in the midst of torments), yet by no -means set forth that Happiness as the sole <em>motive</em> of Virtue. -They held, on the contrary, the noblest ideas of ‘living -according to Nature,’ that is, as Chrysippus explained it, -according to the ‘Nature of the universe, the common -Law of all, which is the right reason spread everywhere, -the same by which Jupiter governs the world’; and that -both Virtue and Happiness consisted in so regulating our -actions that they should produce harmony between the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_126'>126</span>Spirit in each of us, and the Will of Him who rules the -universe. There is little or no trace of Euthumism in the -Jewish or Christian Scriptures, or (to my knowledge) in -the sacred books of the Brahmins, Buddhists, or Parsees. -The ethical problems argued by the mediæval Schoolmen do -not, so far as I am aware, embrace the subject in question. -The doctrine was revived, however, in the seventeenth -century, and besides blending with more or less distinctness -with the views of a vast number of lesser moralists, -it reckons among its professed adherents no less names than -Henry More and Bishop Cumberland. Euthumism, philosophically -considered, will be found to affix itself most -properly on the doctrine of the ‘Moral Sense’ laid down -by Shaftesbury as the origin of our <em>knowledge</em> of moral -distinctions, which, if it were, it would naturally follow that -it must afford also the right <em>motive</em> of Virtue. Hutcheson, -also, still more distinctly stated that this Moral Pleasure in -Virtue (which both he and Shaftesbury likened to the -æsthetic Pleasure in Beauty) was the true ground of our -choice. To this Balguy replied, that ‘to make the rectitude -of moral actions depend upon instinct, and, in proportion -to the warmth and strength of the Moral Sense, rise and -fall like spirits in a thermometer, is depreciating the most -sacred thing in the world, and almost exposing it to ridicule.’ -And Whewell has shown that the doctrine of the Moral -Sense as the foundation of Morals must always fail, -whether understood as meaning a sense like that of Beauty -(which may or may not be merely a modification of the -Agreeable), or a sense like those of Touch or Taste -(which no one can fairly maintain that any of our -moral perceptions really resemble).</p> - -<p class='c010'>“But though neither the true source of our <em>Knowledge</em> of -Moral Distinctions nor yet the right <em>Motive</em> why we are to -choose the Good, this Moral Sense of Pleasure in Virtue, -and Pain in Vice, is a psychological fact demanding the -investigation of the Moralist. Moreover, the error of -allowing our moral choice to be decided by a regard to the -pure joy of Virtue or awful pangs of self-condemnation, is -<span class='pageno' id='Page_127'>127</span>an error so venial in comparison of other moral heresies, -and so easily to be confounded with a truer principle of -Morals, that it is particularly necessary to warn generous -natures against it. ‘It is quite beyond the grasp of human -thought,’ says Kant, ‘to explain how reason can be -practical; how the mere Morality of the law, independently -of every object man can be interested in, can itself beget -an interest which is purely Ethical; how a naked thought, -containing in it nothing of the sensory, can bring forth an -emotion of pleasure or pain.’</p> - -<p class='c010'>“Unconsciously this Sense of Pleasure in a Virtuous Act, -the thought of the peace of conscience which will follow it, -or the dread of remorse for its neglect, must mingle with -our motives. But we can never be permitted, consciously -to exhibit them to ourselves as the ground of our resolution -to obey the Law. That Law is not valid for man because -it interests him, but it interests him because it has validity -for him—because it springs from his true being, his proper -self. The interest he feels is an Effect, not a Cause; a -Contingency, not a Necessity. Were he to obey the Law -merely from this Interest, it would not be free Self-legislation -(autonomy), but (heteronomy) subservience of the Pure -Will to a lower faculty—a Sense of Pleasure. And, practically, -we may perceive that all manner of mischiefs and -absurdities must arise if a man set forth Moral Pleasure as -the determinator of his Will....</p> - -<p class='c010'>“Thus, the maxim of Euthumism, ‘<em>Be virtuous for the sake -of the Moral Pleasure of Virtue</em>,’ may be pronounced false.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“2nd. Public Eudaimonism sets forth, both as the ground -of our knowledge of Virtue and the motive for our practice -of it, ‘<em>The Greatest Happiness of the Greatest Number</em>.’ -This Happiness, as Paley understood it, is composed of -Pleasures to be estimated only by their Intensity and -Duration; or, as Bentham added, by their Certainty, -Propinquity, Fecundity, and Purity (or freedom from -admixture of evil).</p> - -<p class='c010'>“Let it be granted for argument’s sake, that the calculable -Happiness resulting from actions can determine their -<span class='pageno' id='Page_128'>128</span>Virtue (although all experience teaches that resulting -Happiness is not calculable, and that the Virtue must at -least be one of the items determining the resulting -Happiness). On the Utilitarian’s own assumption, what sort -of motive for Virtue can be his end of ‘<em>The Greatest -Happiness of the Greatest Number</em>?’</p> - -<p class='c010'>“No sooner had Paley laid down the grand principle of his -system, ‘<cite>Whatever is Expedient is Right</cite>,’ than he proceeds -(as he thinks) to guard against its malapplication by -arguing that nothing is expedient which produces, along -with <em>particular</em> good consequences, <em>general</em> bad ones, and -that this is done by the violation of any general rule. ‘You -cannot,’ says he, ‘permit one action, and forbid another -without showing a difference between them. Consequently -the same sort of actions must be generally permitted or -generally forbidden. Where therefore, the general permission -of them would be pernicious, it becomes necessary -to lay down and support the rule which generally forbids -them.’</p> - -<p class='c010'>“Now, let the number of experienced consequences of -actions be ever so great, it must be admitted that the -Inductions we draw therefrom can, at the utmost, be only -provisional, and subject to revision should new facts be -brought in to bear in an opposite scale....</p> - -<p class='c010'>“Further, the rules induced by experience must be not -only provisional, but partial. The lax term ‘general’ -misleads us. A Moral Rule must be either universal and -open to no exception, or, properly speaking, no <em>rule</em> at all. -Each case of Morals stands alone.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“Thus, the Experimentalist’s conclusion, for example, -that ‘Lying does more harm than good,’ may be quite -remodelled by the fortunate discovery of so prudent a kind -of falsification as shall obviate the mischief and leave the -advantage. No doubt can remain on the mind of any -student of Paley, that this would have been his own line of -argument: ‘If we can only prove that a lie be expedient, -then it becomes a duty to lie.’ As he says himself of the -rule (which if any rule may do so may surely claim to be -<span class='pageno' id='Page_129'>129</span>general) ‘Do not do evil that good may come,’ that it is -‘salutary, for the most part, the advantage seldom compensating -for the violation of the rule.’ So to do evil is -sometimes salutary, and does now and then compensate for -disregarding even the Eudaimonist’s last resource—a -General Rule!</p> - -<p class='c010'>“2nd. Private Eudaimonism. There are several formulas, -in which this system, (the lowest, but the most logical, of -Moral heresies) is embodied. Rutherford puts it thus: -‘Every man’s Happiness is the ultimate end which Reason -teaches him to pursue, and the constant and uniform -practice of Virtue towards all mankind becomes our duty, -when Revelation has informed us that God will make us -finally happy in a life after this.’ Paley (who properly -belongs to this school, but endeavours frequently to seat -himself on the corners of the stools of Euthumism and -Public Eudaimonism), Paley, the standard Moralist of -England,<a id='r11' /><a href='#f11' class='c013'><sup>[11]</sup></a> defines Virtue thus: ‘<em>Virtue is the doing good to -mankind in obedience to the will of God, and for the sake of -Everlasting Happiness</em>. According to which definition, the -good of mankind is the subject; the will of God the rule; -and Everlasting Happiness the motive of Virtue.’</p> - -<p class='c010'>“Yet it seems to me, that if there be any one truth -which intuition does teach us more clearly than another, -it is precisely this one—that Virtue to be Virtue must be -disinterested. The moment we picture any species of -reward becoming the bait of our Morality, that moment we -see the holy flame of Virtue annihilated in the noxious gas. -A man is not Virtuous at all who is honest because it is -‘good policy,’ beneficent from love of approbation, pious -for the sake of heaven. All this is prudence not virtue, -selfishness not self-sacrifice. If he be honest for sake of -policy, would he be dishonest, if it could be proved that it -were more politic? If he would <em>not</em>, then he is not really -honest from policy but from some deeper principle thrust -<span class='pageno' id='Page_130'>130</span>into the background of his consciousness. If he <em>would</em>, -then it is idlest mockery to call that honesty Virtuous -which only waits a bribe to become dishonest.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“But there are many Eudaimonists who will be ready to -acknowledge that a prudent postponement of our happiness -in <em>this</em> world cannot constitute virtue. But wherefore do -they say we are to postpone it? Not for present pleasure -or pain, that would be base; but for that anticipation of -future pleasure or pain which we call Hope and Fear. And -this, not for the Hope and Fear of this world, which are -still admitted to be base motives; but for Hope and Fear -extended one step beyond the tomb—the Hope of Heaven -and the Fear of Hell.”</p> - -<p class='c006'>After a general glance at the doctrine of Future Rewards -and Punishments as held by Christians and heathens, I go -on to argue:</p> - -<p class='c008'>“But in truth this doctrine of the Hope of Heaven being -the true Motive of Virtue is (at least in theory) just as -destructive of Virtue as that which makes the rewards of -this life—health, wealth, or reputation—the motive of it. -Well says brave Kingsley:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c020'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>‘Is selfishness for time a sin,</div> - <div class='line'>Stretched out into eternity celestial prudence?’</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c010'>“If to act for a small reward cannot be virtuous, to act -for a large one can certainly merit no more. To be bribed -by a guinea is surely no better than to be bribed by a -penny. To be deterred from ruin by fear of transportation -for life, is no more noble than to be deterred by fear of -twenty-four hours in prison. There is no use multiplying -illustrations. He who can think that Virtue is the doing right -for pay, may think himself very judicious to leave his pay -in the savings-bank now and come into a fortune all at -once by and by; but he who thinks that Virtue is the doing -right for Right’s own sake, cannot possibly draw a distinction -<span class='pageno' id='Page_131'>131</span>between small bribes and large ones; a reward to be given -to-day, and a reward to be given in eternity.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“Nevertheless it cannot be denied that the belief in -immortal progress is of incalculable value. Such belief, -and that in an ever-present God, may be called the two -wings of human Virtue. I look on the advantages of a faith -in immortality to be two-fold. First, it cuts the knot of the -world, and gives to our apprehension a God whose providence -need no longer perplex us, and whose immeasurable and -never-ending goodness shines ever brighter before our -contemplating souls. Secondly, it gives an importance to -personal progress which we can hardly attribute to it so -long as we deem it is to be arrested for ever by death. The -man who does not believe in Immortality may be, and often -actually is, more virtuous than his neighbour; and it is -quite certain that his Virtue is of far purer character than -that which bargains for Heaven as its pay. But his task is -a very hard one, a task without a result; and his road a -dreary one, unenlightened even by the distant dawn of</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c020'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>‘That great world of light which lies</div> - <div class='line'>Behind all human destinies.’</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c021'>We can scarcely do him better service than by leading him -to trust that intuition of Immortality which is written in -the heart of the human race by that Hand which writes no -falsehoods.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“But if the attainment of Heaven be no true motive for -the pursuit of Virtue, surely I may be held excused from -denouncing that practice of holding out the fear of Hell -wherewith many fill up the measure of moral degradation? -Here it is vain to suppose that the fear is that of the -immortality of sin and banishment from God; as we are -sometimes told the hope of Heaven is that of an immortality -of Virtue and union with Him. The mind which -sinks to the debasement of any Fear is already below the -level at which sin and estrangement are terrors. It is -his weakness of will which alone hinders the Prodigal from -saying, ‘I will arise and go to my Father,’ and unless we -<span class='pageno' id='Page_132'>132</span>can strengthen that Will by some different motive, it is idle -to threaten him with its own persistence.</p> - -<hr class='c022' /> - -<p class='c010'>“Returning from the contemplation of the lowness of -aim common to all the forms of Eudaimonism, how -magnificent seems the grand and holy doctrine of true -Intuitive Morality? <span class='sc'>Do Right for the Right’s own -sake</span>: Love God and Goodness because they are Good! -The soul seems to awake from death at such archangel’s -call as this, and mortal man puts on his rightful immortality. -The prodigal grovels no longer, seeking for Happiness amid -the husks of pleasure; but, ‘coming to himself,’ he arises -and goes to his Father, heedless if it be but as the lowest -of His servants he may yet dwell beneath that Father’s -smile. Hope and fear for this life or the next, mercenary -bargainings, and labour of eye-service, all are at end. He is -a Freeman, and free shall be the oblation of his soul and -body, the reasonable, holy, and acceptable sacrifice.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“O Living Soul! wilt thou follow that mighty hand, -and obey that summons of the trumpet? Perchance -thou hast reached life’s solemn noon, and with the -bright hues of thy morning have faded away the -beautiful aspirations of thy youth. Doubtless thou hast -often struggled for the Right; but, weary with frequent -overthrows, thou criest, ‘This also is vanity.’ But think -again, O Soul, whose sun shall never set! Have no poor -and selfish ambitions mingled with those struggles and made -them vanity? Have no theologic dogmas from which thy -maturer reason revolts, been blended with thy purer -principle? Hast thou nourished no extravagant hope of -becoming suddenly sinless, or of heaping up with an hour’s -labour a mountain of benefits on thy race? Surely some -mistake like these lies at the root of all moral discouragement. -But mark:—</p> - -<p class='c010'>“Pure morals forbid all base and selfish motives—all -happiness-seeking, fame-seeking, love-seeking—in this world -or the next, as motives of Virtue. Pure Morals rest not on -<span class='pageno' id='Page_133'>133</span>any traditional dogma, not on history, on philology, on -criticism, but on those intuitions, clear as the axioms of -geometry, which thine own soul finds in its depths, and -knows to be necessary truths, which, short of madness, it -cannot disbelieve.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“Pure Morals offer no panacea to cure in a moment all the -diseases of the human heart, and transform the sinner into -the saint. They teach that the passions, which are the -machinery of our moral life, are not to be miraculously -annihilated, but by slow and unwearying endeavour to be -brought into obedience to the Holy Will; while to fall and -rise again many a time in the path of virtue is the inevitable -lot of every pilgrim therein.... Our hearts burn -within us when for a moment the vision rises before our -sight of what we might make our life even here upon earth. -Faintly can any words picture that vision!</p> - -<p class='c010'>“A life of Benevolence, in which every word of our lips, -every work of our hands, had been a contribution to human -virtue or human happiness; a life in which, ever wider and -warmer through its three score years and ten had grown our -pure, unwavering, Godlike Love, till we had spread the -same philanthropy through a thousand hearts ere we passed -away from earth to love yet better still our brethren in -the sky.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“A life of Personal Virtue, in which every evil disposition -had been trampled down, every noble sentiment called -forth and strengthened; a life in which, leaving day by day -further behind us the pollutions of sin, we had also ascended -daily to fresh heights of purity, till self-conquest, unceasingly -achieved, became continually more secure and -more complete, and at last—</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c020'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>‘The lordly Will o’er its subject powers</div> - <div class='line'>Like a thronèd God prevailed,’</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c021'>and we could look back upon the great task of earth, and -say, ‘It is finished!’</p> - -<p class='c010'>“A life of Religion, in which the delight in God’s presence, -the reverence for His moral attributes, the desire to obey -<span class='pageno' id='Page_134'>134</span>His Will, and the consciousness of His everlasting love, had -grown continually clearer and stronger, and of which -Prayer, deepest and intensest, had been the very heart and -nucleus, till we had found God drawing ever nearer to us -as we drew near to him, and vouchsafing to us a communion -the bliss of which no human speech may ever tell; -the dawning of that day of adoration which shall grow -brighter and brighter still while all the clusters of the suns -fade out and die.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“And turning from our own destiny, from the endless -career opened to our Benevolence, our Personal Virtue, and -our Piety, we take in a yet broader view, and behold the -whole universe of God mapped out in one stupendous Plan -of Love. In the abyss of the past eternity we see the -Creator for ever designing and for ever accomplishing the -supremest end at which infinite Justice and Goodness could -aim, and absolute Wisdom and Power bring to pass. For -this end, for the Virtue of all finite Intelligences, we behold -Him building up millions of starry abodes and peopling -them with immortal spirits clothed in the garbs of flesh, -and endowed with that moral freedom whose bestowal was -the highest boon of Omnipotence. As ages of millenniums -roll away, we see a double progress working through all -the realms of space; a progress of each race and of each -individual. Slowly and securely, though with many an -apparent retrogression, does each world-family become -better, wiser, nobler, happier. Slowly and securely, though -with many a grievous backsliding, each living soul grows -up to Virtue. Nor pauses that awful march for a moment, -even in the death of the being or the cataclysm of the -world. Over all Death and Change reigns that Almighty -changeless will which has decreed the holiness and happiness -of every spirit He hath made. Through the gates of -the grave, and on the ruins of worlds, shall those spirits -climb, higher and yet higher through the infinite ages, -nearer and yet nearer to Goodness and to God.”</p> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_135'>135</span> - <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER<br /> VI.<br /> <span class='large'><em>IRELAND IN THE FORTIES.</em><br /> <em>THE PEASANTRY.</em></span></h2> -</div> - -<p class='c006'><span class='pageno' id='Page_137'>137</span>The prominence which Irish grievances have taken of late -years in English politics has caused me often to review with -fresh eyes the state of the country as it existed in my -childhood and youth, when, of course, both the good and evil -of it appeared to me to be part of the order of nature itself.</p> - -<p class='c007'>I will first speak of the condition of the working classes, -then of the gentry and clergy.</p> - -<p class='c007'>I had considerable opportunities for many years of hearing -and seeing all that was going on in our neighbourhood, which -was in the district known as “Fingal” (the White Strangers’ -land), having been once the territory of the Danes. Fingal -extends along the sea-coast between Dublin and Drogheda, -and our part lay exactly between Malahide and Rush. My -father, and at a later time my eldest brother, were -indefatigable as magistrates, Poor law Guardians and landlords, -in their efforts to relieve the wants and improve the -condition of the people; and it fell on me naturally, as the -only active woman of the family, to play the part of Lady -Bountiful on a rather large scale. There was my father’s -own small village of Donabate in the first place, claiming my -attention; and beyond it a larger straggling collection of mud -cabins named “Balisk”; the landlord of which, Lord -Trimleston, was an absentee, and the village a centre of -fever and misery. In Donabate there was never any real -distress. In every house there were wage-earners or -pensioners enough to keep the wolf from the door. Only -when sickness came was there need for extra food, wine, and -<span class='pageno' id='Page_138'>138</span>so on. The wages of a field-labourer were, at that time, -about 8s. a week; of course without keep. His diet consisted -of oatmeal porridge, wheaten griddle-bread, potatoes and -abundance of buttermilk. The potatoes, before the Famine, -were delicious tubers. Many of the best kinds disappeared -at that time (notably I recall the “Black Bangers”), and -the Irish housewife cooked them in a manner which no -English or French <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Cordon Bleu</span></i> can approach. I remember -constantly seeing little girls bringing the mid-day dinners -to their fathers, who sat in summer under the trees, and in -winter in a comfortable room in our stable-yard, with fire and -tables and chairs. The cloth which carried the dinner being -removed there appeared a plate of “smiling” potatoes (<em>i.e.</em>, -with cracked and peeling skins) and in the midst a <em>well</em> of -about a sixth of a pound of butter. Along with the plate of -potatoes was a big jug of milk, and a hunch of griddle-bread. -On this food the men worked in summer from six (or earlier, -if mowing was to be done) till breakfast, and from thence -till one o’clock. After an hour’s dinner the great bell tolled -again, and work went on till 6. In winter there was no -cessation of work from 8 a.m. till 5 p.m., when it ended. -Of course these long hours of labour in the fields, without -the modern interruptions, were immensely valuable on the -farm. I do not think I err in saying that my father had -thirty per cent. more profitable labour from his men for 8s. -a week, than is now to be had from labourers at 16s.; at all -events where I live here, in Wales. It is fair to note that -beside their wages my father’s men, and also the old women -whose daughters (eight in number) worked in the shrubberies -and other light work all the year round, were allowed each -the grazing of a cow on his pastures, and were able to get -coal from the ships he chartered every winter from Whitehaven -for 11s. a ton, drawn to the village by his horses. At -Christmas an ox was divided among them, and generally -<span class='pageno' id='Page_139'>139</span>also a good quantity of frieze for the coats of the men, and -for the capes of the eight “Amazons.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>I cannot say what amount of genuine loyalty really existed -among our people at that time. Outwardly, it appeared -they were happy and contented, though, in talking to the old -people, one never failed to hear lamentations for the “good -old times” of the past generations. In those times, as we -knew very well, nothing like the care we gave to the wants -of the working classes was so much as dreamed of by our -forefathers. But they kept open house, where all comers -were welcome to eat and drink in the servants’ hall when -they came up on any pretext; and this kind of hospitality -has ever been a supreme merit in Celtic eyes. Some readers -will remember that the famous chieftainess, Grana Uaile, -invading Howth in one of her piratical expeditions in the -“spacious times of great Elizabeth,” found the gates of the -ancient castle of the St. Lawrences, closed, <em>though it was -dinner-time</em>! Indignant at this breach of decency, Grana -Uaile kidnapped the heir of the lordly house and carried -him to her robbers’ fortress in Connaught, whence she only -released him in subsequent years on the solemn engagement -of the Lords of Howth always to dine with the doors of -Howth Castle wide open. I believe it is not more than 50 -years, if so much, since this practice was abolished.</p> - -<p class='c007'>I think the only act of “tyranny” with which I was -charged when I kept my father’s house, and which provoked -violent recalcitration, was when I gave orders that men -coming from our mountains to Newbridge on business with -“the Master” should be served with largest platefuls of meat -and jugs of beer, but should not be left in the servants’ hall -<i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">en tête-à-tête</span></i> with whole rounds and sirloins of beef, of which -no account could afterwards be obtained!</p> - -<p class='c007'>Of course, the poor labourer in Ireland at that time after -the failure of the potatoes, who had no allowances, and had -<span class='pageno' id='Page_140'>140</span>many young children unable to earn anything for themselves, -was cruelly tightly placed. I shall copy here a calculation -which I took down in a note-book, still in my possession, -after sifting enquiries concerning prices at our village shops, -in, or about, the year 1845:—</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line in6'>Wheatmeal  costs 2s. 3d. per stone of 14 lbs.</div> - <div class='line in6'>Oatmeal    costs 2s. 4d. per stone of 14 lbs.</div> - <div class='line in6'>India meal costs 1s. 8d. per stone of 14 lbs.</div> - <div class='line in4'>14 lbs. of wheatmeal makes 18 lbs. of griddle-bread.</div> - <div class='line in4'>1 lb. of oatmeal makes 3 lbs. of stirabout.</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>A man will require   4 lbs. food per day 28 lbs. per week.</div> - <div class='line'>A woman will require 3 lbs. food per day 21 lbs. per week.</div> - <div class='line'>Each child at least  2 lbs. food per day 14 lbs. per week.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c007'>A family of 3 will therefore require 63 lbs. of food per -week—<em>e.g.</em>,</p> - -<table class='table1' summary=''> - <tr> - <th class='c015'></th> - <th class='c023'> </th> - <th class='c024'><em>s.</em></th> - <th class='c025'><em>d.</em></th> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c015'>1 stone wheat—</td> - <td class='c023'>18 lbs. bread</td> - <td class='c024'>2</td> - <td class='c025'>3</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c015'>1 stone oatmeal—</td> - <td class='c023'>42 lbs. stirabout</td> - <td class='c024'>2</td> - <td class='c025'>4</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c015'> </td> - <td class='c023'><hr /></td> - <td class='c024'><hr /></td> - <td class='c025'><hr /></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c015'> </td> - <td class='c023'>60 lbs. food; cost</td> - <td class='c024'>4</td> - <td class='c025'>7</td> - </tr> -</table> - -<p class='c007'>A family of 5 will require—</p> - -<table class='table1' summary=''> - <tr> - <td class='c015'>Man</td> - <td class='c026'>28 lbs.</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c015'>Wife</td> - <td class='c026'>21 lbs.</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c015'>3 children</td> - <td class='c026'>42 lbs.</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c015'> </td> - <td class='c026'><hr /></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c015'> </td> - <td class='c026'>91 lbs. food.</td> - </tr> -</table> - -<table class='table1' summary=''> - <tr><td class='c027' colspan='4'><em>s.</em> <em>d.</em></td></tr> - <tr> - <td class='c024'>Say</td> - <td class='c015'>30 lbs. bread—23 lbs. wheatmeal</td> - <td class='c014'>3</td> - <td class='c028'>10</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c024'> </td> - <td class='c015'>61 lbs. stirabout—20 lbs. oatmeal</td> - <td class='c014'>3</td> - <td class='c028'>4</td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c024'> </td> - <td class='c015'><hr /></td> - <td class='c014'><hr /></td> - <td class='c028'><hr /></td> - </tr> - <tr> - <td class='c024'> </td> - <td class='c015'>91 lbs.</td> - <td class='c014'>7</td> - <td class='c028'>2</td> - </tr> -</table> - -<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_141'>141</span>Thus, when a man had five children to support, and no -potatoes, his weekly wages scarcely covered bare food.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Before the Famine and the great fever, the population of -our part of Ireland was exceedingly dense; more than 200 -to the square mile. There were an enormous number of mud -cabins consisting of one room only, run up at every corner -of the roadside and generally allowed to sink into miserable -squat, <em>sottish</em>-looking hovels with no drainage at all; mud -floor; broken thatch, two or three rough boards for a door; -and the four panes of the sole window stuffed with rags or -an old hat. Just 500,000 of these one-roomed cabins, the -Registrar-General, Mr. William Donelly, told me, disappeared -between the census before, and the census after the Famine! -Nothing was easier than to run them up. Thatch was cheap, -and mud abundant, everywhere; and as to the beams (they -called them “<em>bames</em>”), I remember a man addressing my -father coaxingly, “Ah yer Honour will ye plaze spake to the -steward to give me a ‘<em>handful of sprigs</em>?’” “A handful of -<em>sprigs</em>? What for?” asked my father; “Why for the roof of -me new little house, yer Honour, that I’m building fornenst -the ould wan!”</p> - -<p class='c007'>I never saw in an Irish cottage any of the fine old oak -settles, dressers and armchairs and coffers to be found usually -in Welsh ones. A good unpainted deal dresser and table, -a wooden bedstead, a couple of wooden chairs, and two or -three straw “bosses” (stools) made like beehives, completed -the furniture of a well-to-do cabin, with a range of white or -willow-pattern plates on the dresser, and two or three frightfully -coloured woodcuts pasted on the walls for adornment. -Flowers in the gardens or against the walls were never to be -seen. Enormous chimney corners, with wooden stools or -straw “bosses” under the projecting walls, were the most -noticeable feature. Nothing seems to be more absurd and -unhistorical than the common idea that the Celt is a beauty-loving -<span class='pageno' id='Page_142'>142</span>creature, æsthetically far above the Saxon. If he be -so, it is surprising that his home, his furniture, his dress, his -garden never show the smallest token of his taste! When -the young girls from the villages, even from very respectable -families, were introduced into our houses, it was a severe -tax on the housekeepers’ supervision to prevent them from -resorting to the most outrageous shifts and misuse of utensils -of all sorts. I can recall, for example, one beautiful young -creature with the lovely Irish grey eyes and long lashes, -and with features so fine that we privately called her -“Madonna.” For about two years she acted as housemaid -to my second brother, who, as I have mentioned, -had taken a place in Donegal, and whose excellent London -cook, carefully trained “Madonna” into what were (outwardly) -ways of pleasantness for her master. At last, and -when apparently perfectly “domesticated”—as English -advertisers describe themselves,—Madonna married the -cowman; and my brother took pleasure in setting up the -young couple in a particularly neat and rather lonely cottage -with new deal furniture. After six months they emigrated; -and when my brother visited their deserted house he found it -in a state of which it will suffice to record one item. The -pig had slept all the time under the bedstead; and no attempt -had been made to remove the resulting heap of manure!</p> - -<p class='c007'>My father had as strong a sense as any modern sanitary -reformer of the importance of good and healthy cottages; -and having found his estate covered with mud and thatched -cabins, he (and my brother after him) laboured incessantly, -year by year, to replace them by mortared stone and slated -cottages, among which were five schoolhouses supported -by himself. As it was my frequent duty to draw for him the -plans and elevations of these cottages, farmhouses and village -shops, with calculations of the cost of each, it may be guessed -how truly absurd it seems to me to read exclusively, as I do -<span class='pageno' id='Page_143'>143</span>so often now, of “tenants’ improvements” in Ireland. -It is true that my father occasionally let, on long -leases and without fines, large farms (of the finest wheat-land -in Ireland, within ten miles of Dublin market), at the price -of £2 per Irish acre, with the express stipulation that the -tenant should undertake the re-building of the house or farm-buildings -as the case might be. But these were, of course, -perfectly just bargains, made with well-to-do farmers, who -made excellent profits. I have already narrated in an earlier -chapter, how he sold the best pictures among his heirlooms—one -by Hobbema now in Dorchester House and one by -Gaspar Poussin,—to rebuild some eighty cottages on his -mountains. These cottages had each a small farm attached -to it, which was generally held at will, but often continued -to the tenants’ family for generations. The rent was, in -some cases I think, as low as thirty or forty shillings a -year; and the tenants contrived to make a fair living with -sheep and potatoes; cutting their own turf on the bog, -and very often earning a good deal by storing ice in the -winter from the river Dodder, and selling it in Dublin in -summer. I remember one of them who had been allowed -to fall into arrears of rent to the extent of £3, which he -loudly protested he could not pay, coming to my father to -ask his help as a magistrate to recover <em>forty pounds</em>, which -an ill-conditioned member of his family had stolen from him -out of the usual Irish private hiding-place “under the -thatch.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>But outside my father’s property, when we passed into the -next villages on either side, Swords or Rush or Balisk, the -state of things was bad enough. I will give a detailed -description of the latter village, some of which was written -when the memory of the scene and people was less remote, -than now. It is the most complete picture of Irish poverty, -fifty years ago, which I can offer.</p> - -<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_144'>144</span>Balisk was certainly <em>not</em> the “loveliest village of the plain.” -Situated partly on the edge of an old common, partly on -the skirts of the domain of a nobleman who had not visited -his estate for thirty years, it enjoyed all the advantages of -freedom from restraint upon the architectual genius of its -builders. The result was a long crooked, straggling street, -with mud cabins turned to it, and from it, in every possible -angle of incidence: some face to face, some back to back, -some sideways, some a little retired so as to admit of a -larger than ordinary heap of manure between the door and -the road. Such is the ground-plan of Balisk. The cabins -were all of mud, with mud floors and thatched roofs; some -containing one room only, others two, and, perhaps, half-a-dozen, -three rooms: all, very literally, on the ground; that -is on the bare earth. Furniture, of course, was of the -usual Irish description: a bed (sometimes having a bedstead, -oftener consisting of a heap of straw on the floor), -a table, a griddle, a kettle, a stool or two and a boss -of straw, with occasionally a grand adjunct of a settle; a -window whose normal condition was being stuffed with -an old hat; a door, over and under and around which all -the winds and rains of heaven found their way; a population -consisting of six small children, a bedridden grandmother, a -husband and wife, a cock and three hens, a pig, a dog, and a -cat. Lastly, a decoration of coloured prints, including the -Virgin with seven swords in her heart, St. Joseph, the story -of Dives and Lazarus, and a caricature of a man tossed by a -bull, and a fat woman getting over a stile.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Of course as Balisk lies in the lowest ground in the -neighbourhood and the drains were originally planned to run -at “their own sweet will,” the town (as its inhabitants call -it) is subject to the inconvenience of being about two feet -under water whenever there are any considerable floods of -rain. I have known a case of such a flood entering the door -<span class='pageno' id='Page_145'>145</span>and rising into the bed of a poor woman in childbirth, as in -Mr. Macdonald’s charming story of Alec Forbes. The -woman, whom I knew, however, did not die, but gave -to the world that night a very fine little child, whom I -subsequently saw scampering along the roads with true Irish -hilarity. At other times, when there were no floods, only -the usual rains, Balisk presented the spectacle of a filthy -green stream slowly oozing down the central street, -now and then draining off under the door of any particularly -lowly-placed cabin to form a pool in the floor, -and finally terminating in a lake of stagnant abomination -under the viaduct of a railway. Yes, reader! a railway ran -through Balisk, even while the description I have given of it -held true in every respect. The only result it seemed to -have effected in the village was the formation of the Stygian -pool above-mentioned, where, heretofore, the stream had -escaped into a ditch.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Let us now consider the people who dwelt amid all this -squalor. They were mostly field-labourers, working for the -usual wages of seven or eight shillings a week. Many of -them held their cabins as freeholds, having built or inherited -them from those who had “squatted” unmolested on the -common. A few paid rent to the noble landlord before-mentioned. -Work was seldom wanting, coals were cheap, -excellent schools were open for the children at a penny a -week a head. Families which had not more than three or -four mouths to fill besides the breadwinners’, were not in -absolute want, save when disease, or a heavy snow, or a -flood, or some similar calamity arrived. Then, down on the -ground, poor souls, literally and metaphorically, they could -fall no lower, and a week was enough to bring them to the -verge of starvation.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Let me try to recall some of the characters of the -inhabitants of Balisk in the Forties.</p> - -<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_146'>146</span>Here in the first cabin is a comfortable family where there -are three sons at work, and mother and three daughters at -home. Enter at any hour there is a hearty welcome and -bright jest ready. Here is the schoolmaster’s house, a little -behind the others, and back to back with them. It has an -attempt at a curtain for the window, a knocker for the door. -The man is a curious deformed creature, of whom more will -be said hereafter. The wife is what is called in Ireland a -“Voteen;” a person given to religion, who spends most of -her time in the chapel or repeating prayers, and who wears -as much semblance of black as her poor means may allow. -Balisk, be it said, is altogether Catholic and devout. It is -honoured by the possession of what is called “The Holy -Griddle.” Perhaps my readers have heard of the Holy -Grail, the original sacramental chalice so long sought -by the chivalry of the middle ages, and may ask if the -Holy Griddle be akin thereto? I cannot trace any -likeness. A “griddle,” as all the Irish and Scotch -world knows, is a circular iron plate, on which the common -unleavened cakes of wheatmeal and oatmeal are baked. -The Holy Griddle of Balisk was one of these utensils, which -was bequeathed to the village under the following circumstances. -Years ago, probably in the last century, a poor, -“lone widow” lay on her death-bed. She had none to pray -for her after she was gone, for she was childless and altogether -desolate; neither had she any money to give to the priest to -pray for her soul. Yet the terrors of purgatory were near. -How should she escape them? She possessed but one object -of any value—a griddle, whereon she was wont to bake the -meal of the wheat she gleaned every harvest to help her -through the winter. So the widow left her griddle as a legacy -to the village for ever, on one condition. It was to pass -from hand to hand as each might want it, but every one who -used her griddle was to say a prayer for her soul. Years had -<span class='pageno' id='Page_147'>147</span>passed away, but the griddle was still in my time in constant -use, as “the best griddle in the town.” The cakes baked on -the Holy Griddle were twice as good as any others. May -the poor widow who so simply bequeathed it have found long -ago “rest for her soul” better than any prayers have asked -for her, even the favourite Irish prayer, “May you sit in -heaven on a golden chair!”</p> - -<p class='c007'>Here is another house, where an old man lives with his -sister. The old woman is the Mrs. Gamp of Balisk. Patrick -Russell has a curious story attached to him. Having -laboured long and well on my father’s estate, the latter -finding him grow rheumatic and helpless, pensioned him with -his wages for life, and Paddy retired to the enjoyment of -such privacy as Balisk might afford. Growing more and -more helpless, he at last for some years hobbled about feebly -on crutches, a confirmed cripple. One day, with amazement, -I saw him walking without his crutches, and tolerably -firmly, up to Newbridge House. My father went to speak to -him, and soon returned, saying: “Here is a strange thing. -Paddy Russell says he has been to Father Mathew, and -Father Mathew has blessed him, and he is cured! He came -to tell me he wished to give up his pension, since he returns -to work at Smith’s farm next week.” Very naturally, and -as might be expected, poor Paddy, three weeks later, was -again helpless, and a suppliant for the restoration of his -pension, which was of course immediately renewed. But -one who had witnessed only the scene of the long-known -cripple walking up stoutly to decline his pension (the very -best possible proof of his sincere belief in his own recovery) -might well be excused for narrating the story as a miracle -wrought by a true moral reformer, the Irish “Apostle of -Temperance.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>Next door to Paddy Russell’s cabin stood “The Shop,” a -cabin a trifle better than the rest, where butter, flour, and -<span class='pageno' id='Page_148'>148</span>dip candles, Ingy-male (Indian meal), and possibly a small -quantity of soap, were the chief objects of commerce. -Further on came a miserable hovel with the roof broken in, -and a pool of filth, <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">en permanence</span></i>, in the middle of the floor. -Here dwelt a miserable good-for-nothing old man and equally -good-for-nothing daughter; hopeless recipients of anybody’s -bounty. Opposite them, in a tidy little cabin, always as -clean as whitewash and sweeping could make its poor mud -walls and earthen floor, lived an old woman and her daughter. -The daughter was deformed, the mother a beautiful old -woman, bedridden, but always perfectly clean, and provided -by her daughter’s hard labour in the fields and cockle-gathering -on the sea-shore, with all she could need. After -years of devotion, when Mary was no longer young, the -mother died, and the daughter, left quite alone in the world, -was absolutely broken-hearted. Night after night she strayed -about the chapel-yard where her mother lay buried, hoping, -as she told me, to see her ghost.</p> - -<p class='c007'>“And do you think,” she asked, fixing her eyes on me, -“do you think I shall ever see her again? I asked Father -M—— would I see her in heaven? and all he said was, ‘I -should see her in the glory of God.’ What does that mean? -I don’t understand what it means. Will I see her <em>herself</em>—my -poor old mother?”</p> - -<p class='c007'>After long years, I found this faithful heart still yearning -to be re-united to the “poor old mother,” and patiently -labouring on in solitude, waiting till God should call her -home out of that little white cabin to one of the “many -mansions,” where her mother is waiting for her.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Here is a house where there are many sons and daughters -and some sort of prosperity. Here, again, is a house with -three rooms and several inmates, and in one room lives a -strange, tall old man, with something of dignity in his aspect. -He asked me once to come into his room, and showed me the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_149'>149</span>book over which all his spare hours seemed spent; “Thomas à -Kempis.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>“Ah, yes, that is a great book; a book full of beautiful -things.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>“Do you know it? do Protestants read it?”</p> - -<p class='c007'>“Yes, to be sure; we read all sorts of books.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>“I’m glad of it. It’s a comfort to me to think you read -this book.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>Here again is an old woman with hair as white as snow, -who deliberately informs me she is ninety-eight years of age, -and next time I see her, corrects herself, and “believes it is -eighty-nine, but it is all the same, she disremembers numbers.” -This poor old soul in some way hurt her foot, and after much -suffering was obliged to have half of it amputated. Strange -to say, she recovered, but when I congratulated her on the -happy event, I shall never forget the outbreak of true feminine -sentiment which followed. Stretching out the poor mutilated -and blackened limb, and looking at it with woeful compassion, -she exclaimed, “Ah, ma’am, but it will never be a <em>purty</em> foot -again!” Age, squalor, poverty, and even mutilation, had -not sufficed to quench that little spark of vanity which -“springs eternal in the (female) breast.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>Here, again, are half-a-dozen cabins, each occupied by -widows with one or more daughters; eight of whom form -my father’s pet corps of Amazons, always kept working about -the shrubberies and pleasure-grounds, or haymaking or any -light fieldwork; houses which, though poorest of all, are by -no means the most dirty or uncared for. Of course there are -dozens of others literally overflowing with children, children in -the cradle, children on the floor, children on the threshold, -children on the “midden” outside; rosy, bright, merry children, -who thrive with the smallest possible share of buttermilk and -stirabout, are utterly innocent of shoes and stockings, and -learn at school all that is taught to them at least half as fast -<span class='pageno' id='Page_150'>150</span>again as a tribe of little Saxons. Several of them in Balisk -are the adopted children of the people who provide for them. -First sent down by their parents (generally domestic servants) -to be nursed in that salubrious spot, after a year or two it -generally happened that the pay ceased, the parent was not -heard of, and the foster-mother and father would no more -have thought of sending the child to the Poor-house than of -sending it to the moon. The Poor-house, indeed, occupied a -very small space in the imagination of the people of Balisk. -It was beyond Purgatory, and hardly more real. Not that -the actual institution was conducted on other than the very -mildest principles, but there was a fearful Ordeal by Water—in -the shape of a warm bath—to be undergone on entrance; -there were large rooms with glaring windows, admitting a -most uncomfortable degree of light, and never shaded by any -broken hats or petticoats; there were also stated hours and -rules thoroughly disgusting to the Celtic mind, and, lastly, -for the women, there were caps without borders!</p> - -<p class='c007'>Yes! cruelty had gone so far (masculine guardians, however -compassionate, little recking the woe they caused), till at -length a wail arose—a clamour—almost a Rebellion! -“Would they make them wear caps without borders?” The -stern heart of manhood relented, and answered “No!”</p> - -<p class='c007'>But I must return to Balisk. Does any one ask, was -nothing done to ameliorate the condition of that wretched -place? Certainly; at all events there was much attempted. -Mrs. Evans, of Portrane, of whom I shall say more by and -by, built and endowed capital schools for both boys and girls, -and pensioned some of the poorest of the old people. My -father having a wholesome horror of pauperising, tried hard -at more complete reforms, by giving regular employment to -as many as possible, and aiding all efforts to improve the -houses. Not being the landlord of Balisk, however, he could -do nothing effectually, nor enforce any kind of sanitary -<span class='pageno' id='Page_151'>151</span>measures; so that while his own villages were neat, trim -and healthy, poor Balisk went on year after year deserving -the epithet it bore among us, of the Slough of Despond. -The failures of endeavours to mend it would form a -chapter of themselves. On one occasion my eldest -brother undertook the true task for a Hercules; to drain, -<em>not</em> the stables of Augeas, but the town of Balisk. The -result was that his main drain was found soon afterwards -effectually stopped up by the dam of an old beaver bonnet. -Again, he attempted to whitewash the entire village, but many -inhabitants objected to whitewash. Of course when any flood, -or snow, or storm came (and what wintry month did they -not come in Ireland?) I went to see the state of affairs at -Balisk, and provide what could be provided. And of course -when anybody was born, or married, or ill, or dead, or going -to America, in or from Balisk, embassies were sent to -Newbridge seeking assistance; money for burial or passage; -wine, meat, coals, clothes; and (strange to say), in cases -of death—always jam! The connection between dying and -wanting raspberry jam remained to the last a mystery, but -whatever was its nature, it was invariable. “Mary Keogh,” -or “Peter Reilly,” as the case might be, “isn’t expected, and -would be very thankful for some jam;” was the regular -message. Be it remarked that Irish delicacy has suggested -the euphuism of “isn’t expected” to signify that a person is -likely to die. What it is that he or she “is not expected” -to do, is never mentioned. When the supplicant was -not supposed to be personally known at Newbridge, or -a little extra persuasion was thought needful to cover too -frequent demands, it was commonly urged that the petitioner -was a “poor orphant,” commonly aged thirty or forty, or -else a “desolate widow.” The word desolate, however, being -always pronounced “dissolute,” the epithet proved less -affecting than it was intended to be. But absurd as their -<span class='pageno' id='Page_152'>152</span>words might sometimes be (and sometimes, on the contrary, -they were full of touching pathos and simplicity), the wants -of the poor souls were only too real, as we very well knew, -and it was not often that a petitioner from Balisk to -Newbridge went empty away.</p> - -<p class='c007'>But such help was only of temporary avail. The Famine -came and things grew worse. In poor families, that is, -families where there was only one man to earn and five or six -mouths to feed, the best wages given in the country proved -insufficient to buy the barest provision of food; wheatmeal -for “griddle” bread, oatmeal for stirabout, turnips -to make up for the lost potatoes. Strong men fainted -at their work in the fields, having left untasted for -their little children the food they needed so sorely. -Beggars from the more distressed districts (for Balisk -was in one of those which suffered least in Ireland) -swarmed through the country, and rarely, at the poorest -cabin, asked in vain for bread. Often and often have I seen -the master or mistress of some wretched hovel bring out the -“griddle cake,” and give half of it to some wanderer, who -answered simply with a blessing and passed on. Once I -remember passing by the house of a poor widow, who had -seven children of her own, and as if that were not enough, -had adopted an orphan left by her sister. At her cabin door -one day, I saw, propped up against her knees, a miserable -“traveller,” a wanderer from what a native of Balisk would -call “other nations; a bowzy villiain from other nations,” -that is to say, a village eight or ten miles away. The -traveller lay senseless, starved to the bone and utterly famine-stricken. -The widow tried tenderly to make him swallow a -spoonful of bread and water, but he seemed unable to make -the exertion. A few drops of whiskey by and by restored him -to consciousness. The poor “bowzy” leaned his head on -his hands and muttered feebly, “Glory be to God”! The -<span class='pageno' id='Page_153'>153</span>widow looked up, rejoicing, “Glory be to God, he’s saved -anyhow.” Of course all the neighbouring gentry joined in -extensive soup-kitchens and the like, and by one means or -other the hard years of famine were passed over.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Then came the Fever, in many ways a worse scourge than -the famine. Of course it fell heavily on such ill-drained -places as Balisk. After a little time, as each patient remained -ill for many weeks, it often happened that three or four were -in the fever in the same cabin, or even all the family at once, -huddled in the two or three beds, and with only such attendance -as the kindly neighbours, themselves overburdened, -could supply. Soon it became universally known that -recovery was to be effected only by improved food and wine; -not by drugs. Those whose condition was already good, and -who caught the fever, invariably died; those who were in a -depressed state, if they could be raised, were saved. It -became precisely a question of life and death how to supply -nourishment to all the sick. As the fever lasted on and on, -and re-appeared time after time, the work was difficult, seeing -that no stores of any sort could ever be safely intrusted to -Irish prudence and frugality.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Then came Smith O’Brien’s rebellion. The country was -excited. In every village (Balisk nowise behindhand) certain -clubs were formed, popularly called “Cutthroat Clubs,” for -the express purpose of purchasing pikes and organising the -expected insurrection in combination with leaders in Dublin. -Head-Centre of the club of Balisk was the ex-schoolmaster, -of whom we have already spoken. How he obtained that -honour I know not; possibly because he could write, which -most probably was beyond the achievements of any other -member of the institution; possibly also because he claimed -to be the lawful owner of the adjoining estate of Newbridge. -How the schoolmaster’s claim was proved to the satisfaction -of himself and his friends is a secret which, if revealed, would -<span class='pageno' id='Page_154'>154</span>probably afford a clue to much of Irish ambition. Nearly -every parish in Ireland has thus its lord <i><span lang="la" xml:lang="la">de facto</span></i>, who dwells -in a handsome house in the midst of a park, and another lord -who dwells in a mud-cabin in the village and is fully persuaded -he is the lord <i><span lang="la" xml:lang="la">de jure</span></i>. In the endless changes of ownership and -confiscation to which Irish land has been subjected, there is -always some heir of one or other of the dispossessed families, -who, if nothing had happened that did happen, and nobody -had been born of a score or two of persons who somehow, -unfortunately, were actually born, then he or she might, -could, would, or should have inherited the estate. In the -present case my ancestor had purchased the estate some 150 -years before from another English family who had held it for -some generations. When and where the poor Celtic schoolmaster’s -forefathers had come upon the field none pretended -to know. Anxious, however, to calm the minds of his -neighbours, my father thought fit to address them in a -paternal manifesto, posted about the different villages, -entreating them to forbear from entering the “Cutthroat -Clubs,” and pointing the moral of the recent death of the -Archbishop of Paris at the barricades. The result of this -step was that the newspaper, then published in Dublin under -the audacious name of <cite>The Felon</cite>, devoted half a column to -exposing my father by name to the hatred of good Clubbists, -and pointing him out as “one of the very first for whose -benefit the pikes were procured.” Boxes of pikes were -accordingly actually sent by the railway before mentioned, -and duly delivered to the Club; and still the threat -of rebellion rose higher, till even calm people like ourselves -began to wonder whether it were a volcano on which we -were treading, or the familiar mud of Balisk.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Newbridge, as described in the first chapter of this book, -bore some testimony to the troubles of the last century when -it was erected. There was a long corridor which had once -<span class='pageno' id='Page_155'>155</span>been all hung with weapons, and there was a certain board -in the floor of an inner closet which could be taken up when -desirable, and beneath which appeared a large receptacle -wherein the aforesaid weapons were stored in times of danger. -Stories of ’98 were familiar to us from infancy. There was -the story of Le Hunts of Wexford, when the daughter of the -family dreamed three times that the guns in her father’s hall -were all broken and, on inducing Colonel Le Hunt to examine -them, the dream was found to be true and his own butler the -traitor. Horrible stories were there, also, of burnings and -cardings (<em>i.e.</em>, tearing the back with the iron comb used in -carding wool); and nursery threats of rebels coming up back -stairs on recalcitrant “puckhawns” (naughty children—children -of Puck), insomuch that to “play at rebellion” had -been our natural resource as children. Born and bred in this -atmosphere, it seemed like a bad dream come true that there -were actual pikes imported into well-known cabins, and that -there were in the world men stupid and wicked enough to -wish to apply them to those who laboured constantly for their -benefit. Yet the papers teemed with stories of murders of -good and just landlords; yet threats each day more loud, -came with every post of what Smith O’Brien and his friends -would do if they but succeeded in raising the peasantry, alas! -all too ready to be raised. Looking over the miserable fiasco -of that “cabbage garden” rebellion now, it seems all too -ridiculous to have ever excited the least alarm. But at that -time, while none could doubt the final triumph of England, it -was very possible to doubt whether aid could be given by the -English Government before every species of violence might -be committed by the besotted peasantry at our gates.</p> - -<p class='c007'>I have been told on good authority that Smith O’Brien -made his escape from the police in the “habit” of an -Anglican Sisterhood, of which his sister, Hon. Mrs. Monsell, -was Superior.</p> - -<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_156'>156</span>A little incident which occurred at the moment rather -confirmed the idea that Balisk was transformed for the nonce -into a little Hecla; not under snow, but mud. I was -visiting the fever patients, and was detained late of a -summer’s evening in the village. So many were ill, there -seemed no end of sick to be supplied with food, wine and -other things needed. In particular, three together were ill -in a house already mentioned, where there were several -grown-up sons, and the people were somewhat better off -than usual, though by no means sufficiently so to be able to -procure meat or similar luxuries. Here I lingered, questioning -and prescribing, till at about nine o’clock my visit ended; -and I left money to procure some of the things required. -Next morning my father addressed me:—</p> - -<p class='c007'>“So you were at Balisk last night?”</p> - -<p class='c007'>“Yes, I was kept there.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>“You stayed in Tyrell’s house till nine o’clock?”</p> - -<p class='c007'>“Yes; how do you know?”</p> - -<p class='c007'>“You gave six and sixpence to the mother to get -provisions?”</p> - -<p class='c007'>“Yes; how do you know?”</p> - -<p class='c007'>“Well, very simply. The police were watching the door -and saw you through it. As soon as you were gone the -Club assembled there. They were waiting for your -departure; and the money you gave was subscribed to buy -pikes; of course to <em>pike me</em>!”</p> - -<p class='c007'>A week later, the bubble burst in the memorable Cabbage garden. -The rebel chiefs were leniently dealt with by the -Government, and their would-be rebel followers fell back into -all the old ways as if nothing had happened. What became -of the pikes no one knew. Possibly they exist in Balisk -still, waiting for a Home Rule Government to be brought forth. -At the end of a few months the poor schoolmaster, claimant -of Newbridge, died; and as I stood by his bedside and gave -<span class='pageno' id='Page_157'>157</span>him the little succour possible, the poor fellow lifted his eyes -full of meaning, and said, “To think <em>you</em> should come to help -me now!” It was the last reference made to the once-dreaded -rebellion.</p> - -<p class='c007'>After endless efforts my brother carried his point and -drained the whole village—beaver bonnets notwithstanding. -Whitewash became popular. “Middens” (as the Scotch call -them, the Irish have a simpler phrase) were placed more -frequently behind houses than in front of them. Costume -underwent some vicissitudes, among which the introduction -of shoes and stockings, among even the juvenile population, -was the most remarkable feature; a great change truly, -since I can remember an old woman, to whom my youngest -brother had given a pair, complaining that she had caught -cold in consequence of wearing, for the first time in her life, -those superfluous garments.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Many were drawn into the stream of the Exodus, and have -left the country. How helpless they are in their migrations, -poor souls! was proved by one sad story. A steady, good -young woman, whose sister had settled comfortably in New -York, resolved to go out to join her, and for the purpose took -her passage at an Emigration Agency office in Dublin. -Coming to make her farewell respects at Newbridge, the -following conversation ensued between her and myself:</p> - -<p class='c007'>“So, Bessie, you are going to America?”</p> - -<p class='c007'>“Yes, ma’am, to join Biddy at New York. She wrote for -me to come, and sent the passage-money.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>“That is very good of her. Of course you have taken -your passage direct to New York?”</p> - -<p class='c007'>“Well, no, ma’am. The agent said there was no ship -going to New York, but one to some place close by, New-something-else.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>“New-something-else, near New York; I can’t think where -that could be.”</p> - -<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_158'>158</span>“Yes, ma’am, New—New—I disremember what it was, -but he told me I could get from it to New York -immadiently.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>“Oh, Bessie, it wasn’t New Orleans?”</p> - -<p class='c007'>“Yes, ma’am, that was it! New Orleans—New Orleans, -close to New York, he said.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>“And you have paid your passage-money?”</p> - -<p class='c007'>“Yes, ma’am, I must go there anyhow, now.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>“Oh, Bessie, Bessie, why would you never come to school -and learn geography? You are going to a terrible place, far -away from your sister. That wicked agent has cheated you -horribly.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>The poor girl went to New Orleans, and there died of -fever. The birds of passage and fish which pass from sea -to sea seem more capable of knowing what they are about -than the greater number of the emigrants driven by scarcely -less blind an instinct. Out of the three millions who are said -to have gone since the famine from Ireland to America, how -many must there have been who had no more knowledge -than poor Bessie Mahon of the land to which they went!</p> - -<p class='c007'>Before I conclude these reminiscences of Irish peasant life -in the Forties, I must mention an important feature of it—the -Priests. Most of those whom I saw in our villages were -disagreeable-looking men with the coarse mouth and jaw of -the Irish peasant undisguised by the beards and whiskers -worn by their lay brethren; and often the purple and bloated -appearance of their cheeks suggested too abundant diet of -bacon and whisky-punch. They worried me dreadfully by -clearing out all the Catholic children from my school every -now and then on the pretence of withdrawing them from -heretical instruction, though nothing was further from the -thoughts or wishes of any of us than proselytizing; nor was -a single charge ever formulated against our teachers of saying -a word to the children against their religion. What the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_159'>159</span>priests really wanted was to obstruct education itself and too -close and friendly intercourse with Protestants. For several -winters I used to walk down to the school on certain evenings -in the week and give the older lads and lassies lessons in -Geography (with two huge maps of the world which I made -myself, 11 ft. by 9 ft.!) and the first steps in Astronomy and -history. Several times, when the class had been well got -together and began to be interested, the priest announced -that <em>he</em> would give them lessons on the same night, and -they were to come to him instead of to me. Of course -I told them to do so, and that I was very glad he would -take the trouble. A fortnight or so later however I always -learnt that the priest’s lessons had dropped and all was to -be recommenced.</p> - -<p class='c007'>The poor woman I mentioned above as so devoted to her -mother went to service with one of the priests in the -neighbourhood in the hope that she would receive religious -consolation from him. Meeting her some time after I -expressed my hope that she had found it. “Ah, no Ma’am!” -she answered sorrowfully, “He never spakes to me unless -about the bacon or the like of that. <em>Priests does be dark!</em>” -I thought the phrase wonderfully significant.</p> - -<p class='c007'>My father, though a Protestant of the Protestants as the -reader has learned, thought it right to send regularly every -year a cheque to the priest of Donabate as an aid to his -slender resources; and there never was <em>openly</em>, anything but -civility between the successive <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">curés</span></i> and ourselves. We -bowed most respectfully to each other on the roads, but I -never interchanged a word with any of them save once when -I was busy attending a poor woman in Balisk in the cramps -of cholera; the disease being at the time raging through the -country. With the help of the good souls who in Ireland are -always ready for any charitable deed, I was applying mustard -poultices, when Father M—— entered the cabin (a revolting -<span class='pageno' id='Page_160'>160</span>looking man he was, whose nose had somehow been frost-bitten), -and turned me out. I implored him to defer, or at least hasten -his ministrations; and stood outside the door in great -impatience for half an hour while I knew the hapless patient -was in agony and peril of death, inside. At last the priest -came out,—and when I hurried back to the bedside I found -he had been gumming some “Prayers to the Holy Virgin” -on the wall. Happily we were not too late with our mustard -and “sperrits,” and the woman was saved; whether by Father -M—— and the Virgin or by me I cannot pretend to say.</p> - -<p class='c007'>I have spoken of our village school and must add that the -boys and girls who attended it were exceedingly clever and -bright. They caught up ideas, were moved by heroic or -pathetic stories and understood jokes to a degree quite -unmatched by English children of the same humble class, as -I found later when I taught in Miss Carpenter’s Ragged -Schools at Bristol. The ingenuity with which, when they -came to a difficult word in reading, they substituted another -was very diverting. One boy read that St. John had a -leathern <em>griddle</em> about his loins; and a young man with a -deep manly voice, once startled me by announcing, “He casteth -out divils through,—through, through,—<em>Blazes</em>, the chief of -the Divils!”</p> - -<p class='c007'>In Drumcar school a child, elaborately instructed by dear, -good Lady Elizabeth M‘Clintock concerning Pharisees, and -then examined:—“What was the sin of the Pharisees?” -replied promptly: “<em>Ating camels</em>, my lady!”</p> - -<p class='c007'>Alas, I have reason to fear that the erudition of my little -scholars, if quickly obtained, was far from durable. Paying -a visit to my old home ten years later I asked my crack -scholar, promoted to be second gardener at Newbridge, -“Well, Andrew, how much do you remember of all my -lessons?”</p> - -<p class='c007'>“Ah, Ma’am, then, never a word!”</p> - -<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_161'>161</span>“O, Andrew, Andrew! And have you forgotten all about -the sun, the moon and stars, the day and night, and the -Seasons?”</p> - -<p class='c007'>“O, no, Ma’am! I do remember now, and you set them -on the schoolroom table, and Mars was a red gooseberry, and -I ate him!”</p> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_163'>163</span> - <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER<br /> VII.<br /> <span class='large'><em>IRELAND IN THE FORTIES.</em><br /> <em>THE GENTRY.</em></span></h2> -</div> - -<p class='c006'><span class='pageno' id='Page_165'>165</span>I now turn to describe, as my memory may serve, the life -of the Irish gentry in the Forties. There never has been -much of a middle class, unhappily, in the country, and therefore -in speaking of the gentry I shall have in view mostly -the landowners and their families. These, with few and -always much noted exceptions, were Protestants, of English -descent and almost exclusively of Saxon blood; the Anglo-Irish -families however long settled in Ireland, naturally -intermarrying chiefly with each other. So great was, in my -time, the difference in outward looks between the two races, -that I have often remarked that I could walk down Sackville -Street and point to each passenger “Protestant,” “Catholic,” -“Protestant,” “Catholic”; and scarcely be liable to make -a mistake.</p> - -<p class='c007'>As I have said, my memory bridges over the gulf between -a very typical <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">ancien régime</span></i> household and the present -order of things, and I may be able to mark some changes, -not unworthy of registration. But it must be understood -that I make no attempt to describe what would be -precisely called <em>Irish society</em>, for into this, I never really -entered at all. I wearied of the little I had seen of it -after a few balls and drawing-rooms in Dublin by the -time I was eighteen and thenceforward only shared in home -entertainments and dinners among neighbours in our own -county, with a few visits to relatives at greater distance. I -believe the origin of my great boredom in Dublin balls (for I -<span class='pageno' id='Page_166'>166</span>was very fond of dancing) was the extraordinary inanity of -the men whom I met. The larger number were officers of -Horse Artillery, then under the command of my uncle, and I -used to pity the poor youths, thinking that they danced with -me as in duty bound, while their really marvellous silliness -and dulness made conversation wearisome in the extreme. -Many of these same empty-headed young coxcombs afterwards -fought like Trojans through the Crimean War and came -back,—transformed into heroes! I remember my dentist -telling me, much to the same purpose, that half the officers in -the garrison had come to him to have their teeth looked after -before they went to the Crimea and had behaved abominably -in his chair of torture, groaning and moaning and occasionally -vituperating him and kicking his shins. But it was another -story when some of those very men charged at Balaklava! -We are not, I think, yet advanced far enough to dispense -altogether with the stern teaching of war, or the virtues -which spring out of the dreadful dust of the battlefield.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Railways were only beginning to be opened in 1840, and -were much dreaded by landed proprietors through whose -lands they ran. When surveyors came to plan the Dublin -and Drogheda Railway my father and our neighbour Mrs. -Evans, were up in arms and our farmers ready to throttle -the trespassers. I suggested we should erect a Notice-board -in Donabate with this inscription:—</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c018'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Survey the world from China to Peru;</div> - <div class='line'>Survey not here,—we’ll shoot you if you do.”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c019'>The voyage to England, which most of us undertook at least -once or twice a year, was a wretched transit in miserable, -ill-smelling vessels. From Dublin to Bristol (our most -convenient route) took at least thirty hours. From Holyhead -to London was a two days’ journey by coach. On one of -these journeys, having to stop at Bristol for two nights, I -<span class='pageno' id='Page_167'>167</span>enjoyed an opportunity (enchanting at sixteen) of being -swung in a basket backward and forward across the Avon, -where the Suspension Bridge now stands. Preparations for -these journeys of ours to England were not quite so serious -as those which were necessarily made for our cousins when -they went out to India and were obliged for five or six -months wholly to dispense with the services of a laundress. -Still, our hardships were considerable, and youngsters who -were going to school or college were made up like little -Micawbers “expecting dirty weather.” Elderly ladies, I -remember, usually travelled in mourning and sometimes -kept their little corkscrew curls in paper under their bonnet -caps for the whole journey; a less distressing proceeding, -however, than that of Lady Cahir thirty years earlier, who -had her hair dressed, (powdered and on a cushion) by a -famous hairdresser in Bath, and came over to exhibit it at -St. Patrick’s ball in Dublin Castle, having passed five nights -at sea, desperately ill, but heroically refusing to lie down and -disarrange the magnificent structure on her aching head.</p> - -<p class='c007'>This lady by the way—of whom it was said that “Lady -Cahir <em>cares</em> for no man”—had had a droll adventure in -her youth, which my mother, who knew her well and I think -was her schoolfellow, recounted to me. Before she married -she lived with her mother, a rather extravagant widow, who -plunged heavily into debt. One day the long-expected bailiffs -came to arrest her and were announced as at the hall door. -Quick as lightning Lady Cahir (then, I think, Miss Townsend) -made her mother exchange dress and cap with her, to which she -added the old lady’s wig and spectacles and then sat in her -armchair knitting sedulously, with the blinds drawn down -and her back to the window. The mother having vanished, -the bailiff was shown up, and, exhibiting his credentials, -requested the lady to accompany him to the sponging house. -Of course there was a long palaver; but at last the captive -<span class='pageno' id='Page_168'>168</span>consented to obey and merely said, “Well! I will go if you -like, but I warn you that you are committing a great mistake -in apprehending me.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>“O, O! We all know about that, Ma’am! Please come -along! I have a hackney carriage at the door.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>The damsel, well wrapped in cloaks and furbelows and a -great bonnet of the period, went quietly to her destination; -but when the time came for closing the door on her as a -prisoner, she jumped up, threw off wig, spectacles and old -woman’s cap, and disclosed the blue eyes, golden hair, and -radiant young beauty for which she was long afterwards -renowned. Meanwhile, of course, her mother had had -abundance of time to clear out of the way of her importunate -creditors.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Many details of comforts and habits in those days were -very much in arrear of ours, perhaps about equally in Ireland -and in England. It is droll to remember, for example, as I -do vividly, seeing in my childhood the housemaids striving -with infinite pains and great loss of time to obtain a light -with steel and flint and a tinder-box, when by some untoward -accident all the fires in the house (habitually burning all -night) had been extinguished.</p> - -<p class='c007'>The first matchbox I saw was a long upright red one -containing a bottle of phosphorus and a few matches which -were lighted by insertion in the bottle. After this we had -Lucifers which nearly choked us with gas; but in which we -gloried as among the greatest discoveries of all time. -Seriously I believe few of the vaunted triumphs of science -have contributed so much as these easy illuminators of our -long dark Northern nights to the comfort and health of -mankind.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Again our grandmothers had used exquisite China basins -with round long-necked jugs for all their ablutions and we -had advanced to the use of large basins and footpans, slipper -<span class='pageno' id='Page_169'>169</span>baths and shower baths, when, as nearly as possible in 1840, -the first sponge bath was brought to Ireland. I was paying -a visit to my father’s cousin, Lady Elizabeth M‘Clintock, at -Drumcar in Co. Louth, when she exhibited with pride to me -and her other guests the novel piece of bedroom furniture. -When I returned home and described it my mother ordered -a supply for our house, and we were wont for a long time to -enquire of each other, “how we enjoyed our tubs?” as people -are now supposed to ask: “Have you used Pears’ soap?” -I believe it was from India these excellent inventions came.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Many other differences might be noted between the habits -of those days and of ours. <em>Diners Russes</em> were, of course, -not thought of. We dined at six, or six-thirty, at latest; -and after the soup and fish, all the first course was placed at -once on the table. For a party, for example, of 16 or 18, -there would be eight dishes; joints, fowls and entrées. It -was a triumph of good cookery, but rarely<a id='t169'></a> achieved, to serve -them all hot at once. Tea, made with an urn, was a regular -meal taken in the drawing-room about nine o’clock; <em>never</em> -before dinner. The modern five o’clock tea was altogether -unknown in the Forties, and when I ventured sometimes to -introduce it in the Fifties, I was so severely reprehended that -I used to hold a secret symposium for specially favoured -guests in my own room after our return from drives or -walks. All old gentlemen pronounced five o’clock tea an -atrocious and disgraceful practice.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Another considerable difference in our lives was caused by -the scarcity of newspapers and periodicals. I can remember -when the <cite>Dublin Evening Mail</cite>,—then a single sheet, -appearing three times a week and received at Newbridge -on the day after publication,—was our only source of -news. I do not think any one of our neighbours took -the <cite>Times</cite> or any English paper. Of magazines we had -<cite>Blackwood</cite> and the <cite>Quarterly</cite>, but illustrated ones were -<span class='pageno' id='Page_170'>170</span>unknown. There was a tolerable circulating library in Dublin, -to which I subscribed and from whence I obtained a good -many French books; but the literary appetites of the Irish -gentry generally were frugal in the extreme!</p> - -<p class='c007'>The real differences, however, between Life in 1840 and Life -in 1890 were much deeper than any record of these altered -manners, or even any references to the great changes caused -by steam and the telegraph, can convey. There were certain -principles which in those days were almost universally -accepted and which profoundly influenced all our works and -ways. The first of them was Parental and Marital Authority. -Perhaps my particular circumstances as the daughter of a -man of immense force of will, caused me to see the matter -especially clearly, but I am sure that in the Thirties and -Forties (at all events in Ireland) there was very little -declension generally from the old Roman <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Patria Potestas</span></i>. -Fathers believed themselves to possess almost boundless -rights over their children in the matter of pursuits, professions, -marriages and so on; and the children usually felt that if -they resisted any parental command it was on their peril and -an act of extreme audacity. My brothers and I habitually -spoke of our father, as did the servants and tenants, as -“<em>The Master</em>;” and never was title more thoroughly deserved.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Another important difference was in the position of -women. Of this I shall have more to say hereafter; suffice -it to note that it was the universal opinion, that no gentlewoman -could possibly earn money without derogating -altogether from her rank (unless, indeed, by card-playing as -my grandmother did regularly!); and that housekeeping and -needlework (of the most inartistic kinds) were her only -fitting pursuits. The one natural ambition of her life was -supposed to be a “suitable” marriage; the phrase always -referring to <em>settlements</em>, rather than <em>sentiments</em>. Study of -any serious sort was disapproved, and “accomplishments” -<span class='pageno' id='Page_171'>171</span>only were cultivated. My father prohibited me when very -young from learning Latin from one of my brothers who -kindly offered to teach me; but, as I have recounted, he paid -largely and generously that I might be taught Music, for -which I had no faculties at all. Other Irish girls my contemporaries, -were much worse off than I, for my dear mother -always did her utmost to help my studies and my liberal -allowance permitted me to buy books.</p> - -<p class='c007'>The laws which concerned women at that date were so -frightfully unjust that the most kindly disposed men -inevitably took their cue from them, and looked on their -mothers, wives, and sisters as beings with wholly inferior -rights; with <em>no</em> rights, indeed, which should ever stand -against theirs. The <em>deconsideration</em> of women (as dear -Barbara Bodichon in later years used to say) was at once -cause and result of our legal disabilities. Let the happier -women of these times reflect on the state of things which -existed when a married woman’s inheritance and even her -own earnings (if she could make any), were legally robbed -from her by her husband, and given, if he pleased, to his -mistress! Let them remember that she could make no will, -but that her husband might make one which should bequeath -the control of her children to a man she abhorred or to a -woman of evil life. Let them remember that a husband -who had beaten and wronged his wife in every possible -way could yet force her by law to live with him and -become the mother of his children. Personally and -most fortunately (for I know not of what crime I might -not have been guilty if so tried!) I never had cause of -complaint on the score of injustice or unkindness from any -of the men with whom I had to do. But the knowledge, -when it came to me, of the legalised oppressions under -which other women groaned, lay heavy on my mind. I was -not, however, in those early days, interested in politics or -<span class='pageno' id='Page_172'>172</span>large social reforms; and did not covet the political franchise, -finding in my manifold duties and studies over-abundant -outlets for my energies.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Another difference between the first and latter half of the -century is, I think, the far greater simplicity of character of -the older generation. No doubt there were, at the time of which -I write, many fine and subtle minds at work among the poets, -philosophers and statesmen of the day; but ordinary -ladies and gentlemen, even clever and well-educated ones, -would, I think, if they could revive now, seem to us rather -like our boys and girls than our grandparents. Thousands -of allusions, ideas, shades of sentiment and reflection which -have become common-places to us, were novel and strange to -them. What Cowper’s poetry is to Tennyson’s, what the -<cite>Vicar of Wakefield</cite> is to <cite>Middlemarch</cite>, so were their transparent -minds to ours. I remember once (for a trivial -example of what I mean) walking with my father in his later -days in the old garden one exquisite spring day when the apple -trees were covered with blossoms and the birds were singing -all round us. As he leaned on my arm, having just recovered -from an illness which had threatened to be fatal and was in a -mood unusually tender, I was tempted to say, “Don’t you -feel, Father, that a day like this is almost too beautiful and -delicious, that it softens one’s feelings to the verge of pain?” -In these times assuredly such a remark would have seemed -to most people too obvious to deserve discussion, but it only -brought from my father the reply: “God bless my soul, -what nonsense you talk, my dear! I never heard the like. -Of course a fine day makes everybody cheerful and a rainy -day makes us dull and dismal.” Everyone I knew then, was, -more or less, similarly simple; and in some of the ablest whom -I met in later years of the same generation, (<em>e.g.</em>, Mrs. -Somerville) I found the same single-mindedness, the same -absence of all experience of the subtler emotions. Conversation, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_173'>173</span>as a natural consequence, was more downright and -matter of fact, and rarely if ever was concerned with critical -analyses of impressions. In short, (as I have said) our fathers -were in many respects, like children compared to ourselves.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Another and a sad change has taken place in the amount -of animal spirits generally shared by young and old in the -Thirties and Forties and down, I think, to the Crimean War, -which brought a great seriousness into all our lives. It was -not only the young who laughed in joyous “fits” in those -earlier days; the old laughed then more heartily and more -often than I fear many young people do now; that blessed -laugh of hearty amusement which causes the eyes to water -and the sides to ache—a laugh one hardly ever hears now in -any class or at any age. An evidence of the high level of -ordinary spirits may be found in the readiness with which -such genuine laughter responded to the smallest provocation. -It did not need the delightful farce of the Keeley’s acting -(though I recall the helpless state into which Mr. Keeley’s -pride in his red waistcoat reduced half the house), but even -an old, well-worn, good story, or family catch-word with -some ludicrous association, was enough to provoke jovial -mirth. It was part of a young lady’s and young gentleman’s -home training to learn how to indulge in the freest -enjoyment of fun without boisterousness or shrieks or -discordance of any kind. Young people were for ever -devising pranks and jests among themselves, and even their -seniors occupied themselves in concocting jokes, many -of which we should now think childish; the order of the -“April Fool,” being the general type. Comic verse making; -forging of love letters; disguising and begging as tramps; -sending boxes of bogus presents; making “ghosts” with -bolsters and burnt cork eyes to be placed in dark corners of -passages; these and a score of such monkey-tricks for -which nobody now has patience, were common diversions in -<span class='pageno' id='Page_174'>174</span>every household, and were nearly always taken good-humouredly. -My father used to tell of one ridiculous -deception in which the chief actress and inventor was that -very <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">grande dame</span></i> Elizabeth Hastings, Countess of Moira, -daughter of the Methodist Countess of Huntingdon. Lady -Moira, my father and two other young men, by means of -advertising and letters, induced some wretched officer to walk -up and down a certain part of Sackville Street for an hour -with a red geranium in his buttonhole, to show himself off, -as he thought, to a young lady with a large fortune who -proposed to marry him. The conspirators sat in a window -across the street watching their victim and exploding with -glee at his peacock behaviour. The sequel was better than -the joke. The poor man wrote a letter to his tormentress -(whom he had at last detected) so pitiful that her kind heart -melted, and she exerted her immense influence effectually on -his behalf and provided for him comfortably for life.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Henry, the third Marquis of Waterford, husband of the -gifted and beautiful lady whose charming biography Mr. -Hare has recently written, was the last example I imagine in -Ireland of these redundant spirits. It was told of him, and -I remember hearing of it at the time, that a somewhat grave -and self-important gentleman had ridden up to Curraghmore -on business and left his bay horse at the door. Lord -Waterford, seeing the animal, caught up a pot of whitewash -in use by some labourer and rapidly <em>whitewashed the horse</em>; -after which exploit he went indoors to interview his visitor, -and began by observing, “That is a handsome grey horse of -yours at the door.” “A bay, my Lord.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>“Not at all. It is a grey horse. I saw you on it.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>Eventually both parties adjourned to the front of the -house and found the whitewashed horse walking up and -down with a groom. “You see it is grey,” said the Marquis -triumphantly.</p> - -<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_175'>175</span>Certainly no one in those days dreamed of asking the -question, “Is Life worth Living?” We were all, young and -old, quite sure that life was extremely valuable; a boon for -which to be grateful to God. I recall the amazement with -which I first read of the Buddhist and Brahmin Doctrine -that Existence is <i><span lang="la" xml:lang="la">per se</span></i> an evil, and that the reward of the -highest virtue will be Absorption, or Nirvana. The -pessimism which prevails in this <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">fin de siècle</span></i> was as -unknown in the Forties as the potato disease before the -great blight.</p> - -<p class='c007'>I much wish that some strong thinker would undertake the -useful task of tracking this mental and moral <em>anæmia</em> of the -present generation to its true origin, whether that origin be -the ebb of religious hope and faith and the reaction from the -extreme and too hasty optimism which culminated in 1851, -and has fallen rapidly since 1875, or whether, in truth, our -bodily conditions, though tending to prolong life and working -power to an amazing degree, are yet less conducive to the -development of the sanguine and hilarious temperament -common in my youth. I have heard as a defence for the -revolution which has taken place in medical treatment—from -the depletory and antiphlogistic to the nourishing and -stimulating, and for the total abandonment of the practice of -bleeding—that it is not the doctors who have altered their -minds, but the patients, whose bodies have undergone a -profound modification. I can quite recall the time when (as -all the novels of the period testify), if anybody had a fall or a -fit, or almost any other mishap, it was the first business of -the doctor to whip out his lancet, bare the sufferer’s arm, and -draw a large quantity of blood, when everybody and the aforesaid -novels always remarked; “It was providential that there -was a doctor at hand” to do it. I have myself seen this -operation performed on one of my brothers in our drawing-room -about 1836, and I heard of it every day occurring -<span class='pageno' id='Page_176'>176</span>among our neighbours, rich and poor. My father’s aunt, -whom I well remember, Jane Power Trench (sister of -the first Lord Clancarty), who lived in Marlborough -Buildings in Bath, was habitually bled every year just -before Easter, having previously spent the entire winter -in her bedroom of which the windows were pasted down -and the doors doubled. A few days after the phlebotomy -the old lady invariably bought a new bonnet and walked -in it up to the top of Beacon Hill. She continued the -annual ritual unbroken till she died at 79. Surely these -people were made of stronger <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">pâte</span></i> than we? In corroboration -of this theory I may record how much more hardy were -the gentlemen of the Forties in all their habits than are -those of the Nineties. When my father and his friends went on -grouse-shooting expeditions to our mountain-lodge, I used to -provide for the large parties only abundance of plain food for -dinners, and for luncheons merely sandwiches, bread and -cheese, with a keg of ale, and a basket of apples. By degrees it -became necessary (to please my brother’s guests) to provide -the best of fish, fowl and flesh, champagne and peaches. The -whole odious system of <em>battues</em>, rendering sport unmanly as -well as cruel, with all its attendant waste and cost and -disgusting butchery, has grown up within my recollection by -the extension of luxury, laziness and ostentation.</p> - -<p class='c007'>To turn to another subject. There was very little -immorality at that time in Ireland either in high or low life, -and what there was received no quarter. But there was, -certainly, together with the absence of vice, a lack of some -of the virtues which have since developed amongst us. It is -not easy to realise that in my lifetime men were hanged for -forgery and for sheep-stealing; and that no one agitated for -the repeal of such Draconian legislation, but everybody -placidly repeated the observation (now-a-days so constantly -applied to the scientific torture of animals), that it was -<span class='pageno' id='Page_177'>177</span>“<span class='fss'>NECESSARY</span>.” Cruelties, wrongs and oppressions of all -kinds were rife, and there were (in Ireland at all events) none -to raise an outcry such as would echo now from one end of -England to the other.</p> - -<p class='c007'>The Protestant pulpit was occupied by two distinct classes -of men. There were the younger sons of the gentry and -nobles, who took the large livings and were booked for -bishoprics; and these were educated at Oxford and Cambridge, -were more or less cultivated men and associated of course -on equal terms with the best in the land. Not seldom they -were men of noble lives, and extreme piety; such for example, -as the last Protestant Archbishop of Tuam, and a certain -Archdeacon Trench, whom I remember regarding with awe -and curiosity since I had heard that he had once got up into -his own pulpit, and (like Maxwell Gray’s <cite>Dean Maitland</cite>) -made a public confession of all his life’s misdoings. The -second class of Irish clergymen in those days were men of -a rather lower social grade, educated in Trinity College, often, -no doubt, of excellent character and devotion but generally -extremely narrow in their views, conducting all controversies -by citations of isolated Bible-texts and preaching to their -sparse country congregations with Dublin brogues which, -not seldom, reduced the sublimity of their subjects to -bathos. There was one, for example, who said, as the -peroration of his sermon on the Fear of Death:—</p> - -<p class='c007'>“Me brethren the doying Christian lepps into the -arrums of Death and makes his hollow jaws ring with -eternal hallelujahs!”</p> - -<p class='c007'>I have myself heard another read the concluding chapters -of the gospels, substituting with extraordinary effect the -words “two Meal-factors,” for the “two malefactors,” who -were crucified. There was a chapter in the Acts which we -dreaded to hear, so difficult was it to help laughing when we -were told of “<em>Perthians</em> and <em>Mades</em>, and the dwellers in -<span class='pageno' id='Page_178'>178</span><em>Mesopotamia</em> and the parts of Libya about <em>Cyraine</em>, streengers -of <em>Roum</em>, Jews and Proselytes, <em>Crates</em> and Arabians.” It -was also hard to listen gravely to a vivid description of -Jonah’s catastrophe, as I have heard it, thus: “The weves -bate against the ship, and the ship bate against the weves;” -(and, at last) “The Wheel swallowed Jonah!”</p> - -<p class='c007'>They had a difficult place to hold, these humbler Irish -clergymen, properly associating with no class of their -parishioners; but to their credit be it said, they were nearly -all men of blameless lives, who did their duty as they understood -it, fairly well. The disestablishment of the Irish -Church which I had regarded beforehand with much -prejudice, did (I have since been inclined to think), very little -mischief, and certainly awakened in the minds of the Irish -squirearchy who had to settle their creed afresh, an interest -in theology which was never exhibited in my earlier days. I -was absolutely astounded on paying a visit to my old home a -few years after disestablishment and while the Convention -(commonly called the <em>Contention</em>!) was going on, to hear sundry -recondite mysteries discussed at my brother’s table and to find -some of my old dancing partners actually greedily listening -to what I could tell them of the then recent discovery of Mr. -Edmund Ffoulkes,—that the doctrine of the Double Procession -of the Holy Ghost had been invented by King Reccared.</p> - -<p class='c007'>As regards any moral obligation or duty owed by men and -women to the lower animals, such ideas were as yet scarcely -beginning to be recognised. It was in 1822, the year in -which I was born, that brave old Richard Martin carried in -Parliament the first Act ever passed by any legislature in the -world on behalf of the brutes. Tom Moore had laughed at -this early <cite>Zoophilist</cite>.</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c018'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Place me midst O’Rourkes, O’Tooles,</div> - <div class='line in2'>The ragged royal blood of Tara!</div> - <div class='line'>Place me where Dick Martin rules</div> - <div class='line in2'>The houseless wilds of Connemara</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c019'><span class='pageno' id='Page_179'>179</span>But in the history of human civilisation, “Martin’s Act” -will hereafter assuredly hold a distinct place of honour when -many a more pompous political piece of legislation is buried -in oblivion. For a long time the new law, and the Society -for Prevention of Cruelty which arose to work it, were -objects of obloquy and jest even from such a man as -Sydney Smith, who did his best in the <cite>Edinburgh Review</cite> -to sneer them down. But by degrees they formed, as -Mr. Lecky says every system of legislation <em>must</em> do, a system -of <em>moral education</em>. A sense of the Rights of Animals has -slowly been awakened, and is becoming, by not imperceptible -degrees, a new principle of ethics. In my youth there were -plenty of good people who were fond of dogs, cats and horses; -but nothing in their behaviour, or in that of any one I knew -at that time, testified to the existence of any latent idea that -it was <em>morally wrong</em> to maltreat animals to any extent. Pious -sportsmen were wont to scourge their dogs with frightful -dog-whips, for any disobedience or mistake, with a savage -violence which I shudder to remember; and which I do not -think the most brutal men would now exhibit openly. Miss -Edgeworth’s then recent novel of <cite>Ennui</cite> had described her -hero as riding five horses to death to give himself a sensation, -without (as it would appear) forfeiting in the author’s -opinion his claims to the sympathies of the reader. I can -myself recall only laughing, not crying as I should be more -inclined to do now, at the spectacle of miserable half-starved -horses made to gallop in Irish cars to win a bribe for the -driver, who flogged them over ruts and stones, shouting (as -I have heard them) “Never fare! I’ll <em>batther</em> him out of -that!” The picture of a “<cite>Rosinante</cite>,” from Cervantes’ time -till a dozen or two years ago, instead of being one of the -most pathetic objects in the world,—the living symbol of -human cruelty,—was always considered a particularly -laughable caricature. Only tender-hearted Bewick in his -<span class='pageno' id='Page_180'>180</span>woodcut, <cite>Waiting for Death</cite>, tried to move the hearts of his -generation to compassion for the starved and worn-out servant -of ungrateful man.</p> - -<p class='c007'>The Irish peasantry do not habitually maltreat animals, -but the frightful mutilations and tortures which of late years -they have practised on cattle belonging to their obnoxious -neighbours, is one of the worst proofs of the existence in the -Celtic character of that undercurrent of ferocity of which I -have spoken elsewhere.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Among Irish ladies and gentlemen in the Forties there -was a great deal of interest of course in our domestic pets, -and I remember a beautiful and beloved young bride coming -to pay us a visit, and asking in a tone of profound conviction: -“What <em>would</em> life be without dogs?” Still there was -nothing then existing, I think, in the world like the sentiment -which inspired Mathew Arnold’s <cite>Geist</cite> or even his “<cite>Kaiser -Dead</cite>.” The gulf between the canine race and ours was -thought to be measureless. Darwin had not yet written the -Descent of Man or made us imagine that “God had made of -one blood” at least all the mammals “upon earth.” No one -dreamed of trying to realise what must be the consciousness of -suffering animals; nor did anyone, I think, live under the -slightest sense of responsibility for their well-being. Even my -dear old friend, Harriet St. Leger, though she was renowned -through the county for her attachment to her great black -Retrievers, said to me one day, many years after I had left -Ireland, “I don’t understand your feelings about animals at -all. To me a <em>dog is a dog</em>. To you it seems to be something -else!”</p> - -<p class='c007'>Another difference was, that there was very little popularity-hunting -in the Forties. The “working man” was seen, -but not yet heard of; and, so far as I remember, we thought -as little of the public opinion of our villages respecting us -as we did of the public opinion of the stables. The wretched -<span class='pageno' id='Page_181'>181</span>religious bigotry which, as we knew, made the Catholics -look on us as infallibly condemned of God in this world and -the next, was an insuperable barrier to sympathy from them, -and we never expected them to understand either our acts or -motives. But if we cared little or nothing what they thought -of us, I must in justice say that we did care a great deal for -<em>their</em> comfort, and were genuinely unhappy in their afflictions -and active to relieve their miseries. When the famine came -there was scarcely one Irish lady or gentleman, I think, -who did not spend time, money and labour like water to -supply food to the needy. I remember the horror with which -my father listened to a visitor, who was not an Irishwoman -but a purse-proud <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">nouveau riche</span></i> married to a very silly -baronet in our neighbourhood, who told him that her -husband’s Mayo property had just cost them £70. “That -will go some way in supplying Indian meal to your tenants,” -said my father, supposing that to such purpose it must be -devoted. “O dear, no! We are not sending it for any such -use,” said Lady —. “We are spending it <em>on evictions</em>!” -“Good God!” shouted my father; “how shocking! At -such a time as this!”</p> - -<p class='c007'>It has been people like these who have ever since done the -hard things of which so much capital has been made by those -whose interest it has been to stir up strife in the “distressful -country.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>I happen to be able to recall precisely the day, almost the -hour, when the blight fell on the potatoes and caused the -great calamity. A party of us were driving to a seven o’clock -dinner at the house of our neighbour, Mrs. Evans, of Portrane. -As we passed a remarkably fine field of potatoes in blossom, -the scent came through the open windows of the carriage and -we remarked to each other how splendid was the crop. Three -or four hours later, as we returned home in the dark, a -dreadful smell came from the same field, and we exclaimed, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_182'>182</span>“Something has happened to those potatoes; they do not -smell at all as they did when we passed them on our way -out.” Next morning there was a wail from one end of -Ireland to the other. Every field was black and every root -rendered unfit for human food. And there were nearly -eight millions of people depending principally upon these -potatoes for existence!</p> - -<p class='c007'>The splendid generosity of the English public to us at that -time warmed all our Anglo-Irish hearts and cheered us to -strain every nerve to feed the people. But the agitators were -afraid it would promote too much good feeling between the -nations, which would not have suited their game. I myself -heard O’Connell in Conciliation Hall (that ill-named place!) -endeavour to belittle English liberality. He spoke (a strange -figure in the red robes of his Mayoralty and with a little -sandy wig on his head) to the following purpose:—</p> - -<p class='c008'>“They have sent you over money in your distress. But -do you think they do it for love of you, or because they feel -for you, and are sorry for your trouble? Devil a bit! <em>They -are afraid of you!</em>—that is it! <em>They are afraid of you.</em> You -are eight millions strong.”</p> - -<p class='c006'>It was as wicked a speech as ever man made, but it was -never, that I know of, reported or remarked upon. He -spoke continually to similar purpose no doubt, in that Hall, -where my cousin—afterwards the wife of John Locke, M.P. -for Southwark—and I had gone to hear him out of girlish -curiosity.</p> - -<p class='c007'>The part played by Anglo-Irish ladies when the great -fever which followed the famine came on us, was the same. -It became perfectly well known that if any of the upper -classes caught the fever, they almost uniformly died. The -working people could generally be cured by a total change of -diet and abundant meat and wine, but to the others no -difference could be made in that way, and numbers of ladies -<span class='pageno' id='Page_183'>183</span>and gentlemen lost their lives by attending their poor in the -disease. It was very infectious, or at least it was easily -caught in each locality by those who went into the cabins.</p> - -<p class='c006'>There were few people whom I met in Ireland in those -early days whose names would excite any interest in the -reader’s mind. One was poor Elliot Warburton, the author -of the <cite>Crescent and the Cross</cite>, who came many times to Newbridge -as an acquaintance of my brother. He was very -refined and, as we considered, rather effeminate; but how -grand, even sublime, was he in his death! On the burning -<em>Amazon</em> in mid-Atlantic he refused to take a place in the -crowded boats, and was last seen standing alone beside the -faithful Captain at the helm as the doomed vessel was -wrapped in flames. I have never forgotten his pale, -intellectual face and somewhat puny frame, and pictured him -thus—a true hero.</p> - -<p class='c007'>His brother, who was commonly known as <em>Hochelaga</em>, -from the name of his book on Canada, was a hale and genial -young fellow, generally popular. One rainy day he was -prompted by a silly young lady-guest of ours to sing a series -of comic songs in our drawing-room, the point of the jokes -turning on the advances of women to men. My dear mother, -then old and feeble, after listening quietly for a time, slowly -rose from her sofa, walked painfully across the room, and -leaning over the piano said in her gentle way a few strong -words of remonstrance. She could not bear, she said, that -men should ridicule women. Respect and chivalrous feeling -for them, even when they were foolish and ill-advised, were -the part, she always thought, of a generous man. She -would beg Mr. Warburton to choose some other songs for his -fine voice. All this was done so gently and with her -<span class='pageno' id='Page_184'>184</span>sweet, kind smile, that no one could take offence. Mr. -Warburton was far from doing so. He was, I could see, -touched with tender reverence for his aged monitress, and -rising hastily from the piano, made the frankest apologies, -which of course were instantly accepted. I have described -this trivial incident because I think it illustrates the kind of -influence which was exercised by women of the old school of -“<i><span lang="la" xml:lang="la">decorum</span></i>.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>Another man who sometimes came to our house, was Dr. -Longley, then Bishop of Ripon, afterwards Archbishop of -Canterbury. He was a very charming person, without the -slightest episcopal <em>morgue</em> or affectation, and with the -kindest brown eyes in the world. His wife was niece, -and, I believe, eventually heiress, of our neighbour Mrs. -Evans; and he and his family spent some summers -at Portrane in the Fifties when we had many pleasant -parties and picnics. I shall not forget how the Bishop -laughed when the young Longleys and I and a few -guests of my own, inaugurated some charades, and our party, -all in disguise, were announced on our arrival at Portrane, -as “Lady Worldly,” “Miss Angelina Worldly,” “Sir -Bumpkin Blunderhead,” and the “Cardinal Lord Archbishop -of Rheims.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>Our word was “Novice.” I, as Lady Worldly, in my -great-grandmother’s petticoat and powdered <em>toupee</em>, gave my -daughter Angelina a lecture on the desirability of marrying -“Sir Bumpkin Blunderhead” who was rich, and of -dismissing Captain Algernon who was poor. Sir Bumpkin -then made his proposals, to which Angelina emphatically -answered “No.” In the second scene I met Sir Bumpkin -at the gaming table, and fleeced him utterly; the end of his -“<span class='sc'>Vice</span>” being suicide on the adjacent sofa. Angelina then, -in horror took the veil, and became a “<em>No-vice</em>,” duly -admitted to her Nunnery by the Cardinal Lord Archbishop -<span class='pageno' id='Page_185'>185</span>of Rheims (my youngest brother in a superb scarlet dressing -gown) who pronounced a Sermon on the pleasures of fasting -and going barefoot. Angelina retired to her cell, but was soon -disturbed by a voice outside the window (Henry Longley’s); -and exclaiming “Algernon, beloved Algernon!” a speedy -elopement over the back of the sofa concluded the fate of the -<em>Novice</em> and the charade.</p> - -<p class='c007'>There was another charade in which we held a debate in -Parliament on a Motion to “abolish the sun and moon,” -which amused the bishop to the last degree, especially as we -made fun of Joseph Hume’s retrenchments; he being a -particular friend and frequent guest of our hostess. The -abolition of the Sun would, we feared, affect the tax on -parasols.</p> - -<p class='c007'>At Ripon, as Dr. Longley told me, the Palace prepared for -him (the first bishop of the new see) had, as ornaments of -the front of the house, two full-sized stone (or plaster) -Angels. One day a visitor asked him: “Pray, my Lord, is -it supposed by Divines that Angels wear the order of the -Garter?” On inspection it proved that the Ripon Angels -had formerly done service as statues of the Queen and Prince -Albert, but that wings had been added to fit them for the -episcopal residence. Sufficient care, however, had not been -taken to efface the insignia of the Most Illustrious Order; -and “<i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Honi soit qui mal y pense</span></i>” might be dimly deciphered -on the leg of the male celestial visitant.</p> - -<p class='c007'>A lady nearly related to Mrs. Longley, who had married an -English nobleman, adopted the views of the Plymouth -Brothers (or as all the Mrs. Malaprops of the period invariably -styled them, the “Yarmouth Bloaters”), which had burst -into sudden notoriety. When her husband died leaving her -a very wealthy woman, she thought it her duty to carry out -the ideas of her sect by putting down such superfluities of -her establishment as horses and carriages, and a well appointed -<span class='pageno' id='Page_186'>186</span>table. She accordingly wrote to her father and begged him -to dispose of all her plate and equipages. Lord C—— made -no remonstrance and offered no arguments; and after a year -or two he received a letter from his daughter couched in a -different strain. She told him that she had now reached the -conviction that it was “the will of God that a peeress should -live as a peeress,” and she begged him to buy for her new -carriages and fresh plate. Lord C——’s answer must -have been a little mortifying. “I knew, my dear, that you -would come sooner or later to your senses. You will find -your carriages at your coachmakers and your plate at your -bankers.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>Mrs. Evans, <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">née</span></i> Sophia Parnell, the aunt of both these -ladies, and a great-aunt of Charles Stewart Parnell, was, as I -have said, our nearest neighbour and in the later years of -my life at Newbridge my very kind old friend. For a long -time political differences between my father and her husband,—George -Hampden Evans, M.P., who had managed to wrest -the county from the Tories,—kept the families apart, but after -his death we were pleasantly intimate for many years. She -often spoke to me of the Avondale branch of her family, and -more than once said: “There is mischief brewing! I am -troubled at what is going on at Avondale. My nephew’s wife” -(the American lady, Delia Stewart) “has a hatred of England, -and is educating my nephew, like a little Hannibal, to hate it -too!” How true was her foresight there is no need now to -rehearse, nor how near that “little Hannibal” came to our -Rome! Charles Parnell was very far from being a representative -Irishman. He was of purely English extraction, -and even in the female line had no drop of Irish blood. His -mother, as all the world knows, was an American; his -grandmother was one of the Howards of the family of -the Earls of Wicklow, his great-grandmother a Brooke, -of a branch of the old Cheshire house; and, beyond this lady -<span class='pageno' id='Page_187'>187</span>again, his grand-dames were Wards and Whitsheds. In short, -like other supposed “illustrious Irishmen”—Burke, Grattan, -Goldsmith, and Wellington—Mr. Parnell was only one -example more of the supremacy of the Anglo-Saxon intellect -in every land of its adoption.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Mrs. Evans had known Madame de Stael, Condorcet and -many other interesting French people in her youth, and -loved the Condorcets warmly. She described to me a stiff, -old-fashioned dinner at which she had been present when -Madame de Stael was a guest. After dinner, the ladies, having -retired to the drawing-room, sat apart from Madame de Stael -in terror, and she looked them over with undisguised -contempt. After a while she rose and, without asking the -consent of the mistress of the house, rang the bell. When -the footman appeared, she delivered the startling order: “Tell -the gentlemen to come up!” The sensation among the -formal and scandalized ladies upstairs, and the gentlemen -just settling down to their usual long potations below, may -be well imagined.</p> - -<p class='c007'>When her husband died, Mrs. Evans built in his memory -a fine Round Tower on the plan and of the size of the best of -the old Irish towers. It stands on high ground on what was -her deer-park, and is a useful landmark to sailors all along -that dangerous coast, where the dreadful wreck of the <em>Tayleur</em> -took place. On the shore below, under the lofty black cliffs, are -several very imposing caverns. In the largest of these, which -is lighted from above by a shaft, Mrs. Evans, on one occasion, -gave a great luncheon party, at which I was present. The -company were all in high spirits and thoroughly enjoying the -pigeon-pies and champagne, when some one observed that the -tide might soon be rising. Mrs. Evans replied that it was -all right, there was plenty of time, and the festival proceeded -for another half-hour, when somebody rose and strolled to -the mouth of the cavern and soon uttered a cry of alarm. -<span class='pageno' id='Page_188'>188</span>The tide <em>had</em> risen, and was already beating at a formidable -depth against both sides of the rocks which shut in the cave. -Consternation of course reigned among the party. A night -spent in the further recesses of that damp hole, even supposing -the tide did not reach the end (which was very doubtful), -afforded anything but a cheerful prospect. Could anybody -get up through the shaft to the upper cliff? Certainly, if -they had a long ladder. But there were no ladders lying -about the cave; and, finally, everybody stood mournfully -watching the rising waters at the mouth of their prison. -Mrs. Evans all this time appeared singularly calm, and -administered a little encouragement to some of the almost -fainting ladies. When the panic was at its climax, Mrs. -Evans’ own large boat was seen quietly rounding the -projecting rocks and was soon comfortably pushed up to the -feet of the imprisoned party, who had nothing to do but to -embark in two or three detachments and be safely landed in -the bay outside, beyond the reach of the sea. The whole -incident, it is to be suspected, had been pre-arranged by the -hostess to infuse a little wholesome excitement among her -country guests.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Our small village church at Donabate was not often -honoured by this lady’s presence, but one Sunday she saw -fit to attend service with some visitors; and a big dog -unluckily followed her into the pew and lay extended on the -floor, which he proceeded to beat with his tail after the -manner of impatient dogs under durance. This disturbance -was too much for the poor parson, who did not love Mrs. -Evans. As he proceeded with the service and the rappings -were repeated again and again, his patience gave way, and -he read out this extraordinary lesson to his astonished congregation:—“The -Pharisee stood and prayed thus with -himself. Turn out that dog, if you please! It’s extremely -wrong to bring a dog into church.” During the winter Mrs. -<span class='pageno' id='Page_189'>189</span>Evans was wont to live much alone in her country house, -surrounded only by her old servants and multitudes of -old books. When at last, in old age, she found herself -attacked by mortal disease she went to Paris to profit by the -skill of some French physician in whom she had confidence, -and there, with unshaken courage she passed away. Her -remains, enclosed in a leaden coffin, were brought back to -Portrane, and her Irish terrier who adored her, somehow -recognised the dreadful chest and exhibited a frenzy of -grief; leaping upon it and tearing at the pall with piteous -cries. Next morning, strange to say, the poor brute was, -with six others about the place, in such a state of excitement -as to be supposed to be rabid and it was thought necessary -to shoot them all. One of them leaped the gate of the yard -and escaping bit two of my father’s cows, which became -rabid, and were shot in my presence. Mrs. Evans was buried -beside her beloved husband in the little roofless and ruined -church of Portrane, close by the shore. On another grave -in the same church belonging to the same family, a dog had -some years previously died of grief.</p> - -<p class='c007'>A brother of this lady, who walked over often to -Newbridge from Portrane to bring my mother some -scented broom which she loved, was a very singular and -pathetic character. He was a younger brother of that -sufficiently astute man of the world, Sir Henry Parnell, -afterwards Lord Congleton, but was his antipodes in -disposition. Thomas Parnell, “Old Tom Parnell,” as all -Dublin knew him for forty years, had a huge ungainly -figure like Dr. Johnson’s, and one of the sweetest, softest -faces ever worn by mortal man. He had, at some remote -and long forgotten period, been seized with a fervent and -self-denying religious enthusiasm of the ultra-Protestant -type; and this had somehow given birth in his brain to a -scheme for arranging texts of the Bible in a mysterious order -<span class='pageno' id='Page_190'>190</span>which, when completed, should afford infallible answers to -every question of the human mind! To construct the -interminable tables required for this wonderful plan, poor -Tom Parnell devoted his life and fortune. For years which -must have amounted to many decades, he laboured at the -work in a bare, gloomy, dusty room in what was called a -“Protestant Office” in Sackville Street. Money went -speedily to clerks and printers; and no doubt the good man -(who himself lived, as he used to say laughingly, on -“a second-hand bone,”) gave money also freely in alms. -One way or another Mr. Parnell grew poorer and more -poor, his coat looked shabbier, and his beautiful long white hair -more obviously in need of a barber. Once or twice every -summer he was prevailed on by his sister to tear himself -from his work and pay her a few weeks’ visit in the country -at Portrane; and to her and all her visitors he preached -incessantly his monotonous appeal: “Repent; and cease -to eat good dinners, and devote yourselves to compiling -texts!” When his sister—who had treated him as a mother -would treat a silly boy—died, she left him a small annuity, to -be paid to him weekly in dribblets by trustees, lest he should -spend it at once and starve if he received it half-yearly. -After this epoch he worked on with fewer interruptions than -ever at his dreary text-books in that empty, grimy office. -Summer’s sun and winter’s snow were alike to the lonely old -man. He ploughed on at his hopeless task. There was no -probability that he should live to fill up the interminable -columns, and no apparent reason to suppose that any human -being would use the books if he ever did so and supposing -them to be printed. But still he laboured on. Old friends—myself -among them—who had known him in their childhood, -looked in now and then to shake hands with him, and, -noticing how pale and worn and aged he seemed, tried to -induce him to come to their homes. But he only exhorted -<span class='pageno' id='Page_191'>191</span>them (like Tolstoi, whom he rather resembled), as usual, to -repent and give up good dinners and help him with his texts, -and denounced wildly all rich people who lived in handsome -parks with mud villages at their gates, as he said, “like a -velvet dress with a draggled skirt.” Then, when his visitor -had departed, Mr. Parnell returned patiently to his interminable -texts. At last one day, late in the autumn twilight, -the porter, whose duty it was to shut up the office, entered the -room and found the old man sitting quietly in the chair -where he had laboured so long—fallen into the last long sleep.</p> - -<p class='c006'>I never saw much of Irish society out of our own county. -Once, when I was eighteen, my father and I went a tour of -visits to his relations in Connaught, travelling, as was -necessary in those days, very slowly with post-horses to our -carriage, my maid on the box, and obliged to stop at inns on -the way. Some of these inns were wretched places. I -remember in one finding a packet of letters addressed to some -attorney, under my bolster! At another, this dialogue -took place between me and the waiter:—</p> - -<p class='c007'>“What can we have for dinner?”</p> - -<p class='c007'>“Anything you please, Ma’am. <em>Anything</em> you please.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>“Well, but exactly what can we have?”</p> - -<p class='c007'>(Waiter, triumphantly): “You can have a pair of ducks.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>“I am sorry to say Mr. Cobbe cannot eat ducks. What -else?”</p> - -<p class='c007'>“They are very fine ducks, Ma’am.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>“I dare say. But what else?”</p> - -<p class='c007'>“You might have the ducks boiled, Ma’am!”</p> - -<p class='c007'>“No, no. Can we have mutton?”</p> - -<p class='c007'>“Well; not mutton, to-day, Ma’am.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>“Some beef?”</p> - -<p class='c007'>“No, Ma’am.”</p> - -<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_192'>192</span>“Some veal?”</p> - -<p class='c007'>“Not any veal, I’m afraid.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>“Well, then, a fowl?”</p> - -<p class='c007'>“We haven’t got a fowl.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>“What on earth have you got, then?”</p> - -<p class='c007'>“Well, then, Ma’am, I’m afeared if you won’t have the fine -pair of ducks, there’s nothing for it but bacon and eggs!”</p> - -<p class='c007'>We went first to Drumcar and next (a two days’ drive) to -Moydrum Castle which then belonged to my father’s cousin, -old Lady Castlemaine. Another old cousin in the house -showed me where, between two towers covered with ivy, she -had looked one dark night out of her bedroom window on -hearing a wailing noise below, and had seen some white -object larger than any bird, floating slowly up and then -sinking down into the shadow below again, and yet -again. Of course it was the Banshee; and somebody -had died afterwards! We also had our Banshee at Newbridge -about that time. One stormy and rainy Sunday -night in October my father was reading a sermon as usual -to the assembled household, and the family, gathered near -the fire in what we were wont to call on these evenings -“Sinner’s chair” and the “Seat of the Scornful,” were -rather somnolent, when the most piercing and unearthly -shrieks arose apparently just outside the windows in the -pleasure ground, and startled us all wide awake. At the -head of the row of servants sat our dear old housekeeper -“Joney” then the head-gardener’s wife, who had adopted a -child of three years old, and this evening had left him fast -asleep in the housekeeper’s room, which was under part of -the drawing-room. Naturally she and all of us supposed -that “Johnny” had wakened and was screaming on finding -himself alone; and though the outcries were not like those -of a child, “Joney” rose and hastily passed down the room -and went to look after her charge. To reach the housekeeper’s -<span class='pageno' id='Page_193'>193</span>room she necessarily passed the servants’ hall and -out of it rushed the coachman—a big, usually red-faced -Englishman, whom she declared was on that occasion as -pale as death. The next instant one of the housemaids, who -had likewise played truant from prayers, came tottering -down from a bedroom (so remote that I have always -wondered how <em>any</em> noise below the drawing-room could -have reached it), and sunk fainting on a chair. The little -boy meanwhile was sleeping like a cherub in undisturbed -repose in a clothes basket! What that wild noise was,—heard -by at least two dozen people,—we never learned and -somehow did not care much to investigate.</p> - -<p class='c007'>After our visit at Moydrum my father and I went to yet -other cousins at Garbally; his mother’s old home. At -that time—I speak of more than half a century ago,—the -Clancarty family was much respected in Ireland; and the -household at Garbally was conducted on high religious -principles and in a very dignified manner. It was in the -Forties that the annual Sheep Fair of Ballinasloe was at its -best, and something like 200,000 sheep were then commonly -herded at night in Garbally Park. The scene of the Fair -was described as curious, but (like a stupid young prig, -as I must have been) I declined the place offered me in one -of the carriages and stopped in the house on the plea of a -cold, but really to enjoy a private hunt in the magnificent -library of which I had caught a glimpse. When the various -parties came back late in the day there was much talk of a -droll mishap. The Marquis of Downshire of that time, who -was stopping in the house, was a man of colossal strength, -and rumour said he had killed two men by accidental blows -intended as friendly. However this may be, he was on this -occasion overthrown <em>by sheep</em>! He was standing in the -gangway between the hurdles in the great fair, when an -immense flock of terrified animals rushed through, overset -<span class='pageno' id='Page_194'>194</span>him and trampled him under their feet. When he came -home, laughing good humouredly at his disaster, he presented -a marvellous spectacle with his rather <em>voyant</em> light costume -of the morning in a frightful pickle. Another agreeable man -in the house was the Lord Devon of that day, a very able -and cultivated man (whom I straightway interrogated concerning -Gibbon’s chapter on the Courtenays!); and poor Lord -Leitrim, a kindly and good Irish landlord, afterwards most -cruelly murdered. There were also the Ernes and Lord -Enniskillen and many others whom I have forgotten, and a -dear aged lady; the Marchioness of Ormonde. Hearing I -had a cold, she kindly proposed to treat me medically and -said: “I should advise you to try Brandy and Salt. For -my own part I take Morrison’s pills whenever I am ill, if I -cannot get hydropathic baths; but I have a very great opinion -of Tar-water. Holloway’s ointment and pills, too, are excellent. -My son, you know, joined Mr. ——” (I have forgotten -the name) “to pay £15,000 to St. John Long for his -famous recipe; but it turned out no good when he had it. -No! I advise you decidedly to try brandy and salt.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>From Garbally we drove to Parsonstown, where Lady -Rosse was good enough to welcome us to indulge my intense -longing to see the great telescope, then quite recently erected. -Lord Rosse at that time believed that, as he had resolved -into separate stars many of the nebulæ which were irresolvable -by Herschel’s telescope, there was a presumption that -<em>all</em> were resolvable; and consequently that the nebular -hypothesis must be abandoned. The later discovery of -gaseous nebulæ by the spectroscope re-established the -theory. I was very anxious on the subject, having pinned -my faith already on the <cite>Vestiges of Creation</cite> (then a new -book), in sequence to Nichol’s <cite>Architecture of the Heavens</cite>: -that prose-poem of science. Lord Rosse was infinitely -indulgent to my girlish curiosity, and took me to see the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_195'>195</span>process of polishing the speculum of his second telescope; -a most ingenious piece of mechanism invented mainly by -himself. He also showed me models which he has made in -plaster of lunar craters. I saw the great telescope by day, -but, alas, when darkness came and it was to have been -ready for me to look through it and I was trembling with -anticipation, the butler came to the drawing-room door and -announced: “A rainy night, my lord”! It was a life-long -disappointment, for we could not stay another day though -hospitably pressed to do so; and I never had another chance.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Lord Rosse had guessed already that Robert Chambers was -the author of the <cite>Vestiges</cite>. He explained to me the reason -for the enormous mass of masonry on which the seven-foot -telescope rested, by the curious fact that even where it stood -within his park, the roll of a cart more than two miles away, -outside, was enough to make the ground tremble and to -disturb the observation.</p> - -<p class='c007'>There was a romantic story then current in Ireland about -Lord and Lady Rosse. It was said that, as a young man, he -had gone <em>incog.</em> and worked as a handicraftsman in some large -foundry in the north of England to learn the secrets of -machine making. After a time his employer, considering -him a peculiarly promising young artisan, invited him -occasionally to a Sunday family dinner when young Lord -Parsons, as he then was, speedily fell in love with his host’s -daughter. Observing what was going on, the father put a -veto on what he thought would be a <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">mésalliance</span></i> for Miss -Green, and the supposed artisan left his employment and the -country; but not without receiving from the young lady an -assurance that she returned his attachment. Shortly afterwards, -having gone home and obtained his father, Lord -Rosse’s consent, he re-appeared and now made his proposals -to Mr. Green, <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">père</span></i>, in all due form as the heir of a good -estate and an earldom. He was not rejected this time.</p> - -<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_196'>196</span>I tell this story only as a pretty one current when I saw -Lord and Lady Rosse; a very happy and united couple -with little children who have since grown to be distinguished -men. Very possibly it may be only a myth!</p> - -<p class='c007'>I never saw Archbishop Whately except when he -confirmed me in the church of Malahide. He was no -doubt a sincerely pious man, but, his rough and irreverent -manner (intended, I believe, as a protest against the -Pecksniffian tone then common among evangelical dignitaries) -was almost repulsive and certainly startling. Outside his -palace in Stephen’s Green there was at that time a row of -short columns connected from top to top by heavy chains -which fell in festoons and guarded the gardens of the square. -Nothing would serve his Grace (we were told with horror -by the spectators) than to go of a morning after breakfast -and sit on these chains smoking his cigar as he swung -gently back and forth, kicking the ground to gain impetus.</p> - -<p class='c007'>On the occasion of my confirmation he exhibited one of -his whims most unpleasantly for me. This was, that he -must actually touch, in his episcopal benediction, the <em>head</em>, -not merely the <em>hair</em>, of the kneeling catechumen. Unhappily, -my maid had not foreseen this contingency, but had thought -she could not have a finer opportunity for displaying her -skill in plaiting my redundant locks; and had built up -such an edifice with plaits and pins, (on the part of my head -which necessarily came under the Archbishop’s hand) that -he had much ado to overthrow the same! He did so, -however, effectually; and I finally walked back, through the -church to my pew with all my <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">chevelure</span></i> hanging down in -disorder, far from “admired” by me or anybody.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Of all the phases of orthodoxy I think that of Whately,—well -called the <em>Hard Church</em>,—was the last which I could -have adopted at any period of my life. It was obviously his -view that a chain of propositions might be constructed by -<span class='pageno' id='Page_197'>197</span>iron logic, beginning with the record of a miracle two -thousand years ago and ending with unavoidable conversion -to the love of God and Man!</p> - -<p class='c007'>The last person of whom I shall speak as known to me first -in Ireland, was that dear and noble woman, Fanny Kemble. -She has not mentioned in her delightful <cite>Records</cite> how our acquaintance, -destined to ripen into a life-long friendship, began -at Newbridge, but it was in a droll and characteristic way.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Mrs. Kemble’s friend “H.S.”—Harriet St. Leger—lived -at Ardgillan Castle, eight Irish miles from Newbridge. Her -sister, the wife of Hon. and Rev. Edward Taylor and mother -of the late Tory Whip, was my mother’s best-liked neighbour, -and at an early age I was taught to look with respect on the -somewhat singular figure of Miss St. Leger. In those days -any departure from the conventional dress of the time was -talked of as if it were altogether the most important fact -connected with a woman, no matter what might be the -greatness of her character or abilities. Like her contemporaries -and fellow countrywomen, the Ladies of Llangollen, -(also Irish), Harriet St. Leger early adopted a costume -consisting of a riding habit (in her case with a skirt of -sensible length) and a black beaver hat. All the empty-headed -men and women in the county prated incessantly about these -inoffensive garments, insomuch that I arrived early at the -conviction that, rational and convenient as such dress would -be, the game was not worth the candle. Things are altered -so far now that, could dear Harriet reappear, I believe the -universal comment on her dress would rather be: “How -sensible and befitting”! rather than the silly, “How odd”! -Anyway I imagine she must have afforded a somewhat -singular contrast to her ever magnificent, not to say gorgeous -friend Fanny Kemble, when at the great Exhibition of 1851, -they were the observed of observers, sitting for a long time -side by side close to the crystal fountain.</p> - -<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_198'>198</span>Every reader of the charming <cite>Records of a Girlhood</cite> -and <cite>Recollections of Later Life</cite>, must have felt some -curiosity about the personality of the friend to whom -those letters of our English Sevigné were addressed. I -have before me as I write an excellent reproduction in -platinotype from a daguerreotype of herself which dear -Harriet gave me some twenty years ago. The pale, kind, -sad face is, I think inexpressibly touching; and the woman -who wore it deserved all the affection which Fanny Kemble -gave her. She was a deep and singularly critical thinker and -reader, and had one of the warmest hearts which ever beat -under a cold and shy exterior. The iridescent genius of -Fanny Kemble in the prime of her splendid womanhood, and -my poor young soul, overburdened with thoughts too great -and difficult for me, were equally drawn to seek her -sympathy.</p> - -<p class='c007'>It happened once, somewhere in the early Fifties, that -Mrs. Kemble was paying a visit to Miss St. Leger at -Ardgillan, and we arranged that she should bring her over -some day to Newbridge to luncheon. I was, of course, -prepared to receive my guest very cordially but, to my -astonishment, when Mrs. Kemble entered she made me the -most formal salutation conceivable and, after being seated, -answered all my small politenesses in monosyllables and with -obvious annoyance and disinclination to converse with me or -with any of my friends whom I presented to her. Something -was evidently frightfully amiss, and Harriet perceived it; -but what could it be? What could be done? Happily the -gong sounded for luncheon, and, my father being absent, my -eldest brother offered his arm to Mrs. Kemble and led her, -walking with more than her usual stateliness across the two -halls to the dining-room, where he placed her, of course, -beside himself. I was at the other end of the table but I -heard afterwards all that occurred. We were a party of -<span class='pageno' id='Page_199'>199</span>eighteen, and naturally the long table had a good many -dishes on it in the old fashion. My brother looked over it -and asked: “What will you take, Mrs. Kemble? Roast -fowl? or galantine? or a little Mayonnaise, or what else?”</p> - -<p class='c007'>“Thank you,” replied Mrs. Kemble, “<em>If there be a -potato!</em>”</p> - -<p class='c007'>Of course there was a potato—nay, several; but a terrible -<i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">gêne</span></i> hung over us all till Miss Taylor hurriedly called for -her carriage, and the party drove off.</p> - -<p class='c007'>The moment they left the door after our formal farewells, -Harriet St. Leger (as she afterwards told me) fell on her -friend: “Well, Fanny, never, <em>never</em> will I bring you -anywhere again. How <em>could</em> you behave so to Fanny -Cobbe?”</p> - -<p class='c007'>“I cannot permit any one,” said Mrs. Kemble, “to invite -a number of people to meet me without having asked my -consent; I do not choose to be made a gazing-stock to the -county. Miss Cobbe had got up a regular party of all those -people, and you could see the room was decorated for it.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>“Good Heavens, what are you talking of?” said Harriet, -“those ladies and gentlemen are all her relations, stopping -in the house. She could not turn them out because you -were coming, and her room is always full of flowers.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>“Is that really so?” said Mrs. Kemble, “Then you shall -tell Fanny Cobbe that I ask her pardon for my bad behaviour, -and if she will forgive me and come to see me in London, -<em>I will never behave badly to her again</em>?”</p> - -<p class='c007'>In a letter of hers to Harriet St. Leger given to me after -her death, I was touched to read the following reference to -this droll incident:—</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c009'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Bilton Hotel,</div> - <div class='line in8'>“Wed. 9th.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c010'>“I am interrupted by a perfect bundle of fragrance and -fresh colour sent by Miss Cobbe with a note in which I am -<span class='pageno' id='Page_200'>200</span>sorry to say she gives me very little hope of seeing her at -all while I am in Dublin. This, as you know, is a real -disappointment to me. I had rather fallen in love with -her, and wished very much to have had some opportunity -of more intercourse with her. Her face when I came to -talk to her seemed to me keen and sweet—a charming combination—and -I was so grateful to her for not being repelled -by my ungracious demeanour at her house, that I had -quite looked forward to the pleasure of seeing her again.</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“F. A. K.”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c006'>I did go to see her in London; and she kept her word, and -was my dear and affectionate friend and bore many things -from me with perfect good humour, for forty years; including -(horrible to recall!) my falling fast asleep while she was -reading Shakespeare to Mary Lloyd and me in our drawing-room -here at Hengwrt! Among her many kindnesses was -the gift of a mass of her Correspondence from the beginning -of her theatrical career in 1821 to her last years. She also -successively gave me the MSS. of all her <cite>Records</cite>, but in each -case I induced her to take them back and publish them herself. -I have now, as a priceless legacy, a large parcel of her -own letters, and five thick volumes of autograph letters -addressed to her by half the celebrated men and women of -her time. They testify uniformly to the admiration, affection -and respect wherewith,—her little foibles notwithstanding,—she -was regarded by three generations.</p> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_201'>201</span> - <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER<br /> VIII.<br /> <span class='large'><em>UPROOTED.</em></span></h2> -</div> - -<p class='c006'><span class='pageno' id='Page_203'>203</span>I draw now to the closing years of my life at Newbridge, -after I had published my first book and before my father -died. They were happy and peaceful years, though gradually -overshadowed by the sense that the long tenure of that beloved -home must soon end. It is one of the many perversities of -woman’s destiny that she is, not only by hereditary instinct -a home-making animal, but is encouraged to the uttermost -to centre all her interests in her home; every pursuit which -would give her anchorage elsewhere, (always excepting -marriage) being more or less under general disapproval. Yet -when the young woman takes thoroughly to this natural -home-making, when she has, like a plant, sent her roots -down into the cellars and her tendrils up into the garrets -and every room bears the impress of her personality, when -she glories in every good picture on the walls or bit of choice -china on the tables and blushes for every stain on the -carpets, when, in short, her home is, as it should be, -her outer garment, her nest, her shell, fitted to her -like that of a murex, then, almost invariably comes to -her the order to leave it all, tear herself out of it,—and -go to make (if she can) some other home elsewhere. -Supposing her to have married early, and that she is spared -the late uprooting from her father’s house at his death, she -has usually to bear a similar transition when she survives -her husband; and in this case often with the failing health -and spirits of old age. I do not know how these heartbreaks -are to be spared to women of the class of the daughters -and wives of country gentlemen or clergymen; but they are -<span class='pageno' id='Page_204'>204</span>hard to bear. Perhaps the most fortunate daughters (harsh -as it seems to say so) are those whose fathers die while they -are themselves still in full vigour and able to begin a new -existence with spirit and make new friends; as was my -case. Some of my contemporaries, whose fathers lived till -they were fifty, or even older, had a bitterer trial in quitting -their homes and were never able to start afresh.</p> - -<p class='c007'>In my last few years at Newbridge my father and I were -both cheered by the frequent presence of my dear little -niece, Helen, on whom he doted, and towards whom flowed -out the tenderness which had scarcely been allowed its free -course with his own children. <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">L’Art d’être Grandpère</span></i> is surely -the most beautiful of arts! When all personal pleasures -have pretty well died away then begins the reflected -pleasure in the fresh, innocent delights of the child; a moonlight -of happiness perhaps more sweet and tender than the -garish joys of the noontide of life. To me, who had never -lived in a house with little children, it brought a whole world -of revelations to have this babe and afterwards her little -sister, in a nursery under my supervision during their -mother’s long illnesses. I understood for the first time all -that a child may be in a woman’s life, and how their little -hands may pull our heart-strings. My nieces were dear, good, -little babes then; they are dear and good women now; -the comfort of my age, as they were the darlings of my -middle life.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Having received sufficient encouragement from the <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">succès -d’estime</span></i> of my <cite>Theory of Intuitive Morals</cite>, I proceeded now -to write the first of the three books on <cite>Practical Morals</cite>, with -which I designed to complete the work. My volume of -<cite>Religious Duty</cite>, then written, has proved, however, the only -one of the series ever published. At a later time I wrote -some chapters on <cite>Personal</cite> and on <cite>Social Duty</cite>, but was -dissatisfied with them, and destroyed the MSS.</p> - -<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_205'>205</span>As <cite>Religious Duty</cite> (3rd edition) is still to be had -(included by Mr. Fisher Unwin in his late re-issue of my -principal works), I need not trouble the reader by any such -analysis of it as I have given of the former volume. In -writing concerning <cite>Religious Duty</cite> at the time, I find in a -letter of mine to Harriet St. Leger (returned to me when she -grew blind), that I spoke of it thus:—</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c009'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Newbridge, April 25th, 1857.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c010'>“You see I have, after all, inserted a little preface. I -thought it necessary to explain the object of the book, -lest it might seem superfluous where it coincides with -orthodox teaching, and offensively daring where it diverges -from it. Your cousin’s doubt about my Christianity lasting -till she reached the end of <cite>Intuitive Morals</cite>, made me -resolve to forestall in this case any such danger of seeming -to fight without showing my colours. You see I have now -nailed them mast-high. But though I have done this, I -cannot say that it has been in any way to <em>make converts</em> to -my own creed that I have written this book. I wanted to -show those who are already Theists, actually or approximately, -that Theism is something far more than they seem -commonly to understand. I wanted, too, to show to those -who have had their historical faith shaken, but who still -cling to it from the belief that without it no real <em>religion</em> is -possible, that they may find all which their hearts can -need in a faith purely intuitive. Perhaps I ought rather to -say that these objects have been before me in working at -my book. I suppose in reality the impulse to such an -undertaking comes more simply. We think we have found -some truths, and we long to develop and communicate them. -We do not sit down and say ‘Such and such sort of people -want such and such a book. I will try and write it.’”</p> - -<p class='c006'>The plan of this book is simple. After discussing in the -first chapter the <cite>Canon of Religious Duty</cite>, which I define to -be “Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart -and soul and strength,”—I discuss, in the next chapter, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_206'>206</span><cite>Religious Offences</cite> against that Law,—Blasphemy, Hypocrisy, -Perjury, &c. The third chapter deals with <cite>Religious Faults</cite> -(failures of duty) such as Thanklessness, Irreverence, -Worldliness, &c. The fourth, which constitutes the main -bulk of the book, consists of what are practically six Sermons -on Thanksgiving, Adoration, Prayer, Repentance, Faith, -and Self-Consecration.</p> - -<p class='c007'>The book has been very much liked by some readers, -especially the chapter on <cite>Thanksgiving</cite>, which I reprinted -later in a tiny volume. It is strange in these days of -pessimism to read it again. I am glad I wrote it when my -heart was unchilled, my sight undimmed, by the frozen fog -which has been hanging over us for the last two decades. -An incident connected with this chapter touched me deeply. -My father in his last illness permitted it to be read to him. -Having never before listened to anything I had written, and -having, even then, no idea who wrote the book, he expressed -pleasure and sympathy with it, especially with a passage in -which I speak of the hope of being, in the future life, “young -again in all that makes childhood beautiful and holy.” It -was a pledge to me of how near our hearts truly were, under -apparently the world-wide differences.</p> - -<p class='c007'>My father was now sinking slowly beneath the weight of -years and of frequent returns of the malarial fever of -India,—in those days called “Ague,”—which he had caught -half a century before in the Mahratta wars. I have said -something already of his powerful character, his upright, -honourable, fearless nature; his strong sense of Duty. -Of the lower sort of faults and vices he was absolutely -incapable. No one who knew him could imagine him as -saying a false or prevaricating word; of driving a hard -bargain; of eating or drinking beyond the strictest rules of -temperance; least of all, of faithlessness in thought or deed -to his wife or her memory. His mistakes and errors, such -<span class='pageno' id='Page_207'>207</span>as they were, arose solely from a fiery temper and a despotic -will, nourished rather than checked by his ideas concerning -the rights of parents, and husbands, masters and employers; -and from his narrow religious creed. Such as he was, every -one honoured, some feared, and many loved him.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Before I pass on to detail more of the incidents of my own -life, I shall here narrate all that I can recall of his -descriptions of the most important occurrence in his career—the -battle of Assaye.</p> - -<p class='c007'>In Mr. George Hooper’s delightful Life of Wellington -(<em>English Men of Action Series</em>) there is a spirited account of -that battle, whereby British supremacy in India was -practically secured. Mr. Hooper speaks enthusiastically of -the behaviour, in that memorable fight, of the 19th Light -Dragoons, and of its “splendid charge,” which, with the -“irresistible sweep” of the 78th, proved the “decisive -stroke” of the great day. He describes this charge thus:—</p> - -<p class='c008'>... “The piquets, or leading troops on the right were -by mistake led off towards Assaye, uncovering the second -line, and falling themselves into a deadly converging fire. -The Seventy-Fourth followed the piquets into the cannonade, -and a great gap was thus made in the array. The enemy’s -horse rode up to charge, and so serious was the peril on the -right that the Nineteenth Light Dragoons and a native -cavalry regiment were obliged to charge at once. Eager -for the fray, they galloped up, cheering as they went, and -cheered by the wounded; and, riding home, even to the -batteries, saved the remnants of the piquets and of the -Seventy-Fourth.” (P. 76.)</p> - -<p class='c006'>My father, then a cornet in the regiment, carried the -regimental flag of the Nineteenth through that charge, and -for the rest of the day; the non-commissioned officer whose -duty it was to bear it having been struck dead at the first -onset, and my father saving the flag from falling into the -hands of the Mahrattas.</p> - -<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_208'>208</span>The Nineteenth Light Dragoons of that epoch wore a grey -uniform, and heavy steel helmets with large red plumes, which -caused the Mahrattas to nickname them “The Red Headed -Rascals.” On their shoulders were simple epaulettes made -of chains of some common white metal, one of which I -retrieved from a heap of rubbish fifty years after Assaye, and -still wear as a bracelet. The men could scarcely have -deserved the name of <em>Light</em> if many of them weighed, as did -my father at 18, no less than 18 stone, inclusive of his saddle -and accoutrements! The fashion of long hair, tied in “pig -tails,” still prevailed; and my father often laughingly boasted -that the mass of his fair hair, duly tied with black ribbon, had -descended far enough to reach his saddle and to form an -efficient protection from sabre cuts on his back and shoulders. -Mr. Hooper estimates the total number of the British army at -Assaye at 5,000; my father used to speak of it as about 4,500; -while the <em>cavalry</em> alone, of the enemy were some 30,000. -The infantry were seemingly innumerable, and altogether -covered the plain. There was also a considerable force of -artillery on Scindias’ side, and, commanding them, was a -French officer whose name my father repeatedly mentioned, -but which I have unfortunately forgotten.<a id='r12' /><a href='#f12' class='c013'><sup>[12]</sup></a> The handful of -<span class='pageno' id='Page_209'>209</span>English troops had done a full day’s march under an Indian -sun before the battle began. When the Nineteenth received -orders to charge they had been sitting long on their -horses in a position which left them exposed to the <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">ricochet</span></i> -of the shot of the enemy, and the strain on the discipline of -the men, as one after another was picked off, had been -enormous; not to prevent them from <em>retreating</em>—they had -no such idea,—but to stop them from charging without orders. -At last the word of command to charge came from Wellesley, -and the whole regiment responded with a <em>roar</em>! Then came -the fire of death and men and officers fell all around, as it -seemed almost every second man. Among the rest, as I -have said, the colour-sergeant was struck down, and my -father, as was his duty, seized the flag from the poor fellow’s -hands as he fell and carried it, waving in front of the -regiment up to the guns of the enemy.</p> - -<p class='c007'>In one or other of the repeated charges which the -Nineteenth continued to make even after their commanding -officer, Colonel Maxwell, had been killed, my father found -himself in hand to hand conflict with the French General -who was in command of the Mahratta artillery. He wore -an ordinary uniform and my father, having struck him with -his sabre at the back of his neck, expected to see terrible -results from the blow of a hand notorious all his life -for its extraordinary strength. But fortunately the -General had prudently included a coat of armour under his -uniform; and the blow only resulted in a considerable dent -in the blade of my father’s sabre; a dent which (in Biblical -language) “may be seen unto this day,” where the weapon -hangs in the study at Newbridge.</p> - -<p class='c007'>At another period of this awful battle the young Cornet -dismounted beside a stream to drink, and to allow his horse -to do the same. While so occupied, Colonel Wellesley came -up to follow his example, and they conversed for a few -<span class='pageno' id='Page_210'>210</span>minutes while dipping their hands and faces in the brook (or -river). As they did so, there slowly oozed down upon them, -trickling through the water, a streamlet of blood. Of course -they both turned away in horror and remounted to return -to the battle.</p> - -<p class='c007'>At last the tremendous struggle was over. An army of -4,500 or 5,000 tired English troops, had routed five times as -many horsemen and perhaps twenty times as many infantry -of the warlike Mahrattas. The field was clear and the -English flag waved over the English Marathon.</p> - -<p class='c007'>After this the poor, wearied soldiers were compelled to -ride back <em>ten miles</em> to camp for the night; and when they -reached their ground and dismounted, many of them—my -father among the rest—fell on the earth and slept where -they lay. Next morning they marched back to the field of -Assaye and the scene which met their eyes was one which -no lapse of years could efface from memory. The pomp and -glory and joy of victory were past; the horror of it was -before them in mangled corpses of men and horses, over -which hung clouds of flies and vultures. Fourteen officers of -his own regiment, whose last meal on earth he had shared in -convivial merriment, my father saw buried together in one -grave. Then the band of the regiment played “<cite>The Rose -Tree</cite>” and the men marched away with set faces. Long -years afterwards I happened to play that old air on the piano, -but my father stopped me, “Do not play <em>that</em> tune, pray! -I cannot bear the memories it brings to me.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>After Assaye my father fought at Argaon (or Argaum), a -battle which Mr. Turner describes as “even more decisive -than the last”; and on December 14th he joined in the -terrific storming of the great fortress of Gawiljarh, with -which the war in the Deccan terminated. He received -medals for Assaye and Argaum, just fifty years after those -battles were fought!</p> -<div class='figcenter id001'> -<img src='images/i_211.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -<div class='ic001'> -<p><em>Charles Cobbe</em>,<br /> 1857.</p> -</div> -</div> - -<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_211'>211</span>After his return from India, my father remained at his -mother’s house in Bath till 1809, when he married my -dear mother, then living with her guardians close by, at -29, Royal Crescent; and brought her to Newbridge, where -they both lived, as I have described, with few and short -interruptions till she died in October, 1847, and he in -November, 1857. For all that half century he acted -nobly the part to which he was called, of landlord, -magistrate and head of a family. There was nothing in -him of the ideal Irish, fox-hunting, happy-go-lucky, much -indebted Squire. There never was a year in his life in -which every one of his bills was not settled. His books, -piled on his study table, showed the regular payment, week -by week, of all his labourers for fifty years. No quarter day -passed without every servant in the house receiving his, or -her wages. So far was Newbridge from a Castle Rackrent -that though much in it of the furniture and decorations -belonged to the previous century, everything was kept in -perfect order and repair in the house and in the stables, coach-houses -and beautiful old garden. Punctuality reigned under -the old soldier’s <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">régime</span></i>; clocks and bells and gongs sounded -regularly for prayers and meals; and dinner was served -sharply to the moment. I should indeed be at a loss to say -in what respect my father betrayed his Anglo-Irish race, if it -were not his high spirit.</p> - -<p class='c007'>At last, and very soon after the photograph which I am -inserting in this book was taken, the long, good life drew to -its end in peace. I have found a letter which I wrote to -Harriet St. Leger a day or two after his death, and I will here -transcribe part of it, rather than narrate the event afresh.</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c009'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Nov. 14th, 1857.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='lg-container-l c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Dearest Harriet,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c010'>“My poor father’s sufferings are over. He died on -Wednesday evening, without the least pain or struggle, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_212'>212</span>having sunk gradually into an unconscious state since -Sunday morning. At all events it proved a most merciful -close to his long sufferings, for he never seemed even aware -of the terrible state into which the poor limbs fell, but -became weaker and weaker, and as the mortification -advanced, died away as if in the gentlest sleep he had known -for many a day. It is all very merciful, I can feel -nothing else, though it is very sad to have had no parting -words of blessing, such as I am sure he would have given -me. All those he loved best were near him. He had Dotie -till the last day of his consciousness, and the little thing -continually asked afterwards to go to his study, and -enquired, ‘Grandpa ‘seep?’ When he had ceased to -speak at all comprehensibly, the morning before he died -he pointed to her picture, and half smiled when I brought -it to him. Poor old father! He is free now from all his -miseries—gone home to God after his long, long life of good -and honour! Fifty years he has lived as master here. Who -but God knows all the kind and generous actions he has -done in that half century! To the very last he completed -everything, paying his labourers and settling his books on -Saturday; and we find all his arrangements made in the most -perfect and thoughtful way for everybody. There was a -letter left for me. It only contained a £100 note and the -words, ‘The last token of the love and affection of a father to -his daughter.’... ‘He is now looking so noble and happy, -I might say, so handsome; his features seem so glorified -by death, that it does one good to go and sit beside him. I -never saw Death look so little terrible. Would that the -poor form could lie there, ever! The grief will be far -worse after to-day, when we shall see it for the last time. -Jessie has made an outline of the face as it is now, very -like. How wonderful and blessed is this glorifying power -of death; taking away the lines of age and weak distension -of muscles, and leaving only, as it would seem, the true -face of the man as he was beneath all surface weaknesses; -the ‘garment by the soul laid by’ smoothed out and folded! -My cousins and Jessie and I all feel very much how blessedly -<span class='pageno' id='Page_213'>213</span>this face speaks to us; how it is <em>not him</em>, but a token -of what he is now. I grieve that I was not more to him, -that I did not better win his love and do more to deserve -it; but even this sorrow has its comfort. Perhaps he -knows now that with all my heart I did feel the deepest -tenderness for his sufferings and respect for his great -virtues. At all events the wall of <em>creed</em> has fallen down -from between our souls for ever, and I believe that was the -one great obstacle which I could never overthrow entirely. -Forbearing as he proved himself, it was never forgotten. -Now <em>all</em> that divided us is over.... It seems all very -dream-like just now, long as we have thought of it, and I -know the waking will be a terrible pang when <em>all</em> is over -and I have left <em>everything</em> round which my heart roots have -twined in five and thirty years. But I don’t fear—how can -I, when my utmost hopes could not have pointed to an end -so happy as God has given to my poor old father? -Everything is merciful about it—even to the time when we -were all together here, and when I am neither young -enough to need protection, or old enough to feel diminished -energies....”</p> - -<p class='c006'>I carried out my long formed resolution, of course, and -started on my pilgrimage just three weeks after my father’s -death. Leaving Newbridge was the worst wrench of my -life. The home of my childhood and youth, of which I had -been mistress for nineteen years, for every corner of which -I had cared, and wherein there was not a room without its -tender associations,—it seemed almost impossible to drag -myself away. To strip my pretty bedroom of its pictures -and books and ornaments, many of them my mother’s gifts, -and my mother’s work; to send off my harp to be sold; -and make over to my brother my private possessions of -ponies and carriage,—(luckily my dear dog was dead,)—and -take leave of all the dear old servants and village people, -formed a whole series of pangs. I remember feeling a -<span class='pageno' id='Page_214'>214</span>distinct regret and smiling at myself for doing so, when I -locked for the last time the big, old-fashioned tea-chest out -of which I had made the family breakfast for twenty years. -Then came the last morning and as I drove out of the gates -of Newbridge I felt I was leaving behind me all and -everything in the world which I had loved and cherished.</p> - -<p class='c007'>I was going also, it must be said, not only from a family -circle to entire solitude, but also from comparative wealth to -poverty. Considering the interests of my eldest brother as -paramount, and the seriousness of his charge of keeping up -the house and estate, my father left me but a very small -patrimony; amounting, at the rate of interest then obtainable, -to a trifle over £200 a year. For a woman who had always -had every possible service rendered to her by a regiment of -well-trained servants, and had had £130 a year pocket-money -since she left school, it must be confessed that this was a -narrow provision. My father intended me to continue to live -at Newbridge with my brother and sister-in-law; but such a -plan was entirely contrary to my view of what my life should -thenceforth become, and I accepted my poverty cheerfully -enough, with the help of a little ready money wherewith to -start on my travels. I cut off half my hair, being totally -unable to grapple with the whole without a maid, and faced -the future with the advantage of the great calm which follows -any immediate concern with Death. While that Shadow -hangs over our heads we perceive but dimly the thorns and -pebbles on our road.</p> - -<p class='c007'>A week after leaving Ireland I spent one night with -Harriet St. Leger in lodgings which she and her friend, Miss -Dorothy Wilson, occupied on the Marina at St. Leonard’s.</p> - -<p class='c007'>When I had gone to my room rather late that evening, I -opened my window and looked out for the last time before -my exile, on an English scene. There was the line of friendly -lamps close by, but beyond it the sea, dark as pitch on that -<span class='pageno' id='Page_215'>215</span>December night, was only revealed by the sound of the slow -waves breaking sullenly on the beach beneath. It was like a -black wall before me; the sea and sky undistinguishable. -I thought: “To-morrow I shall go out into that darkness! -How like to death is this!”</p> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_217'>217</span> - <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER<br /> IX.<br /> <span class='large'><em>LONG JOURNEY.</em></span></h2> -</div> - -<p class='c006'><span class='pageno' id='Page_219'>219</span>The journey which I undertook when my home duties -ended at the death of my father, would be considered a very -moderate excursion in these latter days, but in 1857 it was -still accounted somewhat of an enterprise for a “lone woman.” -When I told my friends that I was going to Egypt and -Jerusalem, they said: “Ah, you will get as far as Rome and -Naples, and that will be very interesting; but you will find -too many difficulties in the way of going any further,” -“When I say” (I replied) “that I am going to Egypt and -Jerusalem, I mean that to Egypt and Jerusalem I shall go.” -And so, as it proved, a wilful woman had her way; and I -came back after a year with the ever-delightful privilege of -observing: “I told you so.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>I shall not dream of dragging the reader again over the -well-worn ground at the slow pace of a writer of “<cite>Impressions -de Voyage</cite>.” The best of my reminiscences were given to -the world, in <cite>Fraser’s</cite> Magazine, and reprinted in my <cite>Cities of -the Past</cite>, before there was yet a prospect of a railway to -Jerusalem except in Martin’s picture of the “End of the -World”; or of a “<cite><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Service d’omnibus</span></cite>” over the wild solitudes of -Lebanon, where I struggled ‘mid snows and torrents which -nearly whelmed me and my horse in destruction. I rejoice -to think that I saw those holy and wonderful lands of -Palestine and Egypt while Cook’s tourists were yet unborn, -and Cairo had only one small English hotel and one solitary -wheel carriage; and the solemn gaze of the Sphinx -encountered no Golf-games on the desert sands.</p> - -<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_220'>220</span>My proceedings were very much like those of certain birds -of the farmyard (associated particularly with Michaelmas), -who very rarely are seen to rise on the wing but when they -are once incited to do so, are wont to take a very wide circle -in their flight before they come back to the barn door!</p> - -<p class='c007'>Paris, Marseilles, Rome, Naples, Messina, Malta, Alexandria, -Cairo, Jaffa, Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Hebron, Dead Sea, -Jordan, Beyrout, Lebanon, Baalbec, Cyprus, Rhodes, Smyrna, -Athens, Constantinople, Cape Matapan, Corfu, Trieste, -Adelsberg, Venice, Florence, Milan, Lucerne, Geneva, -Wiesbaden, Antwerp, London—such was my “swoop,” -accomplished in 11 months and at a cost of only £400. To -say that I brought home a crop of new ideas would be a -small way of indicating the whole harvest of them wherewith -I returned laden. There were (I think I may summarise), -as the results of such a journey, the following great additions -to my mental stock.</p> - -<p class='c007'>First. A totally fresh conception of the glory and beauty -of Nature. When crossing the Channel I fell into talk with -a charming old lady and told her how I was looking forward -to seeing the great pictures and buildings of Italy. “Ah,” -she said, “but there is Italian <em>Nature</em> to be seen also. Do -not miss it, looking only at works of art. <em>I</em> go to Italy to -see it much more than the galleries and churches.” I was -very much astonished at this remark, but I came home after -some months spent in a villa on Bellosguardo entirely -converted to her view. Travellers there are who weary -their feet and strain their eyes till they can no longer see or -receive impressions from the miles of painted canvas, the -regiments of statues, and the streets of palaces and churches -wherewith Italy abounds; yet have never spent a day riding -over the desolate Campagna with the far off Apennines closing -the horizon, or enjoyed nights of paradise, sitting amid the -cypresses and the garlanded vines, with the stars overhead, the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_221'>221</span>nightingales singing, and the fireflies darting around among the -<em>Rose de Maggio</em>. Such travellers may come back to England -proud of having verified every line of <em>Murray</em> on the spot, -yet they have failed to “see Italy” altogether. Never shall -I forget the revelation of loveliness of the Ægean and Ionian -seas, of the lower slopes of Lebanon, and of the Acropolis of -Athens, seen, as I saw it first, at sunrise. But when my -heaviest journeys were done and I paused and rested in -Villa Niccolini, with Florence below and the Val d’ Arno -before me, I felt as if the beauty of the world, as I then and -there saw it, were joy enough for a lifetime. The old lines -(I know not whose they are) kept ringing in my ears.—</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c018'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“And they shall summer high in bliss</div> - <div class='line'>Upon the hills of God.”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c007'>I shall quote here some verses which I wrote at that time, -as they described the scene in which I lived and revelled.</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c018'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line in8'>THE FESTA OF THE WORLD.</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>A Princess came to a southern strand,</div> - <div class='line'>Over a summer sea;</div> - <div class='line'>And the sky smiled down on the laughing land,</div> - <div class='line'>For that land was Italy.</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>The fruit trees bent their laden boughs</div> - <div class='line'>O’er the fields with harvest gold,</div> - <div class='line'>And the rich vines wreathed from tree to tree,</div> - <div class='line'>Like garlands in temples old.</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>And over all fell the glad sunlight,</div> - <div class='line'>So warm, so bright, so clear!</div> - <div class='line'>The earth shone out like an emerald set</div> - <div class='line'>In the diamond atmosphere.</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Then down to greet that lady sweet</div> - <div class='line'>Came the Duke from his palace hall:</div> - <div class='line'>“I thank thee, gentle Sire,” she cried,</div> - <div class='line'>“For thy princely festival.”</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'><span class='pageno' id='Page_222'>222</span>“For honoured guests have towns ere now</div> - <div class='line'>Been decked right royally;</div> - <div class='line'>But thy whole land is garlanded</div> - <div class='line'>One bower of bloom for me!”</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Then smiled the Duke at the lady’s thought,</div> - <div class='line'>And the thanks he had lightly won;</div> - <div class='line'>For Nature’s eternal Festa-day</div> - <div class='line'>She deemed for her alone!</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>A Poet stood by the Princess’s side;</div> - <div class='line'>“O lady raise thine eye,</div> - <div class='line'>The Giver of this great Festival,</div> - <div class='line'>He dwelleth in yon blue sky.</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Thy kinsman Prince hath welcomed thee,</div> - <div class='line'>But God hath His world arrayed</div> - <div class='line'>Not more for thee than yon beggar old</div> - <div class='line'>Who sleeps ‘neath the ilex shade.</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“His sun doth shine on the peasant’s fields,</div> - <div class='line'>His rain on his vineyard pour,</div> - <div class='line'>His flowers bloom by the worn wayside</div> - <div class='line'>And creep o’er the cottage door.</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“For each, for all is a welcome given</div> - <div class='line'>And spread the world’s great feast;</div> - <div class='line'>And the King of Kings is the loving Host</div> - <div class='line'>And each child of man a guest.”<a id='r13' /><a href='#f13' class='c013'><sup>[13]</sup></a></div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c007'>The beauty of Switzerland has at no time touched me as -that of Italy has always done. There is something in the -sharp, hard atmosphere of Switzerland (and I may add in the -sharp, hard characters of the Swiss) which disenchants me in -the grandest scenes.</p> - -<p class='c007'>The second thing one learns in a journey like mine is, of -course, the wondrous achievements of human Art,—Temples -<span class='pageno' id='Page_223'>223</span>and Churches, fountains and obelisks, pyramids and statues -and pictures without end. But on this head I need say -nothing. Enough has been said and to spare by those far -more competent than I to write of it.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Lastly, there is a thing which I, at all events, learned by -knocking about the world. It is the enormous amount of -pure <em>human good nature</em> which is to be found almost everywhere. -I should weary the reader to tell all the little -kindnesses done to me by fellow-passengers in the railways -and steamers, and by the Captains of the vessels in which I -sailed; and of the trouble which strangers took to help me -out of my small difficulties. Of course men do not meet—because -they do not want,—such services; and women, who -travel with men, or even two or three together, seldom invite -them. But for viewing human nature <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">en beau</span></i>, commend me -to a long journey by a woman of middle age, of no beauty, -and travelling as cheaply as possible, alone.</p> - -<p class='c007'>I believe the Psychical Society has started a theory that -when places where crimes have been committed are ever -after “haunted” the apparitions are not exactly good, old-fashioned -<em>real</em> ghosts, if I may use such an expression, but -some sort of atmospheric photographs (the term is my own) -left by the parties concerned, or sent telepathically from their -present <em>habitat</em> (wherever that may be) to the scene of their -earthly suffering or wickedness. The hypothesis, of course, -relieves us from the very unpleasant surmise that the actual -soul of the victims of assassination and robbery may have -nothing better to do in a future life than to stand guard -perpetually at the dark and dank corners, cellars, and bottoms -of stone staircases, where they were cruelly done to death -fifty or a hundred years before; or to loaf like detectives -about the spots where their jewelry and cash-boxes (<em>so</em> useful -and important to a disembodied spirit!) lie concealed. But -the atmospheric photograph or magic-lantern theory, whatever -<span class='pageno' id='Page_224'>224</span>truth it may hold, exactly answers to a sense which I -should think all my readers must have experienced, as I have -done, in certain houses and cities; a sense as if the crimes -which had been committed therein have left an indescribable -miasma, a lurid, impalpable shadow, like that of the ashes of -the Polynesian volcano which darkened the sun for a year; -or shall we say, like the unrecognised effluvium which -probably caused Mrs. Sleeman, in her tent, to dream she was -surrounded by naked murdered men, while 14 corpses were -actually lying beneath her bed and were next day disinterred?<a id='r14' /><a href='#f14' class='c013'><sup>[14]</sup></a> -Walking once through Holyrood with Dr. John Brown (who -had not visited the place for many years), I was quite -overcome by this sense of ancient crime, perpetuated as it -seemed, almost like a physical phenomenon in those gloomy -chambers; and on describing my sensations, Dr. Brown -avowed that he experienced a very similar impression. It -would almost seem as if moral facts of a certain intensity, -begin to throw a cloudy shadow of Evil, as Romist saints -were said to exhale an odour of sanctity.</p> - -<p class='c007'>If there be a city in the world where this sense is most -vivid, I think it is Rome. I have felt it also in Paris, but -Rome is worst. The air (not of the Campagna with all its -fevers, but of the city itself) seems foul with the blood and -corruption of a thousand years. On the finest spring day, -in the grand open spaces of the Piazza del Popolo, San -Pietro, and the Forum, it is the same as in the darkest and -narrowest streets. No person sensitive to this impression -can be genuinely light-hearted and gay in Rome, as we often -are even in our own gloomy London. Perhaps this is sheer -fancifulness on my part, but I have been many times in Rome, -twice for an entire winter, and the same impression never -failed to overcome me. On my last visit I nearly died there -<span class='pageno' id='Page_225'>225</span>and it was not to be described how earnestly I longed to -emerge, as if out of one of Dante’s <cite>Giri</cite>, “anywhere, -anywhere out of” this Rome!</p> - -<p class='c007'>On the occasion of my first journey at Christmas, 1857, I -stopped only three weeks in the Eternal City and then went on -by sea to Naples. I was ill from the fatigues and anxieties -of the previous weeks, and after a few half-dazed visits to -the Colosseum, the Vatican, and Shelley’s grave, I found -myself unable to leave my solitary fourth-floor room in the -<em>Europa</em>. A card was brought to me one day while thus -imprisoned, bearing names (unknown to me) of “Mr. and -Mrs. Robert Apthorp,” and with the singular message: “Was -I the Miss Cobbe who had corresponded with Theodore -Parker in America?” My first impression was one of alarm. -“What! more trouble about my heresies still?” It was, -however, quite a different matter. My visitors were a -gentleman (a <em>real</em> American gentleman) and his wife, with -two ladies who were all among Parker’s intimate friends in -America, and to whom he had showed my letters. They -came to hold out to me the right hands of fellowship; and -friends indeed we became, in such thorough sort that, after -seven-and-thirty years I am corresponding with dear -Mrs. Apthorp still. She and her sister nursed me through -my illness; and thus my solitude in Rome came to an end.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Naples struck me on my first visit, as it has done again and -again, as presenting the proof that the Beautiful is not by -itself, a root out of which the Good spontaneously grows. If -we want to cultivate Purity, Honesty, Veracity, Unselfishness -or any other virtue, it is vain to think we shall achieve our -end by giving the masses pretty pleasure-grounds and -“Palaces of Delight,” or even æsthetic cottages with the best -reproductions of Botticelli adorning the walls. Do what we -may we can never hope to surround our working men with -such beauty as that of the Bay of Naples, nor to show them -<span class='pageno' id='Page_226'>226</span>Art to equal the treasures of the Museo Borbonico. And -what has come of all this familiar revelling in Beauty for -centuries and millenniums to the people of Naples? Only that -they resemble more closely in ignorance, in squalor and in -degradation the most wretched Irish who dwell in mud -cabins amid the bogs, than any other people in Europe.</p> - -<p class='c007'>I had intended remaining for some time to recuperate at -Naples and took a cheery little room in a certain Pension -Schiassi (now abolished) on the Chiajia. In this Pension I -met a number of kindly and interesting people of various -nationalities; the most pleasant and cultivated of all being -Finns from Helsingfors. It was a great experience to me to -enter into some sort of society again, far removed from all -my antecedents; no longer the mistress of a large house and -dispenser of its hospitality, but a wandering tourist, known -to nobody and dressed as plainly as might be. I find I -wrote to my old friend, Miss St. Leger, on the subject -under date January 21st, 1858, as follows: “I am really -cheerful now. Those days in the country (at Cumæ and Capo -di Monte) cheered me very much, and I am beginning -altogether to look at the future differently. There is -one thing I feel really happy about. I see now my actual -position towards people, divested of the social advantages I -have hitherto held; and I find it a very pleasant one. I -don’t think I deceive myself in imagining that people easily -like me, and get interested in my ideas, while I find -abundance to like and esteem in a large proportion of those -I meet.” (Optimism, once more! the reader will say!)</p> - -<p class='c007'>It was not, however, “all beer and skittles” for me at -the Schiassi pension. I had, as I have mentioned, taken a -pretty little room looking out on the Villa Reale and the -Bay and Vesuvius, and had put up the photographs and -miniatures I carried with me and my little knick-knacks on -the writing-table, and fondly flattered myself I should sit -<span class='pageno' id='Page_227'>227</span>and write there peacefully. But I reckoned without my -neighbours! It was Sunday when I arrived and settled -myself so complacently. On Monday morning, soon after -day-break, I was rudely awakened by a dreadful four-handed -strumming on a piano, apparently in my very room! On -rousing myself, I perceived that a locked door close to -my bed obviously opened into an adjoining chamber, and -being (after the manner of Italian doors) at least two -inches short of the uncarpeted floor, I was to all -acoustic intents and purposes actually in the room -with this atrocious jangling piano and the two thumping -performers! The practising went on for two hours, and -when it stopped a masculine voice arose to read the Bible -aloud in family devotions. Then, after a brief interval for -breakfast, burst out again the intolerable strumming. I fled, -and remained out of doors for hours, but when I came back -they were at it again! I appealed to the mistress of the -house, in vain. Sir Andrew——and his daughters (I will call -them the Misses Shocking-strum, their real name concerns -nobody now) had been there before me and would no doubt -stop long after me, and could not be prevented from playing -from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. every day of the week. I took a -large card and wrote on it this pathetic appeal:—</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c018'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Pity the sorrows of a poor old maid,</div> - <div class='line'>Whose hapless lot has made her lodge next door,</div> - <div class='line'>Who fain would wish those morning airs delayed;</div> - <div class='line'>O practise less! And she will bless you more!”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c007'>I thrust this under the ill-fitting door well into the music-room, -and waited anxiously for some measure of mercy to be -meted to me in consequence. But no! the hateful thumping -and crashing went on as before. Then I girded up my -loins and went down to the packet office and took a berth in -the next steamer for Alexandria.</p> - -<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_228'>228</span>After landing at Messina (lovely region!) and at Malta, I -embarked in a French screw-steamer, which began to roll -before we were well under weigh, and which, when a real -Levanter came on three days later, played pitch and toss -with us passengers, insomuch that we often needed to -lie on mattresses on the floor and hold something to -prevent our heads from being knocked to pieces. One -day, being fortunately a very good sailor, I scrambled -up on deck and beheld a glorious scene. Euroclydon -was playing with towering waves of lapis-lazulæ all -flecked and veined like a horse’s neck with white foam, -and the African sun was shining down cloudless over the -turmoil.</p> - -<p class='c007'>There were some French Nuns on board going to a -convent in Cairo, where they were to be charitably engaged -taking care of girls. The monastic mind is always an -interesting study. It brings us back to the days of Bede, -and times when miracles (if it be not a bull to say so) -were the rule and the ordinary course of nature the exception. -People are then constantly seen where they are -not, and not seen where they are; and the dead are as -“prominent citizens” of this world (as an American would -say) as the living. Meanwhile the actual geography and -history of the modern world and all that is going on in -politics, society, art and literature, is as dark to the good -Sister or Brother as if she or he had really (as in Hans -Andersen’s story) “walked back into the eleventh century.” -My nice French nuns were very kind and instructive to me. -They told me of the Virgin’s Tree which we should see at -Heliopolis (though they knew nothing of the obelisk there), -and they informed me that if anyone looked out on Trinity -Sunday exactly at sunrise, he would see “<i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">toutes les trois -personnes de la sainte Trinité</span></i>.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>I could not help asking: “Madame les aura vues?”</p> - -<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_229'>229</span>“Pas précisément, Madame. Madame sait qu’à cette -saison le soleil se lêve bien tôt.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>“Mais, Madame, pour voir <em>loutes</em> les trois personnes?”</p> - -<p class='c007'>It was no use. The good soul persisted in believing what -she liked to believe and took care never to get up and look -out on Trinity Sunday morning,—just as ten thousand -Englishmen and women, who think themselves much wiser -than the poor Nun, carefully avoid looking straight at facts -concerning which they do not wish to be set right. St. -Thomas’ kind of faith which dares to look and <em>see</em>, and, if -it may be to <em>touch</em>, is a much more real faith after all than -that which will not venture to open its eyes.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Landing at Alexandria (after being blown off the Egyptian -coast nearly as far as Crete) was an epoch in my life. No -book, no gallery of pictures, can ever be more interesting or -instructive than the first drive through an Eastern city; even -such a hybrid one as Alexandria. But all the world knows -this now, and I need not dwell on so familiar a topic. The -only matter I care to record here is a visit I paid to a -subterranean church which had just been opened, and of -which I was fortunate enough to hear at the moment. I have -never been able to learn anything further concerning it than -appears in the following extract from one of my note-books, -and I fear the church must long ago have been destroyed, and -the frescoes, of course, effaced:</p> - -<p class='c008'>“In certain excavations now making in one of the hills -of the Old City—within a few hundred yards of the -Mahmoudié Canal—the workmen have come upon a small -subterranean church; for whose very high antiquity many -arguments may be adduced. The frescoes with which it is -adorned are still in tolerable preservation, and appear to -belong to the same period of art as those rescued from -Pompeii. Though altogether inferior to the better specimens -in the Museo Borbonico, there is yet the same simplicity of -attitude and drapery; the same breadth of outline and -<span class='pageno' id='Page_230'>230</span>effect produced by few touches. It is impossible to confound -them for a moment with the stiff and meretricious style of -Byzantine painting.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“The form of the church is very peculiar, and I conceive -antique. If we suppose a shaft to have been cut into the -hill, its base may be considered to form the centre of a -cross. To the west, in lieu of nave, are two staircases; -one ascending, the other descending to various -parts of the hillside. To the east is a small chancel, with -depressed elliptical arch and recesses at the back and sides, -of the same form. The north transept is a mere apse, -supported by rather elegant Ionic pilasters, and having a -fan-shaped roof. Opposite this, and in the place of a -south transept, is the largest apartment of the whole -grotto: a chamber, presenting a singular transition between -a modern funeral-vault and an ancient columbarium. The -walls are pierced on all sides by deep holes, of the size and -shape of coffins placed endwise. There are in all thirty-two -of these holes; in which, however, I could find no -evidence that they had ever been applied to the purpose -of interment. In the corner, between this chamber and -the chancel-arch, there is a deep stone cistern sunk in the -ground; I presume a font. The frescoes at the end of the -chancel are small, and much effaced. In the eastern apse -there is a group representing the Miracle of the Loaves and -Fishes. In the front walls of the chancel-arch are two -life-size figures; one representing an angel, the other -having the name of Christ inscribed over it in Greek -letters. This last struck me as peculiarly interesting; -from the circumstance that the face bears no resemblance -whatever to the one conventionally received among us, in -modern times. The eyes, in the Alexandrian fresco, are -dark and widely opened; the eyebrows straight and -strongly marked; the hair nearly black and gathered in -short, thick masses over the ears. I was the more -attracted by these peculiarities, as my attention had -shortly before been arrested very forcibly by the splendid -bronze bust from Herculaneum, in the Museo Borbonico. -<span class='pageno' id='Page_231'>231</span>This grand and beautiful head, which Murray calls -‘Speucippus’ and the custodi, ‘Plato in the character of -the Indian Bacchus,’ resembles so perfectly the common -representations of Christ, that I should be at a loss to -define any difference, unless it be that it has, perhaps, -more intellectual power than our paintings and sculptures -usually convey, and a more massive neck. If this Alexandrian -fresco really represent the tradition of the 3rd or -4th century, it becomes a question of some curiosity: <em>whence</em> -do we derive our modern idea of Christ’s face?”</p> - -<p class='c006'>Cairo was a great delight to me. I could not afford to -stop at Shepheard’s Hotel but took up my abode with some -kind Americans I had met in the steamer, in a sort of -Pension kept by an Italian named Ronch; in old Cairo, -actually on the bank of the Nile; so literally so, that I -might have dropped a stone from our balcony into the river, -just opposite the Isle of Rhoda. From this place I made -two excursions to the Pyramids and had a somewhat -appalling experience in the “King’s Chamber” in the -vault of Cheops. I had gone rather recklessly to Ghiza -without either friend or Dragoman; and allowed the -wretched Scheik at the door to send five Arabs into the -pyramid with me as guides. They had only two miserable -dip candles altogether, and the darkness, dust, heat and -noise of the Arabs chanting “Vera goot lady! Backsheeh! -Backsheeh! Vera goot lady,” and so on <i><span lang="it" xml:lang="it">da capo</span></i>, all in the -narrow, steeply-slanting passages, together with the -intolerable sense of weight as of a mountain of stone over -me, proved trying to my nerves. Then, when we had -reached the central vault and I had glanced at the empty -sarcophagus, which is all it contains, the five men suddenly -stopped their chanting, placed themselves with their backs -to the wall in rows, with crossed arms in the attitude -of the Osiride pilasters; and one of them in a businesslike -tone, demanded: “Backsheesh”! I instantly perceived -<span class='pageno' id='Page_232'>232</span>into what a trap I had fallen, and what a fool I had -been to come there alone. The idea that they might march -out and leave me alone in that awful place, in the darkness, -very nearly made me quail. But I knew it was no time to -betray alarm, so I replied that I “Intended to pay them -outside, but if they wished it I would do so at once.” I took -out my purse and gave them three shillings to be divided -between the five. They took the money and then returned -to their posture against the wall.</p> - -<p class='c007'>“We want Backsheesh!”</p> - -<p class='c007'>I took my courage <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">à deux mains</span></i>, and said, “If you give -me any more trouble the English Consul shall hear of it, and -you will get the stick.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>“We want Backsheesh!”</p> - -<p class='c007'>“I’ll have no more of this,” I cried in a very sharp voice, -and, turning to the ringleader, who held a candle, I said, -“Here, you fellow! Take that candle on in front and let me -out. Go!” <em>He went!</em>—and I blessed my stars, and all the -stars, when I emerged out of that endless passage at last, -and stood safe under the bright Egyptian sun.</p> - -<p class='c007'>I am glad to remember Ghiza as it was in those days before -hotels, or even tents, were visible near it; when the solemn -Sphinx,—so strangely and affectingly human! stood gazing -over the desert sands, and beside it were only the ancient -temple, the rifled tombs, and the three great Pyramids. To -me in those days it seemed the most impressive Field of -Death in the world.</p> - -<p class='c007'>The old Arab Mosques in Cairo also delighted me greatly -both for their beauty and as studies of the original early -English architecture. Needless to say I was enchanted with -the streets and bazaars, and all the dim, strange, lovely -pictures they afforded, and the Eastern odours which pervaded -them in that bright, light air, wherein my chest grew -sound and strong after having been for years oppressed with -<span class='pageno' id='Page_233'>233</span>bronchial troubles. One day in my plenitude of enjoyment -of health and vigour, I walked alone a long way down the -splendid Shoubra avenue of Acacia Lebbex trees with the -moving crowd of Arab men and women in all their varied -costumes, and trains of camels and asses laden with green -trefoil, glittering in the alternate sun and shade with never a -cart or carriage to disturb the even currents to and fro. -At last I came in sight of the Nile, and in the extreme -excitement of the view, hastily concluded that the yellow -bank which sloped down beyond the grass must be sand, and -that I could actually plunge my hands in the River of Egypt. -I ran down the slope some little distance from the avenue, -and took a few steps on the supposed yellow sand. It -proved to be merely mud, like the banks of the Avon at low -tide at Clifton, though of different colour, and in a moment -I felt myself sinking indefinitely. Already it was nearly -up to my knees, and in a few minutes I should have been -(quietly and unperceived by anybody) entombed for the -investigation of Egyptologers of future generations. It was -a ludicrous position, and even in the peril of it I believe I -laughed outright. Any way I happily remembered that I -had read years before in a bad French novel, how people -saved themselves in quicksands in the Landes by throwing -themselves down and so dividing their weight over a much -larger surface than the soles of the feet. Instantly I turned -back towards the bank, and cast myself along forward, and -then by dint of enormous efforts withdrew my feet and -struggled back to <i><span lang="la" xml:lang="la">terra firma</span></i>, much, I should think, after -the mode of locomotion of an Ichthyosaurus or other “dragon -of the prime.” Arrived at a place of safety I had next -to reflect how I was to walk home into the town in the -pickle to which I had reduced myself! Luckily the hot sun -of Egypt dried the mud on my homely clothes and enabled -me to brush it off as dust in an incredibly quick time. -<span class='pageno' id='Page_234'>234</span>Before it had done so, however, a frog of exceptional -ugliness mistook me for part of the bank and jumped on -my lap. He looked such an ill-made creature that I -constructed at once the (non-scientific) hypothesis that he -must have been descended from some of the frogs which -Pharaoh’s magicians are said to have made in rivalry to -Moses; forerunners of those modern pathologists who are -just clever enough to <em>give us</em> all sorts of Plagues, but always -stop short of <em>curing</em> them.</p> - -<p class='c007'>I was very anxious, of course, to ascend the Nile to -Philæ, or at the very least to Thebes; but I was too poor -by far to hire a dahabieh for myself alone, and, in those -days, excursion steamers were non-existent, or very rare. I -did hear of a gentleman who wanted to make up a party -and take a boat, but he coolly proposed that I should -pay half of the expenses of five people, and I did not -view that arrangement in a favourable light. Eventually I -turned sorrowfully and disappointed back to Alexandria with a -pleasant party of English and American ladies and gentlemen; -and after a short passage to Jaffa, we rode up all together in -two days to Jerusalem. I had given up riding many years -before and taken to driving instead, but there was infinite -exhilaration on finding myself again on horseback, on one of -the active little, half Arab, Syrian steeds. That wonderful -ride through the Jaffa orange groves and the Plain of Sharon -with all its flowers, to Lydda and Ramleh, and then, next day, -to Jerusalem, was beyond all words interesting. I think no -one who has been brought up as we English are, on the -double literature of Palestine and England, can visit the Holy -Land with other than almost breathless curiosity mingled -with a thousand tender associations. What England is to -a cultivated American traveller of Washington Irving’s or -Lowell’s stamp, <em>that</em> is Palestine to us all. As for me, my -religious views made it, I think, rather more than less -<span class='pageno' id='Page_235'>235</span>congenial and interesting to me than to many others. I find -I wrote of it to my friend from Jerusalem (March 6th, 1858):</p> - -<p class='c008'>“I feel very happy to be here. The land seems worthy -to be that in which from earliest history the human soul -has highest and oftenest soared up to God. One wants no -miraculous story to make such a country a ‘Holy Land;’ -nor can such story make it less holy to me, as it does, I -think, to some who equally disbelieve it. It seems to me -as if Christians must be, and in fact are, overwhelmed and -confounded to find themselves in the scene of such events. -To me it is all pleasure. I believe that if Christ can see us -now like other departed spirits, it is those who revere him -as I do, and not those who give to him his Father’s place, -whom he can regard most complacently. If I did not feel -this it would pain me to be here.”</p> - -<p class='c006'>When I went first into the church of the Holy Sepulchre -it happened, on account of some function going on elsewhere, -to be unusually free from the crowds of pilgrims. It seemed -to me to be a real parable in stone. All the different -churches, Greek, Latin, Armenian Maronite, <em>opened into</em> -the central Temple; as if to show that every creed has a Door -leading to the true Holy Place.</p> - -<p class='c007'>I loved also the little narrow marble shrine in the midst -with its small, low door, and the mere plain altar-tomb, -with room to kneel beside it and pray,—if we will,—to him -who is believed to have rested there for the mystic three -days after his crucifixion; or if we will (and as I did), to -“his Father and our Father”; in a spot hallowed by the -associations of a hundred worshipping generations, and the -memory of the holiest of men.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Another day I was able to walk alone nearly all round -outside the walls of Jerusalem, beginning at the Jaffa gate -and passing round through what was then a desert, but is -now, I am told, a populous suburb. I came successively to -<span class='pageno' id='Page_236'>236</span>Siloam and to the Valley of Hinnom, and of Jehoshaphat; -to the Tombs of the Prophets, and at last to Gethsemane. -At the time of my visit, this sacred spot, containing the -ruins of an “oil press” (whence its supposed identification), -was a small walled garden kept by monks who did their best -to spoil its associations. Above it I sat for a long time -beside the path up to St. Stephen’s Gate, where tradition -places the scene of the great first Christian Martyrdom. -The ground is all strewed still, with large stones and -boulders, making it easy to conjure up the terrific picture of -the kneeling saint and savage crowd, and of Saul standing -by watching the scene.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Leaving Jerusalem after a week with the same pleasant -English and American companions, and with a due provision -of guards and tents and baggage mules, I rode to Bethlehem -and Hebron, visiting on the way Abraham’s oak at Mamre, -which is a magnificent old terebinth, and the vineyard of -Esh-kol, then in a very poor condition of culture. We -stopped the first night close to Solomon’s Pools, and I was -profane enough to bring my sponges at earliest dawn into -Jacob’s Well at the head of the waters, and enjoy a -delicious bath. Ere we turned in on the previous evening, -a clergyman of our party read to us, sitting under the -walls of the old Saracenic castle, the pages in Stanley’s -Palestine which describe, with all his vivid truthfulness -and historic sentiment, the scene which lay before us; -the three great ponds, “built by Solomon, repaired by -Pontius Pilate,” which have supplied Jerusalem with water -for 3,000 years.</p> - -<p class='c007'>I am much surprised that the problem offered by the -contents of the vault beneath the Mosque of Hebron has not -long ago excited the intensest curiosity among both Jews and -Christians. Here, within small and definite limits, must lie -evidence of incalculable weight in favour of or against the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_237'>237</span>veracity of the Mosaic record. If the account in Gen. L. -be correct, the bones of Jacob were brought out of Egypt -and deposited here by Joseph; embalmed in the finest -and most durable manner. We are expressly told -(Gen. L., 2 and 3) that Joseph ordered the physicians to -embalm his father, that “forty days were fulfilled for him, -for so are fulfilled the days of those which are embalmed;” -and that Joseph went up to Canaan with “all the servants -of Pharaoh and the elders of his house, and all the elders -of the land of Egypt,” (a rather amazing exodus!) and -“chariots and horsemen, a very great company.” They finally -buried Jacob (v. 13) “in the Cave of the field of Machpelah -which Abraham bought.” It was unquestionably, then, a -first-class Mummy, covered with wrappers and inscriptions, -and enclosed, of course, in a splendidly-painted Mummy-coffin, -which was deposited in that unique cave; and the -extraordinary sanctity which has attached to the spot as far -as tradition reaches back, affords presumption amounting -almost to guarantee that <em>there</em>, if anywhere, below the six -cenotaphs in the upper chamber, in the vault under the -small hole in the floor where the Prince of Wales and Dean -Stanley were privileged to look down into the darkness,—lie -the relics which would terminate more controversies, and -throw more light on the origin of Judaism than can be done -by all the Rabbis and Bishops of Europe and Asia together! -Why do not the Rothschilds and Hirschs and Montefiores and -Goldschmidts put together a modest little subscription of a -million or two and buy up Hebron, and so settle once for all -whether the Jewish Ulysses were a myth or a man; and -whether there were really an Israel of whom they are the -“Children?” I have talked to Dean Stanley on the subject, -who (as he tells us in his delightful <cite>Jewish Church</cite>, I., 500) -shared all my curiosity, but when I urged the query: “<em>Did</em> -he think that the relics of the Patriarchs would be found, if -<span class='pageno' id='Page_238'>238</span>we could examine the cave?” he put up his hands in a -deprecating attitude, which all who knew and loved him -will remember, and said, “Ah! that is the question, -indeed!”</p> - -<p class='c007'>Is it possible that the millionaire Jews of Germany, France -and England are, after all, like my poor friends the Nuns, -who would not get up at sunrise on Trinity Sunday to see -“<i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">toutes les trois personnes de la sainte Trinité</span></i>,”—and that -they prefer to believe that the bones of the three Patriarchs -are where they ought to be, but would rather not put that -confidence to the test?</p> - -<p class='c007'>One of the sights which affected me most in the course -of our pilgrimage through Judæa was beheld after a night -spent by the ladies of our party in our tent pitched among -the sands (and centipedes!) of the desert of the Mar Saba. -(Our gentlemen-friends were privileged to sleep in the vast -old monastery whence they brought us next morning the most -excellent <em>raki</em>.) As we rode out of the little valley of our -encampment and down by the convent of Mar Saba, we -obtained a complete view of the whole <em>hermit burrow</em>; for -such it may properly be considered. Mar Saba is the very -ideal of a desert. It lies amid the wilderness of hills, not -grand enough to be sublime but only monotonous and -hopelessly barren. So white are these hills that at first -they appear to be of chalk, but further inspection shows -them to be of whitish rock, with hardly a trace of vegetation -growing anywhere over it. On the hills there is sometimes -an inch of soil over the rock; in the valleys there are -torrents of stones over the inch of soil. Between our mid-day -halt at Derbinerbeit (the highest land in Judæa), and -the evening rest at Mar Saba, our whole march had -been in utter solitude; not a village, a tent, a caravan, -a human being in sight. Not a tree or bush. Of living -creatures hardly a bird to break the dead silence of the world, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_239'>239</span>only a large and venomous snake crawling beside our track. -Thus, far from human haunts, in the heart of the wilderness, -lies Mar Saba. Fit approach to such a shrine! Through the -arid, burning rocks a profound and sharply-cut chasm -suddenly opens and winds, forming a hideous valley, such as -may exist in the unpeopled moon, but which probably has -not its equal in our world for rugged and blasted desolation. -There is no brook or stream in the depths of the ravine. If -a torrent may ever rush down it after the thunderstorms -with which the country is often visited, no traces of water -remain even in early spring. Barren, burning, glaring -rocks alone are to be seen on every side. Far up on the -cliff, like a fortress, stand the gloomy, windowless walls -of the convent; but along the ravine in an almost inaccessible -gorge of the hills, are caves and holes half-way down the -precipice,—the dwellings of the hermits. Here, in a den fit -for a fox or a hyæna, one poor soul had died just before -my visit, after five-and-forty years of self-incarceration. -Death had released him, but many more remained; and we -could see some of them from the distant road as we -passed, sitting at the mouth of their caverns, or walking -on the little ledges of rock which they had smoothed -for terraces. Their food (such as it is) is sent from the -convent and let down from the cliffs at needful intervals. -Otherwise they live absolutely alone,—alone in this hideous -desolation of nature, with the lurid, blasted desert for their -sole share in God’s beautiful universe. We are all, I suppose, -accustomed to think of a hermit as our poets have painted -him, dwelling serene in</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c018'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“A lodge in some vast wilderness,</div> - <div class='line'>Some boundless continuity of shade,”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c019'>undisturbed by all the ugly and jarring sights and sounds of -our grinding civilization; sleeping calmly on his bed of fern, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_240'>240</span>feeding on his pulse and cresses, and drinking the water from -the brook.</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c018'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“He kneels at morn at noon and eve,</div> - <div class='line in2'>He hath a cushion plump,</div> - <div class='line'>It is the moss that wholly hides</div> - <div class='line in2'>The rotted old oak stump.”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c007'>But the hermits of Mar Saba, how different are they from -him who assoiled the Ancient Mariner? No holy cloisters -of the woods, and sound of chanting brooks, and hymns of -morning birds; only this silent, burning waste, this -“desolation deified.” It seemed as if some frightful -aberration of the religious sentiment could alone lead men to -choose for home, temple, prison, tomb, the one spot of earth -where no flower springs to tell of God’s tenderness, no soft -dew or sweet sound ever falls to preach faith and love.</p> - -<p class='c007'>There are many such hermits still in the Greek Church. -I have seen their eyries perched where only vultures should -have their nests, on the cliffs of Caramania, and among the -caverns of the Cyclades. Anthony and Stylites have indeed -left behind them a track of evil glory, along which many a -poor wretch still “crawls to heaven along the devil’s trail.” -Are not lives wasted like these to be put into the account -when we come to estimate the <i><span lang="la" xml:lang="la">Gesta Christi</span></i>? Must we not, -looking on these and on the ten thousand, thousand hearts -broken in monasteries and nunneries all over Europe, admit -that historical Christianity has not only done good work in -the world, but <em>bad</em> work also: and that, diverging widely -from the Spirit of Christ, it has been far from uniformly -beneficent?</p> - -<p class='c007'>It was while riding some hours from Mar Saba through -the low hills before coming out on the blighted flats of the -Dead Sea, that one of those pictures passed before me which -are ever after hung up in the mind’s gallery among the -choicest of the spoils of Eastern travel. By some chance I -<span class='pageno' id='Page_241'>241</span>was alone, riding a few hundred yards in front of the caravan, -when, turning the corner of a hill, I met a man approaching -me, the only one I had seen for several hours since we passed -a few black tents eight or ten miles away. He was a noble-looking -young shepherd, dressed in the camel’s-hair robe, -and with the lithesome, powerful limbs and elastic step of -the children of the desert. But the interest which attached -to him was the errand on which he had manifestly been -engaged on those Dead Sea plains from whence he was -returning. Round his neck, and with its little limbs held -gently by his hand, lay a lamb he had rescued and was -doubtless carrying home. The little creature lay as if -perfectly contented and happy, and the man looked pleased -as he strode along lightly with his burden; and as I -saluted him with the usual gesture of pointing to heart -and head and the “salaam alik!”, (Peace be with -you), he responded with a smile and a kindly glance -at the lamb, to which he saw my eyes were directed. It was -actually the beautiful parable of the gospel acted out before -my sight. Every particular was true to the story; the -shepherd had doubtless left his “ninety-and-nine in the -wilderness,” round the black tents we had seen so far away, -and had sought for the lost lamb “till he found it,” where it -must quickly have perished without his help, among those -blighted plains. Literally, too, “when he had found it, he -laid it on his shoulders, rejoicing.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>After this beautiful sight which I have longed ever since -for a painter’s power to place on canvas (a better subject a -thousand-fold than the cruel “<em>Scape-Goat</em>”), we reached the -Dead Sea, and I managed to dip into it, after wading out a -very long way in the shallow, bitter, biting water which -stung my lips and nostrils, and tasted like a horrible mixture -of quinine and salt. From the shore, all strewed with the -white skeletons of trees washed down by the river, we made -<span class='pageno' id='Page_242'>242</span>our way (mostly galloping) in four hours to the Ford of -Jordan; and there I had the privilege of another dip, or -rather of seven dips, taken in commemoration of Naaman and -to wash off the Dead Sea brine! It is the spot supposed -to have witnessed the transit of Joshua and the baptisms -of St. John. The following night our tents were pitched -among the ruins of Jericho. The wonder is, not that the -once flourishing city should be deserted and Herod’s great -amphitheatre there a ruinous heap, but that a town was ever -built in such an insanitary place. Closed in by the mountains -on every side from whence a fresh breeze could blow upon -it, and open only to the unwholesome flats of the Dead Sea, -the situation is pestilential.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Next day we rode back to Jerusalem through the desolate -mountains of the Quarantania, where tradition places the -mystic Fast and Temptation of Christ; a dreary, lonely, -burning desert. Here, also, is the supposed scene of the -parable of the Good Samaritan, and the ruins of a great -building, which may have been a Half-way House Inn beside -the road, bear out the tradition. I have often reflected that -orthodox divines miss half the point of that beautiful story -when they omit to mark the fact that the Samaritans were, in -Christ’s time, boycotted by the Jews <em>as heretics</em>; and that it -was precisely one of these <em>heretics</em> who was made by Jesus -the type for all time of genuine philanthropy,—in direct -and purposeful contrast to the representatives of Judaic -orthodoxy, the Priest and Levite.</p> - -<p class='c007'>The sun on my head during the latter hours of the ride -became intolerable; not like English heat, however excessive, -but roasting my very brains through all the folds of linen on -my hat and of a damp handkerchief within. It was like -sitting before a kitchen fire with one’s head in the position -proper for a leg of mutton! I felt it was a matter of life and -death to escape, and galloped on by myself in advance for -<span class='pageno' id='Page_243'>243</span>many miles till suddenly I came, just under Bethany at the -base of the Mount of Olives, to a magnificent ancient fountain, -with the cool water gushing out, amid the massive old -masonry. In a moment I leaped from my equally eager -horse, threw off my hat and bared my neck and put my -head under the blessed stream. Of course it was a perilous -proceeding, but it saved me from a sunstroke.</p> - -<p class='c007'>That evening in Jerusalem I wished good-bye to my -pleasant fellow-travellers, who were good enough to pass a -vote of thanks to me for my “unvarying pluck and hilarity -during the fatigues and dangers of the way!” I started -next day for the two days’ ride to Jaffa, accompanied only -by a good Italian named Abengo, and a muleteer. There -was a small war going on between some of the tribes -on the way, and a certain chief named Aboo-Goosh (beneath -whose robber’s castle I had been pelted with stones on -my way up to Jerusalem) was scouring the country. We -passed, in the valley of Ajalon, some wounded men borne home -from a battle, but otherwise encountered nothing alarming, -and I obtained a great deal of curious information from -Abengo, who knew Palestine intimately, and whose wife was -a Christian woman of Nazareth. There is no use in repeating -now records of a state of things which has been modified, no -doubt, essentially in thirty years.</p> - -<p class='c007'>From Jaffa I sailed to Beyrout, and there, with kind help -and advice from the Consul, I obtained the services of an old -Turk as a Dragoman, and he and I and a muleteer laden with -my bed and baggage started to cross Lebanon and make our -way to Baalbec and, as I hoped, also to Damascus. The -snows were still thick on the higher slopes of Lebanon, and -after the excessive heat I had just undergone in Syria, the -cold was trying. But the beauty and grandeur of those noble -mountains, fringed below with fig and olive, and with their -snowy summits rising height beyond height above, was compensation -<span class='pageno' id='Page_244'>244</span>for all hardship. By a curious chance, Lebanon -was the first mountain range worthy of the name, which I -had ever crossed. It was an introduction, of course, to a -whole world of impressions and experiences.</p> - -<p class='c007'>I had a good many escapes in the course of my ride; there -being nothing to be called a road over much of the way, and -such path as there was being covered with snow or melting -torrents. My strong little Syrian horse walked and scrambled -and stumbled up beds of streams running down in cataracts -over the rocks and boulders; and on one occasion he had to -bear me down a very steep descent, where we floundered -forward, sometimes up to his girths in the snow, in dread of -descending with irresistible impetus to the edge of a precipice -which yawned at the bottom. We did reach the verge in -rather a shaky condition; but the good beast struggled hard -to save himself, and turned at the critical moment safe along -the edge.</p> - -<p class='c007'>A sad association belongs to my sojourn among the -Maronites at Zachly; a large village on the further side of -Lebanon, on the slopes of the Haraun. I slept there on my -outward way in my tent pitched in an angle of grass outside -one of the first houses, and on my return journey I obtained -the use of the principal room of the same house from my -kind hosts, as the cold outside was too considerable for tent -life in comfort. Zachly was a very humble, simple place. -The houses were all of mud, with flat roofs made of branches -laid across and covered with more mud. A stem of a living -tree usually stood in the middle of the house supporting the -whole erection, which was divided into two or three -chambers. A recess in the wall held piles of mats, and of -the hard cushions made of raw cotton, which form both seats, -beds, and pillows. The rough, unplaned door, with wooden -lock, the window half stuffed up, the abundant population of -cocks and hens, cats and dogs and rosy little boys and girls, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_245'>245</span>strongly reminded me of Balisk! I was welcomed most -kindly after a brief negotiation with Hassan; and the simple -women and girls clustered round me with soft words and -presents of carrots and daffodils. One old woman having -kissed my hands as a beginning, proceeded to put her arms -round my neck and embrace me in a most motherly way. To -amuse the party, I showed them my travelling bag, luncheon -and writing and drawing apparatus, and made them taste my -biscuits and smell my toilet vinegar. Screams of “Taib, -Taib! Katiyeh!” (good, very good) rewarded my small -efforts, and then I made them tell me all their names, which -I wrote in my note-book. They were very pretty: Helena, -Mareen, Yasmeen, Myrrhi, Maroon, Georgi, Malachee, Yussef, -and several others, the last being Salieh, the young village -priest, a tall, grand-looking young man with high cylindrical -black hat, black robe and flowing brown hair. I made him -a respectful salutation at which he seemed pleased. On my -second visit to Zachly I attended the vesper service in his -little chapel as the sun went down over Lebanon. It was a -plain quadrangle of mud walls, brown without and whitewashed -within; a flat roof of branches and mortar; a post -for support in the centre; a confessional at one side; a little -lectern; an altar without crucifix and only decorated by two -candlesticks; a jar of fresh daffodils; some poor prints; a -blue tea-cup for sacramental plate, and a little cottage-window -into which the setting sun was shining softly;—such was the -chapel of Zachly. A few men knelt to the left, a few women -to the right; in front of the altar was a group of children, -also kneeling, and waiting to take their part in the service. -At the lectern stood the noble figure of young Papas Salieh, -leaning on one of the crutches which in all Eastern churches -are provided to relieve the fatigue of the attendants, who, -like Abraham, “worship, leaning on the top of a staff.” -Beside the Papas stood a ragged but intelligent little acolyte, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_246'>246</span>who chanted very well, and on the other side of the lectern -an aged peasant, who also took his part. The prayers -were, of course, unintelligible to me, being in Arabic; -but I recognised in the Gospel the chapter of genealogies -in Luke, over whose hard names the priest helped his -friend quite unaffectedly. The reading over, Papas Salieh -took off his black and red cap, and, kneeling before the -altar, commenced another chanted prayer, while the -women beside me bowed till they kissed the ground in -Eastern prostration, beating their breasts with resounding -blows. The group of children made the responses at -intervals; and then the priest blessed us, and the simple -service was over, having occupied about twenty minutes. -While we were departing, the Papas seated himself in the -confessional and a man went immediately into the penitents’ -place beside him. There was something very affecting to -me in this poor little church of clay, with its humble efforts -at cleanliness and flowers and music; all built and adorned -by the worshippers’ own hands, and served by the young -peasant priest, doubtless the son and brother of some of his -own flock.</p> - -<p class='c007'>As I have said there are sad associations connected with -this visit of mine to Zachly. A very short time afterwards -the Druses came down with irresistible force,—massacred -the greater number of the unhappy Maronites and burned -the village. The spot where I had been so kindly received -was left a heap of blackened ruins, and what became of -sweet, motherly Helena and her dear little children and -good Papas Salieh and the rest, I have never been able to -learn.</p> - -<p class='c007'>It took six hours of hard riding in a bitter wind to carry me -from Zachly to Baalbec; but anticipation bore me on wings, -and to beguile the way I repeated to myself as my good -memory permitted, the whole of Moore’s poem of <cite>Paradise -<span class='pageno' id='Page_247'>247</span>and the Peri</cite>, culminating in the scene which the Peri beheld -“When o’er the vale of Baalbec winging.” In vain, however, I -cross-questioned Hassan (we talked Italian <i><span lang="it" xml:lang="it">tant bien que mal</span></i>) -about Peris. He had never heard of such beings. But of -Djinns in general he knew only too much; and notably that -they had built the vast ruins of Baalbec, which no mortal hands -<em>could</em> have raised; and that to the present time they haunt -them so constantly and in such terrific shape, that it is very -perilous for anybody to go there alone and quite impossible -to do so after nightfall. I had reason to bless this -belief in the Djinns of Baalbec for it left me the undisturbed -solitary enjoyment of the mighty enclosure within the -Saracenic walls for the best part of two days, unvexed by -the inquisitive presence or observation of the population of -the Arab village outside.</p> - -<p class='c007'>To pitch my tent among the ruins, however, was more -than I could bring Hassan to do by any cajoling, and I -consented finally to sleep in a small cabin consisting of a -single chamber of which I could lock the door inside. When -I prepared for sleep on the hard cotton cushions laid over a -stone bench, and with the two unglazed windows admitting -volumes of cold air, I was frightened to find I had every -symptom of approaching fever. Into what an awful position,—I -reflected,—had I put myself, with no one but that old Turk -Hassan, and the Arab from whom I had hired this little -house for the night, to take care of me should I have a -real bad fever, and be kept there between life and death -for weeks! Reflecting what I could possibly do to avert -the danger, brought on, of course, by cold and fatigue, -I took from my bag the half-bottle of Raki (a very -pure spirit made from rice) which my travelling friends -had brought from the monastery at Mar Saba and had -kindly shared with me; and to a large dose of this I was -able to add some hot water from a sort of coffee-pot left, by -<span class='pageno' id='Page_248'>248</span>good luck, in the yet warm brazier of charcoal in the middle -of my room. I drank my Raki-toddy to the last drop, and -then slept the sleep of the just,—to awaken quite well the -next morning! And if any of my teetotal friends think I did -wrong to take it, I beg entirely to differ from them on the -subject.</p> - -<p class='c007'>The days which I spent in and around Baalbec were more -than repayment for the fatigues and perils of the passage of -“Sainted Lebanon;” whose famous Cedars, by the way, I -was unable to visit; the region where they stand being at -that season too deeply covered with snow. Here is a -description I gave of Baalbec to Harriet St. Leger just after -my visit:—</p> - -<p class='c008'>“I had two wonderful days indeed in Baalbec. The -number of the vast solitary ruins exceeded all my anticipations, -and their grandeur impresses one as no remains less -completely isolated can do. Imagine a space about that of -Newbridge garden surrounded by enormous Saracenic walls -with a sweet, bright brook running round it, and then left -to entire solitude. A few cattle browse on the short grass, -and now and then, I suppose, some one enters by one -or other of the different gaps in the wall to look after them; -but in the Temple of Jupiter, shut in by its great walls, -to which the displacement of a single stone makes now -the sole entrance, no one ever enters. The fear of Djinns -renders the place even doubly alarming! Among the most -awful things in Baalbec are stupendous subterranean -tunnels running in various directions under the ruined city. -I groped through several of them, they opened out with -great doorways into others which, having no light, I would -not explore, but which seemed abysses of awe! The -stones of all these works are enormous. Those 5 or 6 feet -and 12 or 15 feet long are among the smallest. In the -temple were some which I could not span with five extensions -of my arms, <em>i.e.</em>, something like 30 feet, but there are -still larger elsewhere among the ruins.”</p> - -<p class='c006'><span class='pageno' id='Page_249'>249</span>The shafts of the columns of the two Temples,—the six -left standing of the great Temple of the Sun which</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c018'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line in8'>“Stand sublime</div> - <div class='line'>Casting their shadows from on high</div> - <div class='line'>Like Dials which the wizard Time</div> - <div class='line'>Had raised to count his ages by”—</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c019'>and those of the hypæthral temple of Zeus of which only a -few have fallen, are alike miracles of size and perfection of -moulding. The fragments of palaces reveal magnificence -unparalleled. All these enormous edifices are wrought with -such lavish luxuriance of imagination, such perfection of -detail in harmony with the luscious Corinthian style which -pervades the whole, that the idea of the Arabs that they are -the work not of men but of Genii, seemed quite natural. I -recalled what Vitruvius (who wrote about the time in which -the best of these temples was erected), says of the methods -by which, in his day, the largest stones were moved from -quarries and lifted to their places, but I failed to comprehend -how the colossal work was achieved here.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Passing out of the great ruined gateway I came to vast -square and hexagonal courts with walls forming exedræ, -loaded with profusion of ornaments; columns, entablatures, -niches and seats overhung with carvings of garlands of -flowers and the wings of fanciful creatures. Streets, gateways -and palaces, hardly distinguishable in their ruin, follow -on beyond the courts and portico. I climbed up a shattered -stair to the summit of the Saracenic wall and felt a sort of -shock to behold the living world below me; the glittering -brook, the almond trees in blossom and Anti-Lebanon -beyond. Here I caught sight of the well-known exquisite -little circular temple with its colonnade of six Corinthian -columns, of which the architraves are recurved inwards from -column to column. If I am not mistaken a reproduction -<span class='pageno' id='Page_250'>250</span>of this lovely little building was set up in Kew Gardens -in the last century.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Last of all I returned to the Temple of Zeus—or of Baal -as it is sometimes called—to spend there in secure solitude -(except for Djinns!) the closing hours of that long, rich -day. The large walls are almost perfect; the colonnades of -enormous pillars are mostly still standing. From the inner -portal with its magnificent lintel half fallen from its place, -the view is probably the finest of any fane of the ancient -world, and was to me impressive beyond description. Even -the spot where the statue of the god has stood can easily be -traced. A great stone lying overturned on the pavement -was doubtless the pedestal. I remained for hours in this -temple; sometimes feebly trying to sketch what I saw, -sometimes lost in ponderings on the faiths and worships of -the past and present. A hawk, which probably had never -before found a human visitor at eventide in that weird -place, came swooping over me; then gave a wild shriek and -flew away. A little later the moon rose over the walls. The -calm and silence and beauty of that scene can never be -forgotten.</p> - -<p class='c007'>I was unable to pursue my journey to Damascus as I had -designed. The muleteer, with all my baggage, contrived to -miss us on the road among the hills in Anti-Lebanon; and, -eventually, after another visit to the ruins and to the quarries -from whence the vast stones were taken, I rode back to -Zachly and thence (a two days’ ride) over Lebanon to -Beyrout.</p> - -<p class='c007'>I remained a few days at the hotel which then existed a -mile from the town, while I waited for the steamer to take -me to Athens, and much enjoyed the lovely scene of rich -mulberry and almond gardens beside the shell-strewn strand, -with snowy Lebanon behind, towering over the fir-woods -into the deep blue sky. The Syrian peasant women are -<span class='pageno' id='Page_251'>251</span>sweet, courteous creatures. One day as I sat under a cactus-hedge -reading Shelley, a pretty young mother came by, and -after interchanging a “Peace be with you,” proceeded -unhesitatingly, and without a word of explanation, to deposit -her baby,—Mustapha by name,—in my lap. I was very -willing to nurse Mustapha, and we made friends at once as -easily as his mother had done; and my heart was the better -for the encounter!</p> - -<p class='c007'>After I had paid off Hassan and settled my account at the -hotel, I found my financial condition exceedingly bad! I -had just enough cash remaining to carry me (omitting a few -meals) by second-class passage to Athens: which was the -nearest place where I had opened a credit from my bankers, -or where I had any introductions. There was nothing for it -but to take a second-class place on board the Austrian -Lloyd’s steamer <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">L’Impératrice</span></i>; though it was not a pleasant -arrangement, seeing that there was no other woman -passenger and no stewardess on the ship at all. Nevertheless -this was just one of the cases in which knocking about -the world brought me favourable experience of human nature. -The Captain of the <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Impératrice</span></i>, an Italian gentleman, did his -utmost, with extreme delicacy and good taste, to make my -position comfortable. He ordered his own dinner to be -served in the second cabin that he might preside at the -table instead of one of his subordinates; and during the day -he came often to see that I was well placed and shaded on -deck, and to interchange a little pleasant talk, without -intrusion.</p> - -<p class='c007'>It is truly one of the silliest of the many silly things -in the education of women that we are taught little or -nothing about the simplest matters of banking and stock-and-share -buying and selling. I, who had always had money in -abundance given me <em>straight into my hand</em>, knew absolutely -nothing, when my father’s death left me to arrange my affairs, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_252'>252</span>how such business is done, how shares are bought and sold, -how credits are open at corresponding bankers; how, even, -<em>to draw a cheque</em>! It all seemed to me a most perilous -matter, and I feared that I might, in those remote regions, come -to grief any day by the refusal of some local banker to honour -my cheques or by the neglect of my London bankers to -bespeak credit for me. My means were so narrow, and I -had so little experience of the expenses of living and travelling, -that I was greatly exercised as to my small concerns. I -brought with me (generally tied by a string round my neck -and concealed) a very valuable diamond ring to sell in case I -came to real disaster; but it had been constantly worn by -my mother; and I felt at Beyrout that, sooner than sell it, -I would live on short commons for much more than a week!</p> - -<p class='c007'>One day of our voyage I spent at Cyprus where I admired -the ancient church of San Lazzaro, half mosque, half church, -and said to be the final grave of Lazarus. I had visited his, -supposed, <em>temporary</em> one in Bethany. Another day I landed -at Rhodes and was able to see the ruined street which bears -over each house the arms of the Knight to whom it belonged. -At the upper end of the way are still visible the arch and -shattered relics of their church. Writing to Miss St. Leger -March 28th, I described my environment thus:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-l c009'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Dearest Harriet,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c010'>“Behold me seated <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">à la Turque</span></i> close to a party of Moslem -gentlemen who alternately smoke and say their prayers all -day long. We are steaming up through the lovely “Isles -of Greece,” having left Rhodes this morning and Cos an -hour ago. As we pass each wild cape and green shore I -take up a certain opera glass with ‘H. S.’ on the top of the -box, and wish very much I could see through it the dear, -kind eyes that used it once. They would be pleasanter to -see than all these scenes, glorious as they are. The sun is -going down into the calm blue sea and throwing purple -<span class='pageno' id='Page_253'>253</span>lights already on the countless islands through which the -vessel winds its way. White sea-gulls follow us and -beautiful little quaint-sailed boats appear every now and -then round the islands. The peculiar beauty of this famous -passage is derived, however, from the bold and varied outline -of the islands and adjoining coast of Asia Minor. From -little rocks not larger than the ship itself, up to large -provinces with extensive towns like Cos, there is an endless -variety and boldness of form. Ireland’s Eye magnified to -twice the height, is, I should say, the commonest type. In -some almost inaccessible cliffs one sees hermitages; in -others convents. I shall post this at Smyrna.”</p> - -<p class='c006'>As the <em>Impératrice</em> stopped two or three days in the -magnificent harbour of Smyrna, I had good opportunity to -land and make my way to the scene of Polycarp’s Martyrdom -amid the colossal cypresses which outdo all those of Italy -except the quincentenarians in the Giusti garden in Verona. -It was Easter, and a ridiculous incident occurred on the -Saturday. I was busy writing in the cabin of the <em>Impératrice</em> -at mid-day, when, <i><span lang="it" xml:lang="it">subito!</span></i> there were explosions in our -vessel and in a hundred other vessels in the harbour, again -and again and again, as if a battle of Trafalgar were going -on all round! I rushed on deck and found the steward -standing calm and cheerful amid the terrific noise and -smoke, “For God’s sake what has happened?” I cried -breathless. “Nothing, Signora, nothing! It is the Royal -Salute all the ships are firing, of 21 guns.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>“In honour of whom?” I asked, somewhat less alarmed.</p> - -<p class='c007'>“<span lang="it" xml:lang="it">Iddio, Signora! Gesù Cristo, sicuro! È il momento -della Resurrezione, si sà.</span>”</p> - -<p class='c007'>“O, no!” I said, “Not on Saturday. It was on -Sunday, you know!”</p> - -<p class='c007'>“<span lang="it" xml:lang="it">Che, che! Dicono forse cosi i Protestanti! Sappiamo -noi altri, che era il Sabato.</span>”</p> - -<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_254'>254</span>I never got to the bottom of this mystery, but can testify -that at Smyrna in 1858 there were many scores of these -Royal Salutes (!) on Holy Saturday at noon in honour of -the Resurrection.</p> - -<p class='c006'>It was one of the brightest hours of my happy life, that -on which I stood on the deck of our ship at sunrise and -passed under “Sunium’s marble steep” and knew that I -was approaching Athens. As we steamed up the gulf, the -red clouds flamed over Parnes and Hymettus and lighted up -the hills of Peloponnesus. The bright blue waves were -dancing under our prow, and I could see over them far away -the “rocky brow which looks o’er sea-born Salamis,” where -Xerxes sat on his silver-footed throne on such a morn as -this. Above, to our right, over the olive woods with the -rising sun behind it, like a crowned hill was the Acropolis -of Athens and the Parthenon upon it.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Very soon I had landed at the Piræus and had engaged a -carriage (there was no railway then) to take me to Athens. -The drive was enchanting, between olive groves and vineyards, -and with the Temple of Theseus and the buildings on -the Acropolis coming into view as I approached Athens, till -I was beside myself with delight and excitement. The first -thing to do was to drive to the private house of the banker to -whom I was recommended, to arouse the poor old gentleman -(nothing loath apparently to do business even at seven -o’clock) to draw fifty sovereigns, and then to go to the French -Hotel, choose a room with a fine view of the Parthenon, and -to say to the master: “Send me the very best <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">déjeuner</span></i> you -can provide and a bottle of Samian wine, and let this letter -be taken to Mr. Finlay.” That breakfast, with that view, -was a feast of the gods after my many abstinencies, though -I nearly “dashed down the cup of Samian wine,” not in -patriotic despair for Greece, but because it was so abominably -<span class='pageno' id='Page_255'>255</span>bad that no poetry could have been made out of it by Anacreon -himself. Hardly had I finished my meal, when Mr. Finlay -appeared at my door, having hurried with infinite kindness to -welcome me, and do honour to the introduction of his cousin, -my dear sister-in-law. “I put myself,” said he, “at your -orders for the day. We will go wherever you please.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>It would be unfair to inflict on the reader a detailed account -of all I saw at Athens under the admirable guidance of Mr. -Finlay during a week of intensest enjoyment. Mr. Finlay (it -can scarcely yet be forgotten) went out to Greece a few weeks -or months before Byron and fought with him and after him, -through the War of Independence. After this, having -married a beautiful Armenian lady, he bought much land in -Eubœa, built himself a handsome house in Athens and -lived there for the rest of his life, writing his great History -(in five volumes) of <cite>Greece under Foreign Domination</cite>; -making a magnificent collection of coins; and acting for -many years as the <cite>Times</cite> correspondent at Athens. He was -not only a highly erudite archæologist, but an enthusiast for -the land of his adoption and all its triumphs of art; in short, -the best of all possible ciceroni. I was fortunately not -wholly unprepared to profit by his learned expositions and -delicate observation on the architecture of the glorious ruins, -for I had made copies of prints of all at Athens and -elsewhere in Greece with ground-plans and restorations and -notes of everything I could learn about them, many years -before when I was wont to amuse myself with drawing, while -my mother read to me. I found that I knew beforehand -nearly exactly what remained of the Parthenon and the -Erechtheum and the Temple of Victory, the Propylæum on -the Acropolis and the Theseium below; and it was of intensest -interest to me to learn, under Mr. Finlay’s guidance, precisely -where the Elgin Marbles had stood, and to note the extraordinary -fact, on which he insisted much,—that there is not -<span class='pageno' id='Page_256'>256</span>a single straight line in the whole Parthenon. <em>Everything</em>, -down to single stones in the entablatures and friezes, is -curved, in some cases, he felt assured, <em>after</em> they had been -placed <em>in situ</em>. The extreme entasis of the columns and the -great pyramidal inclination of the whole building, were most -noticeable when attention was once drawn to them. As we -approached the majestic ruins of Adrian’s Temple of Jupiter -on the plains below, (that enormous temple which had double -rows of columns surrounding it and quadruple rows in front -and back, of ten columns each) I exclaimed “Why! there ought -to be <em>three</em> columns standing at that far angle!” “Quite true,” -said Mr. Finlay, “one of them fell just six weeks ago.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>Since this visit of mine to Athens a vast deal has been -done to clear away the remains of the Turkish tower and -other barbaric buildings which obstructed and desecrated -the summit of the Acropolis; and the fortunate visitor may -now see the whole Propylæum and all the spaces open and -free, beside examining the very numerous statues and -bas reliefs some quaintly archaic, some of the best age and -splendidly beautiful, which have been dug out in recent years -in Greece.</p> - -<p class='c007'>I envy every visitor to Athens now, but console myself -by procuring photographs of all the <em>finds</em> from those -excellent artists, Thomaïdes, Brothers.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Mr. Finlay spoke much of Byron in answer to my -questions, and described him as a most singular combination -of romance and astuteness. The Greeks imagined that a -man capable of such enthusiasm as to go to war for their -enfranchisement must have a rather soft head as well as -warm heart; but they were much mistaken when they tried in -their simplicity to <em>exploiter</em> him in matters of finance. There -were self-devoted and disinterested patriots, but there were also -(as was inevitable), among the insurgents many others who -had a sharp eye to their own financial and political schemes -<span class='pageno' id='Page_257'>257</span>Byron saw through these men (Mr. Finlay said), with -astounding quickness, and never allowed them to guide or -get the better of him in any negotiation. About money -matters he considered he was inclined to be “close-fisted.” -This was an opinion strongly confirmed to me -some months later by Walter Savage Landor, who -repeatedly remarked that Byron’s behaviour in several -occurrences, while in Italy, was far from liberal and -that, luxuriously as he chose to live, he was by no means -ready to pay freely for his luxury. Shelley on the contrary, -though he lived most simply and was always hard pressed -for money by William Godwin (who Fanny Kemble delightfully -described to me <em>àpropos</em> of Dowden’s <cite>Memoirs</cite>, as “one -of those greatly gifted <em>and greatly borrowing</em> people!”), was -punctilious to the last degree in paying his debts and even -those of his friends. There was a story of a boat purchased -by both Byron and Shelley which I cannot trust my memory -to recall accurately as Mr. Landor told it to me, and which I -do not exactly recognise in the <cite>Memoirs</cite>, but which certainly -amounted to this,—that Byron left Shelley to pay for their -joint purchase, and that Shelley did so, though at the time he -was in extreme straits for money. All the impressions, I -may here remark, which I gathered at that time in Greece -and Italy (1858), where there were yet a few alive who -personally knew both these great poets, was in favour of -Shelley and against Byron. Talking over them many years -afterwards with Mazzini I was startled by the vehemence -with which he pronounced his preference for Byron, as the -one who had tried to put his sympathy with a struggling -nation into practice, and had died in the noble attempt. This -was natural enough on the part of the Italian patriot; but I -think the vanity and tendency to “pose,” which formed so -large a part of Byron’s character had probably more to do -with this last <em>acted</em> Canto of <cite>Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage</cite>, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_258'>258</span>than Mazzini, (who had no such foibles) was likely to -understand. The following curious glimpse of Byron at -Venice before he went to Greece, occurs in an autograph -letter in my possession, by Mrs. Hemans to the late Miss -Margaret Lloyd. It seems worth quoting here.</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c009'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Bronwylfa, 8th April, 1819.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c010'>“Your affection of Lord Byron will not be much increased -by the description I am going to transcribe for you of his -appearance and manners abroad. My sister, who is now at -Venice, has sent me the following sketch of the <em>Giaour</em>:—‘We -were presented at the Governor’s, after which we went -to a conversazione at Madlle. Benzoni’s, where we saw -Lord Byron; and now my curiosity is gratified, I have no -wish ever to see him again. A more wretched, depraved-looking -countenance it is impossible to imagine! His hair -streaming almost down to his shoulders and his whole -appearance slovenly and even dirty. Still there is a something -which impels you to look at his face, although it -inspires you with aversion, a something entirely different -from any expression on any countenance I ever beheld -before. His character, I hear, is worse than ever; -dreadful it must be, since everyone says he is the -most dissipated person in Italy, exceeding even the -Italians themselves.’”</p> - -<p class='c006'>Shortly before my visit to Athens an article, or book, by -Mr. Trelawney had been published in England, in which that -writer asserted that Byron’s lame leg was a most portentous -deformity, like the fleshless leg of a Satyr. I mentioned this -to Mr. Finlay, who laughed, and said: “That reminds me of -what Byron said of Trelawney; ‘If we could but make -Trelawney wash his hands and speak the truth, we might -make a gentleman of him!’ Of course,” continued -Mr. Finlay, “I saw Byron’s legs scores of times, for we bathed -<span class='pageno' id='Page_259'>259</span>together daily whenever we were near the sea or a river, and -there was nothing wrong with the <em>leg</em>, only an ordinary -and not very bad, club-<em>foot</em>.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>Among the interesting facts which Mr. Finlay gave me as -the results of his historical researches in Greece was that a -school of philosophy continued to be held in the Groves of -the Academè (through which we were walking at the -moment), for 900 years from the time of Plato. A fine -collection of gold and silver coins which he had made, -afforded, under his guidance, a sort of running commentary -on the history of the Byzantine Empire. There were series -of three and four reigns during which the coins became -visibly worse and worse, till at last there was no silver in -them at all, only base metal of some sort; and then, things -having come to the worst, there was a revolution, a new -dynasty, and a brand new and pure coinage.</p> - -<p class='c007'>The kindness of this very able man and of his charming -wife was not limited to playing cicerone to me. Nothing -could exceed their hospitality. The first day I dined at -their house a party of agreeable and particularly fashionably -dressed Greek ladies and gentlemen were assembled. As we -waited for dinner the door opened and a magnificent figure -appeared, whom I naturally took for, at least, an Albanian -Chief, and prepared myself for an interesting presentation. -He wore a short green velvet jacket covered with gold -embroidery, a crimson sash, an enormous white muslin <em>kilt</em> -(I afterwards learned it contained 60 yards of muslin, and -that the washing thereof is a function of the highest -responsibility), and leggings of green and gold to match the -jacket. One moment this splendid vision stood six feet high -in the doorway; the next he bowed profoundly and pronounced -the consecrated formula:—</p> - -<p class='c007'>“<i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Madame est servie!</span></i>”</p> - -<p class='c019'>and we went to dinner, where he waited admirably.</p> - -<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_260'>260</span>Some year or two later, after I had published some -records of my travels, and sent them to Mr. Finlay, I received -from him the following letter:—</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c009'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Athens, 26th May.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='lg-container-l c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“My dear Miss Cobbe,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c010'>“Baron von Schmidthals sent me your letter of the -18th April with the <cite>Cities of the Past</cite> yesterday; his baggage -having been detained at Syria. This post brought me -<cite>Fraser</cite> with a ‘<cite>Day at Athens</cite>’ with due regularity, and now -accept my sincere thanks for both. I am ashamed of my -neglect in not thanking you sooner for <cite>Fraser</cite>, but I did not -know your address. I felt grateful for it, having been very, -very often tired of ‘Days at Athens!’ It was a treat to -meet so pleasant a ‘day,’ and have another pleasant day -recalled. Others to whom I lent <cite>Fraser</cite>, told me the ‘Day,’ -was delightful. I had heard of your misfortune but I hoped -you had entirely recovered, and I regret to hear that you -use crutches still. I, too, am weak and can walk little, but -my complaint is old age. The <cite>Saturday Review</cite> has told me -that you have poured some valuable thoughts into the river -that flows through ages.</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c020'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>‘<span lang="it" xml:lang="it">Rè degli altri; superbo, altero fiume!</span>’</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c021'>Solomon tried to couch its cataracts in vain. If you lived -at Athens you would hardly believe that man can grow -wiser by being made to think. It only makes him more -wicked here in Greece. But the river of thought must be -intended to fertilize the future.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“I wish I could send you some news that would interest -or amuse you, but you may recollect that I live like a -hermit and come into contact with society chiefly in the -matter of politics which I cannot expect to render interesting -to you and which is anything but an amusing subject -to me; I being one of the Greek landlords on whose head -Kings and National Assemblies practise the art of shaving. -Our revolution has done some good by clearing away old -<span class='pageno' id='Page_261'>261</span>abuses, but the positive gain has been small. England -sent us a boy-king, and Denmark with him a Count -Sponneck, whom the Greeks, not inaccurately, call his -‘<i><span lang="la" xml:lang="la">alter</span></i> <span class='fss'>NEMO</span>.’ Still, though we are all very much dissatisfied, -I fancy sometimes that fate has served Greece -better than England, Denmark, or the National Assembly. -The evils of this country were augmented by the devotion -of the people to power and pelf, but devotion to nullity or -its <i><span lang="la" xml:lang="la">alter ego</span></i> is a weak sentiment, and an empty treasury -turns the devotion to pelf into useful channels.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“I was rather amused yesterday by learning that loyalty to -King George has extended the commercial relations of the -Greeks with the Turks. Greece has imported some boatloads -of myrtle branches to make triumphal arches at Syra -where the King was expected yesterday. Queen Amalia -disciplined King Otho’s subjects to welcome him in this -way. The idea of Greeks being ‘green’ in anything, -though it was only loyalty, amused her in those days. I -suppose she knows now that they were not so ‘green’ as -their myrtles made them look! It is odd, however, to find -that their outrageous loyalty succeeded in exterminating -myrtle plants in the islands of the Ægean, and that they -must now import their emblems of loyalty from the Sultan’s -dominions. If a new Venus rise out of the Grecian sea she -will have to swim over to the Turkish coast to hide herself -in myrtles. There is a new fact for Lord Strangford’s -oriental Chaos!</p> - -<p class='c010'>“My wife desires to be most kindly remembered to you.</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Believe me, my dear Miss Cobbe,</div> - <div class='line in20'>“Yours sincerely,</div> - <div class='line in22'>“<span class='sc'>George Finlay</span>.”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c006'>I left Athens and my kind friends with great regret and -embarked at the Piræus for Constantinople, but not before I -had managed to secure a luxurious swim in one of the -exquisite rocky coves along the coast near the Tomb of -Themistocles.</p> - -<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_262'>262</span>Stamboul was rather a disappointment to me. The -weather was cold and cloudy and unfit to display the beauty -of the Golden Horn; and I went about with a <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">valet de place</span></i> -in rather a disheartened way to see the Dolma Batchi Palace -and a few other things accessible to me. The Scutari -Hospital across the Bosphorus where Miss Nightingale had -worked only four years before, of course, greatly attracted -my interest. How much do all women owe to that brave -heart who led them on so far on the road to their public -duties, and who has paid for her marvellous achievements by -just forty years of invalidism! Those pages of Kinglake’s -History in which he pays tribute to her power, and compares -her great administrative triumph in bringing order out of -chaos with the miserable failures of the male officials who had -brought about the disastrous muddle, ought to be quoted -again and again by all the friends of women, and never -suffered to drop into oblivion.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Of course the reader will assume that I saw St. Sophia. -But I did not do so, and to the last, I fear I shall owe a little -grudge to the people whose extraordinary behaviour made -me lose my sole opportunity of enjoying that most interesting -sight. I told my <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">valet de place</span></i> to learn what parties of -foreigners were going to obtain the needful firmaun for -visiting the Mosque and to arrange for me in the usual way -to join one of them, paying my share of the expense, which -at that time amounted to £5. Some days were lost, and -then I learned that there was only one party, consisting of -American ladies and gentlemen, who were then intending to -visit the place, and that for some reason their courier would -not consent to my joining them. I thought it was -some stupid <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">imbroglio</span></i> of servants wanting fees, and -having the utmost confidence in American kindness -and good manners, I called on the family in question -at their hotel and begged they would do me the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_263'>263</span>favour to allow me to pay part of the £5, and to -enter the doors of St. Sophia with them accordingly; at such -time as might suit them. To my amazement the gentleman -and ladies looked at each other; and then the gentleman -spoke, “O! I leave <em>all that</em> to my courier!” “In that -case,” I said, “I wish you good morning.” It was a great -bore for me, with my great love for architecture, to -fail to see so unique a building, but I could not think -of spending £5 on a firmaun myself, and had no choice -but to relinquish the hope of entering, and merely walk round -the Mosque and peep in where it was possible to do so. -I was well cursed in doing this by the old Turks for my -presumption!</p> - -<p class='c007'>Nemesis overtook these unmannerly people ere long, for -they reached Florence a month after me and found I had -naturally told my tale of disappointment to the Brownings, -(whom they particularly desired to cultivate), the Somervilles, -Trollopes and others who had become my friends; and I -believe they heard a good deal of the matter. Mrs. Browning, -I know, frankly expressed her astonishment at their behaviour; -and Mrs. Somerville would have nothing to say to -them. They sent me several messages of conciliation and -apology, which of course I ignored. They had done a rude -and unkind thing to an unknown and friendless woman. -They were ready to make advances to one who had plenty -of friends. It was the only case, in all my experience of -Americans, in which I have found them wanting in either -courtesy or kindness.</p> - -<p class='c007'>I had intended to go from Constantinople <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">viâ</span></i> the Black -Sea and the Danube to Vienna and thence by the railway to -Adelsberg and Trieste, but a cold, stormy March morning -rendered that excursion far less tempting than a return to -the sunny waters of Greece; and, as I had nobody to consult, -I simply embarked on a different steamer from the one I had -<span class='pageno' id='Page_264'>264</span>designed to take. At Syra (I think) I changed to the most -luxurious and delightful vessel on which I have ever sailed—the -Austrian Lloyd’s <em>Neptune</em>, Captain Braun. It was -splendidly equipped, even to a <i><span lang="la" xml:lang="la">camera obscura</span></i> on deck; and -every arrangement for luxurious baths and good food was -perfect, and the old Captain’s attention and kindness to everyone -extreme. I have still the picture of the <em>Neptune</em>, which -he drew in my little sketch book for me. There were -several very pleasant passengers on board, among others the -Marquis of Headfort (nephew of our old neighbour at -Newbridge, Mr. Taylor of Ardgillan) and Lady Headfort, -who had gone through awful experiences in India, when -married to her first husband, Sir William Macnaghten. It -was said that when Sir William was cut to pieces, she -offered large rewards for the poor relics and received them -all, <em>except his head</em>. Months afterwards when she had -returned to Calcutta and was expecting some ordinary -box of clothes, or the like, she opened a parcel hastily, -and was suddenly confronted with a frightful spectacle -of her husband’s half-preserved head!</p> - -<p class='c007'>Whether this story be true I cannot say, but Lady -Headfort made herself a most agreeable fellow passenger, -and we sat up every night till the small hours telling ghost -stories. At Corfu I paid a visit to my father’s cousin, Lady -Emily Kozzaris (<i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">née</span></i> Trench) whom I had known at Newbridge -and who welcomed me as a bit of Ireland, fallen on her</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c018'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Isle under Ionian skies</div> - <div class='line'>Beautiful as a wreck of paradise.”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c019'>I seemed to be <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">en pays de connaissance</span></i> once more. After -two days in Trieste I went up by rail to Adelsberg through -the extraordinary district (geologically speaking) of Carniola, -where the whole superficial area of the ground is perfectly -barren but honey-combed with circular holes of varying -<span class='pageno' id='Page_265'>265</span>depths and size and of the shape of inverted truncated cones; -the bottoms of each being highly fertile and cultivated like -gardens.</p> - -<p class='c007'>The cavern of Adelsberg was to me one of the most -fearsome places in the world. I cannot give any accurate -description of it for the sense of awe which always seizes -me in the darkness and foul air of caverns and tunnels and -pyramids, renders me incapable of listening to details of -heights and lengths. I wrote my recollections not long -afterwards.</p> - -<p class='c008'>“There were long, long galleries, and chambers, and -domes succeeding one another, as it seemed, for ever. -Sometimes narrow and low, compelling the visitor to bend -and climb; sometimes so wide and lofty that the eye -vainly sought to pierce the expanse. And through all the -endless labyrinth appeared vaguely in the gloom the forms -taken by the stalactites, now white as salt, now yellow and -stained as if with age,—representing to the fancy all -conceivable objects of earth and sea, piled up in this cave -as if in some vast lumberhouse of creation. It was Chaos, -when yet all things slept in darkness waiting the fiat of -existence. It was the final Ruin when all things shall -return to everlasting night, and man and all his works -grow into stone and lie buried beside the mammoth and -the ichthyosaur. Here were temples and tombs, and -vast dim faces, and giant forms lying prone and headless, -and huge lions sleeping in dark dens, and white ghosts with -phantom raiment flickering in the gloom. And through -the caverns, amid all the forms of awe and wonder, rolled -a river black as midnight; a deep and rapid river which -broke here and there over the rocks as in mockery of the -sunny waterfalls of the woods, and gleamed for a moment, -white and ghastly, then plunged lower under the black -arch into</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c020'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>‘Caverns measureless to man</div> - <div class='line'>Down to a sunless sea.’</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_266'>266</span>“It is in this deadly river, which never reflects the light of -day, that live those strange fleshy lizards without eyes, and -seemingly without natural skin, hideous reptiles which -have dwelt in darkness from unknown ages, till the organs -of sight are effaced.<a id='r15' /><a href='#f15' class='c013'><sup>[15]</sup></a></p> - -<p class='c010'>“Over this dismal Styx the traveller passes on further -and further into the cavern, through seemingly endless -corridors and vast cathedral aisles and halls without -number. One of these large spaces is so enormous that -it seemed as if St. Peter’s whole church and dome -could lie beneath it. The men who were with us -scaled the walls, threw coloured lights around and -rockets up to the roof and dimly revealed the stupendous -expanse; an underground hall, where Eblis and all his -peers might hold the councils of hell. Further, on yet, -through more corridors, more chambers and aisles and -domes, with the couchant lions and the altar-tombs and -the ghosts and the great white faces all around; and then -into a cavern, more lately found than the rest, where the -white and yellow marble took forms of screens and organ -pipes and richest Gothic tracery of windows,—the region -where the Genius of the Cavern had made his royal Oratory. -It was all a great, dim, uneasy dream. Things were, and -were not. As in dreams we picture places and identify -them with those of waking life in some strange unreal -identity, while in every particular they vary from the -actual place; and as also in dreams we think we have -beheld the same objects over and over again, while we only -dream we see them, and go on wandering further and -further, seeking for some unknown thing, and finding, not -that which we seek, but every other thing in existence, and -pass through all manner of narrow doors and impenetrable -screens, and men speak to us and we cannot hear them, and -show us open graves holding dead corpses whose features -we cannot discern, and all the world is dim and dark and -full of doubt and dread—even so is the Cavern of Adelsberg.”</p> - -<p class='c006'><span class='pageno' id='Page_267'>267</span>Returning to Trieste I passed on to Venice, the beauty of -which I <em>learned</em> (rather slowly perhaps), to feel by degrees -as I rowed in my gondola from church to church and from -gallery to palace. The Austrians were then masters of the -city, and it was no doubt German music which I heard for the -first time at the church of the Scalzi, very finely performed. -It was not seldom in the usual English style of sacred music; -(I dare say it was not strictly <em>sacred</em> music at all, perhaps -quite a profane opera!) but, in the mood I was in, it seemed -to me to have a great sanctity of its own; to be a <em>Week-day -Song of Heaven</em>. This was one of the rare occasions in my -life in which music has reached the deeper springs in me, -and it affected me very much. I suppose as the daffodils did -Wordsworth.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Naturally being again in a town and at a good hotel, I -resumed better clothes than I had worn in my rough rides, -and they were, of course that year, deep mourning with -much crape on them. I imagine it must have been this -English mourning apparel which provoked among the colour-loving -Venetians a strange display of <em>Heteropathy</em>,—that -deep-seated animal instinct of hatred and anger against -grief and suffering, the exact reverse of <em>sympathy</em>, -which causes brutes and birds to gore and peck and -slay their diseased and dying companions and brutal -men to trample on their weeping, starving wives. I was -walking alone rather sadly, bent down over the shells on -the beach of the Lido, comparing them in my mind to the old -venuses and pectens and beautiful pholases which I used to -collect on my father’s long stretch of sandy shore in Ireland,—when -suddenly I found myself assailed with a shower of -stones. Looking up, I saw a little crowd of women and boys -jeering at me and pelting me with whatever they could pick -up. Of course they could not really hurt me, but after an -effort or two at remonstrance, I was fain to give up my walk -<span class='pageno' id='Page_268'>268</span>and return to my gondola and to Venice. Years afterwards, -speaking of this incident to Gibson, he told me he had seen -at Venice a much worse scene, for the victim was a poor -helpless dog which had somehow got into a position from -whence it could not escape, and the miserable, hooting, laughing -crowd deliberately <em>stoned it to death</em>. The dog looked from -one to another of its persecutors as if appealing for mercy -and saying, “What have I done to deserve this?” But there -was no mercy in those hard hearts.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Ever since I sat on the spot where St. Stephen was stoned, -I have felt that that particular form of death must have been -one of the most <em>morally</em> trying and dreadful to the sufferer, -and the most utterly destructive of the finer instincts in those -who inflicted it. If Jews be, as alleged, more prone to -cruelty than other nations, the fact seems to me almost -explained by the “set of the brains” of a race accustomed -to account it a duty to join in stoning an offender to death -and watching pitilessly his agonies when mangled, blinded, -deafened and bleeding he lies crushed on the ground.</p> - -<p class='c007'>From Venice I travelled very pleasantly in a returning -vettura which I was fortunate enough to engage, by Padua -and Ferrara over the Apennines to Florence. One day I -walked a long way in front during my vetturino’s dinner-hour, -and made friends with some poor peasants who -welcomed me to their house and to a share of their meal of -Polenta and wine. The Polenta was much inferior to Irish -oatmeal stirabout or Scotch porridge; and the black wine -was like the coarsest vinegar. I tried in vain, out of good -manners to drink it. The lives of these poor <i><span lang="it" xml:lang="it">contadini</span></i> are -obviously in all ways cruelly hard.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Spending one night in a desolate “ramshackle” inn on -the road high up on the Apennines, I sat up late writing -a description of the place (as “creepy” as I could make -it!) to amuse my mother’s dear old servant “Joney,” who -<span class='pageno' id='Page_269'>269</span>possessed a volume of Washington Irving’s stories wherein -that of the “<em>Inn at Terracina</em>” had served constantly -to excite delightful awe in her breast and in my own as -a child. I took my letter next day with me to post in -Florence, but alas! found there waiting for me one from my -brother announcing that our dear old servant was dead. She -had never held up her head after I had left Newbridge, and -had cease to drop into her cottage for tea.</p> - -<p class='c007'>At Florence I remained many months (or rather on the hill -of Bellosguardo above the city) and made some of the most -precious friendships of my life; Mrs. Somerville’s first of all, -I also had the privilege to know at that time both Mr. and -Mrs. Browning, Adolphus Trollope, Walter Savage Landor, -Isa Blagden, Miss White (now Madame Villari), and many -other very interesting men and women. I shall, however, -write a separate chapter combining this and my subsequent -visits to Italy.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Late in the summer I travelled with a party through Milan -over St. Gothard to Lucerne, and thence to the Pays de -Vaud, where I joined a very pleasant couple,—Rev. W. and -Mrs. Biedermann,—in taking the <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Château du Grand Clos</span></i>, in -the Valley of the Rhone; a curious miniature French -country house, built some years before by the man who called -himself Louis XVII., or Duc de Normandie; and who had -collected (as we found) a considerable library of books, all -relating to the French Revolution.</p> - -<p class='c007'>From Switzerland I travelled back to England viâ the -Rhine with my dear American friends, the Apthorps, who had -joined me at Montreux. The perils and fatigues of my -eleven months of solitary wanderings were over. I was -stronger and more active in body than I had ever been, and -so enriched in mind and heart by the things I had seen and -the people I had known, that I could afford to smile at the -depression and loneliness of my departure.</p> - -<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_270'>270</span>As we approached the Black Forest I had a fancy to quit -my kind companions for a few days; and leaving them to -explore Strasburg, and some other places, I went on to -Heidelberg and thence made my way into the beautiful -woods. The following lines were written there, September -23rd, 1858:—</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c018'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line in4'>ALONE IN THE SCHWARZWALD.</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Lord of the Forest Sanctuary! Thou</div> - <div class='line'>By the grey fathers of the world in these</div> - <div class='line'>Thine own self-fashioned shrines dimly adored,</div> - <div class='line'>“All-Father Odin,” “Mover” of the spheres;</div> - <div class='line'>Zeus! Brahm! Ormusd! Lord of Light Divine!</div> - <div class='line'><span class='sc'>God</span>, blessed God! the Good One! Best of names,</div> - <div class='line'>By noblest Saxon race found Thee at last,—</div> - <div class='line'>O Father! when the slow revolving years</div> - <div class='line'>Bring forth the day when men shall see Thy face</div> - <div class='line'>Unveiled from superstition’s web of errors old,</div> - <div class='line'>Shall they not seek Thee here amid the woods,</div> - <div class='line'>Rather than in the pillared aisle, or dome</div> - <div class='line'>By loftiest genius reared?</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line in4'>Six months have rolled</div> - <div class='line'>Since I stood solitary in the fane</div> - <div class='line'>Of desolate Baalbec. The huge walls closed</div> - <div class='line'>Round me sublime as when millenniums past</div> - <div class='line'>Lost nations worshipped there. I sate beside</div> - <div class='line'>The altar stone o’erthrown. For hours I sate</div> - <div class='line'>Until the homeward-winging hawk at even</div> - <div class='line'>Shrieked when he saw me there, a human form</div> - <div class='line'>Where human feet tread once perchance a year,</div> - <div class='line'>Then the moon slowly rose above the walls</div> - <div class='line'>And then I knelt. It was a glorious fane</div> - <div class='line'>All, all my own.</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line in4'><span class='pageno' id='Page_271'>271</span>But not that grand Baalbec,</div> - <div class='line'>Nor Parthenon, nor Rome’s stupendous pile,</div> - <div class='line'>Nor lovelier Milan, nor the Sepulchre</div> - <div class='line'>So dark and solemn where the Christ was laid,</div> - <div class='line'>Nor even yet that dreadful field of death</div> - <div class='line'>At Ghizeh where the eternal Pyramids</div> - <div class='line'>Have, from a world of graves, pointed to Heav’n</div> - <div class='line'>For fifty ages past,—not all these shrines</div> - <div class='line'>Are holy to my soul as are the woods.</div> - <div class='line'>Lo! how God Himself has planned this place</div> - <div class='line'>So that all sweet and calm and solemn thoughts</div> - <div class='line'>Should have their nests amid the shadowy trees!</div> - <div class='line'>How the rude work-day world is all closed out</div> - <div class='line'>By the thick curtained foliage, and the sky</div> - <div class='line'>Alone revealed, a deep zenith heaven,</div> - <div class='line'>Fitly beheld through clasped and upraised arms</div> - <div class='line'>Of prayer-like trees. There is no sound more loud</div> - <div class='line'>Than the low insect hum, the chirp of birds,</div> - <div class='line'>The rustling murmur of embracing boughs,</div> - <div class='line'>The gentle dropping of the autumn leaves.</div> - <div class='line'>The wood’s sweet breath is incense. From the pines</div> - <div class='line'>And larch and chestnut come rich odours pure;</div> - <div class='line'>All things are pure and sweet and holy here.</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line in4'>I lie down underneath the firs. The moss</div> - <div class='line'>Makes richest cushion for my weary limbs!</div> - <div class='line'>Long I gaze upward while the dark green boughs</div> - <div class='line'>Moveless project against the azure sky,</div> - <div class='line'>Fringed with their russet cones. My satiate eyes</div> - <div class='line'>Sink down at length. I turn my cheek to earth.</div> - <div class='line'>What may this be, this sense of youth restored,</div> - <div class='line'>My happy childhood with its sunbright hours,</div> - <div class='line'>Returning once again as in a dream?</div> - <div class='line'>’Tis but the odour of the mossy ground,</div> - <div class='line'>The “field-smells known in infancy,” when yet,</div> - <div class='line'>Our childish sports were near to mother Earth,</div> - <div class='line'>Our child-like hearts near to the God in Heaven.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_273'>273</span> - <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER<br /> X.<br /> <span class='large'><em>BRISTOL.</em><br /> <em>REFORMATORIES AND RAGGED SCHOOLS.</em></span></h2> -</div> - -<p class='c006'><span class='pageno' id='Page_275'>275</span>After I had spent two or three weeks once again at my -old home after my long journey to visit my eldest brother -and his wife, and also had seen my two other dear brothers, -then married and settled in England with their children; -the time came for me to begin my independent life as I had -long planned it. I had taken my year’s pilgrimage as a sort -of conclusion to my self-education, and also because, at the -beginning of it, I was in no state of health or spirits to throw -myself into new work of any kind. Now I was well and strong, -and full of hope of being of some little use in the world. I -was at a very good age for making a fresh start; just 36; -and I had my little independence of £200 a year which, -though small, was enough to allow me to work how and -where I pleased without need to earn anything. I may boast -that I never got into debt in my life; never borrowed money -from anybody; never even asked my brother for the advance -of a week on the interest on my patrimony.</p> - -<p class='c007'>It had been somewhat of a difficulty to me after my home -duties ended at my father’s death, to decide where, with my -heretical opinions, I could find a field for any kind of -usefulness to my fellow-creatures, but I fortunately heard -through Harriet St. Leger and Lady Byron, that Miss -Carpenter, of Bristol, was seeking for some lady to help in -her Reformatory and Ragged School work. Miss Bathurst, -who had joined her for the purpose, had died the previous -year. The arrangement was, that we paid Miss Carpenter a -moderate sum (30s.) a week for board and lodging in her -house adjoining Red Lodge, and she provided us all day long -<span class='pageno' id='Page_276'>276</span>with abundant occupation. I had by mere chance read her -“<cite>Juvenile Delinquents</cite>,” and had admired the spirit of the -book; but my special attraction to Miss Carpenter was the -belief that I should find in her at once a very religious -woman, and one so completely outside the pale of orthodoxy -that I should be sure to meet from her the sympathy I had -never yet been privileged to enjoy; and at all events be able -to assist her labours with freedom of conscience.</p> - -<p class='c007'>My first interview with Miss Carpenter (in November, 1858) -was in the doorway of my bedroom after my arrival at Red -Lodge House; a small house in the same street as Red Lodge. -She had been absent from home on business, and hastened -upstairs to welcome me. It was rather a critical moment, -for I had been asking myself anxiously—“What manner of -woman shall I behold?” I knew I should see an able and -an excellent person; but it is quite possible for able and -excellent women to be far from agreeable companions for a -<i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">tête-à-tête</span></i> of years; and nothing short of this had I in -contemplation. The first glimpse in that doorway set my -fears at rest! The plain and careworn face, the figure -which, Dr. Martineau says, had been “columnar” in youth, -but which at fifty-two was angular and stooping, were yet -all alive with feeling and power. Her large, light blue -eyes, with their peculiar trick of showing the white -beneath the iris, had an extraordinary faculty of -taking possession of the person on whom they were -fixed, like those of an amiable <cite>Ancient Mariner</cite> -who only wanted to talk philanthropy, and not to tell stories -of weird voyages and murdered albatrosses. There was -humour, also, in every line of her face, and a readiness to -catch the first gleam of a joke. But the prevailing -characteristic of Mary Carpenter, as I came subsequently -more perfectly to recognise, was a high and strong Resolution, -which made her whole path much like that of a plough in a -<span class='pageno' id='Page_277'>277</span>well-drawn furrow, which goes straight on in<a id='t277'></a> its own -beneficent way, and gently pushes aside into little ridges all -intervening people and things.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Long after this first interview, Miss Elliot showed Miss -Carpenter’s photograph to the Master of Balliol, without -telling him whom it represented. After looking at it -carefully, he remarked, “This is the portrait of a person -who lives <em>under high moral excitement</em>.” There could not -be a truer summary of her habitual state.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Our days were very much alike, and “Sunday shone no -Sabbath-day” for us. Our little household consisted of one -honest girl (a certain excellent Marianne, who I often see -now in her respectable widowhood and who well deserves -commemoration) and two little convicted thieves from the -Red Lodge. We assembled for prayers very early in the -morning; and breakfast, during the winter months, was got over -before daylight; Miss Carpenter always remarking brightly as -she sat down, “How cheerful!” was the gas. After this there -were classes at the different schools, endless arrangements -and organisations, the looking-up of little truants from the -Ragged Schools, and a good deal of business in the way of -writing reports and so on. Altogether, nearly every hour of -the day and week was pretty well mapped out, leaving only -space for the brief dinner and tea; and at nine or ten o’clock -at night, when we met at last, Miss Carpenter was often so -exhausted that I have seen her fall asleep with the spoon -half-way between her mouth and the cup of gruel which she -ate for supper. Her habits were all of the simplest and -most self-denying kind. Both by temperament and on principle -she was essentially a Stoic. She had no sympathy at all -with Asceticism (which is a very different thing, and implies a -vivid sense of the attractiveness of luxury), and she strongly -condemned fasting, and all such practices on the Zoroastrian -principle, that they involve a culpable weakening of powers -<span class='pageno' id='Page_278'>278</span>which are intrusted to us for good use. But she was an -ingrained Stoic, to whom all the minor comforts of life are -simply indifferent, and who can scarcely even recognise the -fact that other people take heed of them. She once, with -great simplicity, made to me the grave observation that at a -country house where she had just passed two or three days, -“the ladies and gentlemen all came down dressed for dinner, -and evidently thought the meal rather a pleasant part of the -day!” For herself (as I often told her) she had no idea of -any Feast except that of the Passover, and always ate with -her loins girded and her umbrella at hand, ready to rush off -to the Red Lodge, if not to the Red Sea. In vain I remonstrated -on the unwholesomeness of the practice, and entreated -on my own behalf to be allowed time to swallow my food, -and also some food (in the shape of vegetables) to swallow, -as well as the perpetual, too easily ordered, salt beef and -ham. Next day after an appeal of this kind (made serious on -my part by threats of gout), good Miss Carpenter greeted -me with a complacent smile on my entry into our little -dining-room. “You see I have not forgotten your wish for -a dish of vegetables!” There, surely enough, on a cheeseplate, -stood six little round radishes! Her special chair was -a horsehair one with wooden arms, and on the seat she had -placed a small square cushion, as hard as a board, likewise -covered with horsehair. I took this up one day, and taunted -her with the <em>Sybaritism</em> it betrayed; but she replied, with -infinite simplicity, “Yes, indeed! I am sorry to say that -since my illness I have been obliged to have recourse to these -indulgencies (!). I used to try, like St. Paul, to ‘endure -hardness.’”</p> - -<p class='c007'>Her standard of conscientious rigour was even, it would -appear, applicable to animals. I never saw a more ludicrous -little scene than when she one day found my poor dog -Hajjin, a splendid grey Pomeranian, lying on the broad of -<span class='pageno' id='Page_279'>279</span>her very broad back, luxuriating on the rug before a good -fire. After gravely inspecting her for some moments, Miss -Carpenter turned solemnly away, observing, in a tone of -deep moral disapprobation, “Self-indulgent dog!”</p> - -<p class='c007'>Much of our work lay in a certain Ragged School in a -filthy lane named St. James’ Back, now happily swept from -the face of the earth. The long line of Lewin’s Mead beyond -the chapel was bad enough, especially at nine or ten o’clock -of a winter’s night, when half the gas lamps were extinguished, -and groups of drunken men and miserable women were to be -found shouting, screaming and fighting before the dens of drink -and infamy of which the street consisted. Miss Carpenter -told me that a short time previously some Bow Street -constables had been sent down to this place to ferret out a -crime which had been committed there, and that they reported -there was not in all London such a nest of wickedness as they -had explored. The ordinary Bristol policemen were never to -be seen at night in Lewin’s Mead, and it was said they were -afraid to show themselves in the place. But St. James’ Back -was a shade, I think, lower than Lewin’s Mead; at all events -it was further from the upper air of decent life; and in these -horrid slums that dauntless woman had bought some tumble-down -old buildings and turned them into schools—day-schools -for girls and night-schools for boys, all the very sweepings of -those wretched streets.</p> - -<p class='c007'>It was a wonderful spectacle to see Mary Carpenter sitting -patiently before the large school-gallery in this place, -teaching, singing, and praying with the wild street boys, in -spite of endless interruptions caused by such proceedings as -shooting marbles into hats on the table behind her, whistling, -stamping, fighting, shrieking out “Amen” in the middle of -the prayer, and sometimes rising <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">en masse</span></i> and tearing, like -a troop of bisons in hob-nailed shoes, down from the gallery, -round the great schoolroom and down the stairs, out into the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_280'>280</span>street. These irrepressible outbreaks she bore with infinite -good humour and, what seemed to me more marvellous still, -she heeded, apparently, not at all the indescribable abomination -of the odours of a tripe-and-trotter shop next door, wherein -operations were frequently carried on which, together with -the <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">bouquet du peuple</span></i> of the poor little unkempt scholars, -rendered the school of a hot summer’s evening little better -than the ill-smelling <i><span lang="it" xml:lang="it">giro</span></i> of Dante’s “Inferno.” These -trifles, however, scarcely even attracted Mary Carpenter’s -attention, fixed as it was on the possibility of “taking hold” -(as she used to say) of one little urchin or another, on whom, -for the moment her hopes were fixed.</p> - -<p class='c007'>The droll things which daily occurred in these schools, and -the wonderful replies received from the scholars to questions -testing their information, amused her intensely, and the more -unruly were the young scamps, the more, I think, in her -secret heart, she liked them, and gloried in taming them. -She used to say, “Only to get them to use the <em>school comb</em> is -something!” There was the boy who defined Conscience to -me as “a thing a gen’elman hasn’t got, who, when a boy -finds his purse and gives it back to him, doesn’t give the boy -sixpence.” There was the boy who, sharing in my Sunday -evening lecture on “Thankfulness,”—wherein I had pointed -out the grass and blossoming trees on the Downs as subjects -for praise,—was interrogated as to which pleasure he enjoyed -most in the course of the year? replied candidly, “Cock-fightin’, -ma’am. There’s a pit up by the ‘Black Boy’ as is worth -anythink in Brissel!”</p> - -<p class='c007'>The clergy troubled us little. One day an impressive -young curate entered and sat silent, sternly critical to note -what heresies were being instilled into the minds of his -flock. “I am giving a lesson on Palestine,” I said; “I -have just been at Jerusalem.” “<em>In what sense?</em>” said the -awful young man, darkly discerning some mysticism (of -<span class='pageno' id='Page_281'>281</span>the Swedenborgian kind, perhaps) beneath the simple -statement. The boys who were dismissed from the school -for obstreperous behaviour were a great difficulty to us, -usually employing themselves in shouting and hammering -at the door. One winter’s night when it was raining -heavily, as I was passing through Lewin’s Mead, I was -greeted by a chorus of voices, “Cob-web, Cob-web!” -emanating from the depths of a black archway. Standing -still under my umbrella, and looking down the cavern, I -remarked, “Don’t you think I must be a little tougher than -a cobweb to come out such a night as this to teach such little -scamps as you?”</p> - -<p class='c007'>“Indeed you is, Mum; that’s true! And stouter too!”</p> - -<p class='c007'>“Well, don’t you think you would be more comfortable -in that nice warm schoolroom than in this dark, cold -place?”</p> - -<p class='c007'>“Yes, ’m, we would.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>“You’ll have to promise to be tremendously good, I can -tell you, if I bring you in again. Will you promise?”</p> - -<p class='c007'>Vows of everlasting order and obedience were tendered; -and, to Miss Carpenter’s intense amusement, I came into -St. James’ Back, followed by a whole troop of little outlaws -reduced to temporary subjection. At all events they never -shouted “Cob-web” again. Indeed, at all times the events -of the day’s work, if they bordered on the ludicrous (as was -often the case), provoked her laughter till the tears ran down -her cheeks. One night she sat grieving over a piece of -ingratitude on the part of one of her teachers, and told me she -had given him some invitation for the purpose of conciliating -him and “heaping coals of fire on his head.” “It will take -another scuttle, my dear friend,” I remarked; and thereupon -her tears stopped, and she burst into a hearty fit of laughter. -Next evening she said to me dolorously, “I tried that other -scuttle, but it was no go!”</p> - -<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_282'>282</span>Of course, like every mortal, Mary Carpenter had <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">les défauts -de ses qualités</span></i>. Her absorption in her work always blinded -her to the fact that other people might possibly be bored by -hearing of it incessantly.</p> - -<p class='c007'>In India, I have been told that a Governor of Madras -observed, after her visit, “It is very astonishing; I listened -to all Miss Carpenter had to tell me, but when I began to tell -her what <em>I</em> knew of this country, she dropped asleep.” -Indeed, the poor wearied and over-worked brain, when it had -made its effort, generally collapsed, and in two or three -minutes, after “holding you with her eye” through a long -philanthropic history, Miss Carpenter might be seen to be, -to all intents and purposes, asleep.</p> - -<p class='c007'>On one occasion, that most loveable old man, Samuel J. May, -of Syracuse, came to pass two or three days at Red Lodge -House, and Miss Carpenter was naturally delighted to take -him about and show him her schools and explain everything -to him. Mr. May listened with great interest for a time, but -at last his attention flagged and two or three times he -turned to me; “When can we have our talk, which Theodore -Parker promised me?” “Oh, by and by,” Miss Carpenter -always interposed; till one day, after we had visited St. James’ -Back, we arrived all three at the foot of the tremendous -stairs, almost like those of the Trinità, which then existed -in Bristol, and were called the Christmas Steps. “<em>Now</em>, -Mr. May and Miss Cobbe” (said Mary Carpenter, cheerfully), -“you can have your talk.” And so we had—till we got to -the top, when she resumed the guidance of the conversation. -Good jokes were often made of this little weakness, but it -had its pathetic side. Never was there a word of real -egotism in her eager talk, or the evidence of the slightest -wish to magnify her own doings, or to impress her hearers -with her immense share in the public benefits she described. -It was her deep conviction that to turn one of these poor -<span class='pageno' id='Page_283'>283</span>sinners from the errors of its ways, to reach to the roots of -the misery and corruption of the “perishing and dangerous -classes,” was the most important work which could possibly -be undertaken; and she, very naturally, in consequence made it -the most prominent, indeed, almost the sole, subject of -discourse. I was once in her company at Aubrey House in -London, when there happened to be present half-a-dozen -people, each one devoted to some special political, religious or -moral agitation. Miss Carpenter remarked in a pause in -the conversation; “It is a thousand pities that everybody will -not join and give the whole of their minds to the great cause -of the age, because, if they would, we should carry it -undoubtedly.” “What <em>is</em> the great cause of the age?” we -simultaneously exclaimed. “Parliamentary Reform?” said -our host, Mr. Peter Taylor; “the Abolition of Slavery?” -said Miss Remond, a Negress, Mrs. Taylor’s companion; -“Teetotalism?” said another; “Woman’s Suffrage?” said -another; “The conversion of the world to Theism?” said I. -In the midst of the clamour, Miss Carpenter looked serenely -round, “Why! the Industrial Schools Bill <em>of course</em>!” -Nobody enjoyed the joke, when we all began to laugh, more -than the reformer herself.</p> - -<p class='c007'>It was, above all, in the Red Lodge Reformatory that -Mary Carpenter’s work was at its highest. The spiritual -interest she took in the poor little girls was, beyond words, -admirable. When one of them whom she had hoped was -really reformed fell back into thievish or other evil ways, her -grief was a real <em>vicarious repentance</em> for the little sinner; a -Christ-like sentiment infinitely sacred. Nor was she at all -blind to the children’s defects, or easily deceived by the usual -sham reformations of such institutions. In one of her letters -to me she wrote these wise words (July 9th, 1859):—</p> - -<p class='c007'>“I have pointed out in one of my reports why I have more -trouble than others (<em>e.g.</em>, especially, Catholics). A system of -<span class='pageno' id='Page_284'>284</span>steady repression and order would make them sooner good -scholars; but then I should not have the least confidence in -the real change of their characters. Even with my free -system in the Lodge, remember how little we knew of Hill’s -and Hawkins’ real characters, until they were in the house? -(Her own private house). I do not object to nature being -kept under curbs of rule and order for a time, until some principles -are sufficiently rooted to be appealed to. But <em>then</em> it -must have play, or we cannot possibly tell what amount of -reformation has taken place. The Catholics have an enormous -artificial help in their religion and priests; but I place no -confidence in the slavish obedience they produce and the -hypocrisy which I have generally found inseparable from -Catholic influence. I would far rather have M. A. M’Intyre -coolly say, ‘I know it was wrong’” (a barring and bolting -out) “and Anne Crooks in the cell for outrageous -conduct, acknowledge the same—‘I know it was wrong, -but I am <em>not</em> sorry,’ than any hypocritical and heartless -acknowledgments.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>Indeed nobody had a keener eye to detect cant of any kind, -or a greater hatred of it. She told me one day of her visit to a -celebrated institution, said to be supported semi-miraculously -by answers to prayer in the specific shape of cheques. Miss -Carpenter said that she asked the matron (or some other -official) whether it was supported by voluntary subscriptions? -“Oh, dear no! madam,” the woman replied; “Do you not -know it is entirely supported by Prayer?” “Oh, indeed,” -replied Miss Carpenter. “I dare say, however, when friends -have once been moved to send you money, they continue to -do so regularly?” “Yes, certainly they do.” “And they -mostly send it at the beginning of the year?” “Yes, yes, -very regularly.” “Ah, well,” said Miss Carpenter, “when -people send me money for Red Lodge under those circumstances, -I enter them in my Reports as <cite>Annual Subscribers</cite>!”</p> - -<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_285'>285</span>When our poor children at last left the Reformatory, Mary -Carpenter always watched their subsequent career with deep -interest, gloried in receiving intelligence that they were -behaving honestly and steadily, or deplored their backslidings -in the contrary event. In short, her interest was truly <em>in the -children themselves</em>, in their very souls; and not (as such -philanthropy too often becomes) an interest in <em>her Institution</em>. -Those who know most of such work will best understand -how wide is the distinction.</p> - -<p class='c007'>But Mary Carpenter was not only the guardian and -teacher of the poor young waifs and strays of Bristol when -she had caught them in her charity-traps. She was also -their unwearied advocate with one Government after another, -and with every public man and magistrate whom she could -reasonably or unreasonably attack on their behalf. Never -was there such a case of the Widow and the Unjust Judge; -till at last most English statesmen came to recognise her -wisdom, and to yield readily to her pressure, and she was a -“power in the State.” As she wrote to me about her -Industrial School, so was it in everything else:—</p> - -<p class='c007'>“The magistrates have been lapsing into their -usual apathy; so I have got a piece of artillery to help me -in the shape of Mr. M. D. Hill.... They have -found by painful experience that I cannot be made to -rest while justice is not done to these poor children.” -(July 6th, 1859.)</p> - -<p class='c007'>And again, some years later, when I had told her I had -sat at dinner beside a gentleman who had opposed many of -her good projects:—</p> - -<p class='c007'>“I am very sorry you did not see through Mr. ——, and -annihilate him! Of course, I shall never rest in this world -till the children have their birthrights in this so-called -Christian country; but my next mode of attack I have not -decided on yet!” (February 13th, 1867.)</p> - -<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_286'>286</span>At last my residence under Mary Carpenter’s roof came -to a close. My health had broken down two or three times -in succession under a <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">régime</span></i> for which neither habit nor -constitution had fitted me, and my kind friend, Dr. Symonds’, -peremptory orders necessitated arrangements of meals which -Miss Carpenter thought would occasion too much irregularity -in her little household, which (it must be remembered) was -also a branch of the Reformatory work. I also sadly -perceived that I could be of no real comfort or service as an -inmate of her house, though I could still help her, and -perhaps more effectually, by attending her schools while -living alone in the neighbourhood. Her overwrought and -nervous temperament could ill bear the strain of a perpetual -companionship, or even the idea that any one in her house -might expect companionship from her; and if, while I was -yet a stranger, she had found some fresh interest in my -society, it doubtless ceased when I had been a twelvemonth -under her roof, and knew everything which she could tell -me about her work and plans. As I often told her (more -in earnest than she supposed), I knew she would have been -more interested in me had I been either more of a sinner or -more of a saint!</p> - -<p class='c007'>And so, a few weeks later, the separation was made in all -friendliness, and I went to live alone at Belgrave House, -Durdham Down, where I took lodgings, still working pretty -regularly at the Red Lodge and Ragged Schools, but gradually -engaging more in Workhouse visiting and looking after -friendless girls, so that my intercourse with Miss Carpenter -became less and less frequent, though always cordial and -pleasant.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Years afterwards when I had ceased to reside in the -neighbourhood of Bristol, I enjoyed several times the pleasure -of receiving visits from Miss Carpenter at my home in -London, and hearing her accounts of her Indian travels and -<span class='pageno' id='Page_287'>287</span>other interests. In 1877, I went to Clifton to attend an -Anti-vivisection meeting, and also one for Woman Suffrage; -and at the latter of these I found myself with great -pleasure on the same platform with Mary Carpenter. -(She was also an Anti-vivisectionist and always signed our -Memorials.) Her biographer and nephew, Professor Estlin -Carpenter, while fully stating her recognition of the -rightfulness of the demand for votes for women and -also doing us the great service of printing Mr. Mill’s most -admirable letter to her on the subject (<cite>Life</cite>, p. 493) seems -unaware that she ever publicly advocated the cause of -political rights for women. But on this occasion, as I have -said, she took her place on the platform of the West of -England Branch of the Association, at its meeting in the -Victoria Rooms; and, in my hearing, either proposed or -seconded one of the resolutions demanding the franchise, -adding a few words of cordial approval.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Before I returned to London on this occasion I called on -Miss Carpenter, bringing with me a young niece. I found -her at Red Lodge; and she insisted on my going with her over -all our old haunts, and noting what changes and improvements -she had made. I was tenderly touched by her great -kindness to my young companion and to myself; and by the -added softness and gentleness which years had brought to -her. She expressed herself as very happy in every way; and, -in truth, she seemed to me like one who had reached the -Land of Beulah, and for whom there would be henceforth -only peace within and around.</p> - -<p class='c007'>A few weeks later I was told that her servant had gone -into her bedroom one morning and found her weeping for her -brother, Philip Carpenter, of whose death she had just heard. -The next morning the woman entered again at the same hour, -but Mary Carpenter was lying quite still, in the posture in -which she had lain in sleep. Her “six days’ work” was -<span class='pageno' id='Page_288'>288</span>done. She had “gone home,” and I doubt not “ta’en her -wages.” Here is the last letter she wrote to me:—</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c009'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Red Lodge House, Bristol,</div> - <div class='line in8'>“March 27th, 1877.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='lg-container-l c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Dear Miss Cobbe,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c010'>“There are some things of which the most clear and -unanswerable reasoning could not convince me! One of -these is, that a wise, all powerful and loving Father can -create an immortal spirit for eternal misery. Perhaps you -are wiser than I and more accessible to arguments (though I -doubt this), and I send you the enclosed, which <em>I do not -want back</em>. Gógurth’s answer to such people is the best I -ever heard—‘If <em>you</em> are child of Devil—<em>good</em>; but <em>I</em> am -child of God!’</p> - -<p class='c010'>“I was very glad to get a glimpse of you; I do not trouble -you with my doings, knowing that you have enough of your -own. You may like to see an abstract of my experience.</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Yours affectionately,</div> - <div class='line in18'>“M. C.”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c006'>And here is a Poem which she gave me in MS. the day she -wrote it. I do not think it has seen the light.</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c018'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line in16'>CHRISTMAS DAY PRAYER.</div> - <div class='line in18'>Dec. 25th, 1858.</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line in6'>Onward and upward, Heavenly Father, bear me,</div> - <div class='line in8'>Onward and upward bear me to my home;—</div> - <div class='line in6'>Onward and upward, be Thou ever near me,</div> - <div class='line in8'>While my beloved Father beckons me to come.</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line in6'>With Thy Holy Spirit, O do Thou renew me!</div> - <div class='line in8'>Cleanse me from all that turneth me from Thee!</div> - <div class='line in6'>Guide me and guard me, lead me and subdue me</div> - <div class='line in8'>Till I love not aught that centres not in Thee!</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line in6'>Thou hast filled my soul with brightness and with beauty</div> - <div class='line in8'>Thou hast made me feel the sweetness of Thy love.</div> - <div class='line in6'>Purify my heart, devote me all to duty,</div> - <div class='line in8'>Sanctify me <em>wholly</em> for Thy realms above.</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line in6'><span class='pageno' id='Page_289'>289</span>Holy, heavenly Parent of this earthborn spirit,</div> - <div class='line in8'>Onward and upward bear it to its home,</div> - <div class='line in6'>With Thy Firstborn Son eternal joys to inherit,</div> - <div class='line in8'>Where my blessed Father beckons me to come.—</div> - <div class='line'>December 25th, 1858.</div> - <div class='line in48'>M. C.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c007'>The teaching work in the Red Lodge and the Ragged -Schools, which I continued for a long time after leaving Miss -Carpenter’s house, was not, I have thought on calm reflection -in after years, very well done by me. I have always lacked -imagination enough to realize what are the mental limitations -of children of the poorer classes; and in my eagerness to -interest them and convey my thoughts, I know I often spoke -over their heads, with too rapid utterance and using too -many words not included in their small vocabularies. I think -my lessons amused and even sometimes delighted them; I -was always told they loved them; but they enjoyed them -rather I fear like fireworks than instruction! In the Red Lodge -there were fifty poor little girls from 10 to 15 years of age -who constituted our <em>prisoners</em>. They were regularly committed -to the Lodge as to jail, and when Miss Carpenter was absent I -had to keep the great door key. They used to sit on their -benches in rows opposite to me in the beautiful black oak-panelled -room of the Lodge, and read their dreary books, -and rejoice (I have no doubt) when I broke in with -explanations and illustrations. Their poor faces, often scarred -by disease, and ill-shaped heads, were then lifted up with -cheerful looks to me, and I ploughed away as best I could, trying -to get <em>any</em> ideas into their minds; in accordance with Mary -Carpenter’s often repeated assurance that <em>anything whatever</em> -which could pass from my thoughts to theirs would be a -benefit, as supplying other <em>pabulum</em> than their past familiarity -with all things evil. When we had got through one school -reading book in this way I begged Miss Carpenter to find me -another to afford a few fresh themes for observations, but no; -<span class='pageno' id='Page_290'>290</span>she preferred that I should go over the same again. Some of -the children had singular histories. There was one little -creature named Kitty, towards whom I confess my heart -warmed especially, for her leonine disposition! Whenever -there was some mischief discovered and the question asked -Who was in fault? invariably Kitty’s hand went up: “I did -it, ma’am;” and the penalty, even of incarceration in a -certain dreaded “cell,” was heroically endured. Kitty had -been duly convicted at Sessions at the mature age of ten. Of -what high crime and misdemeanour does the reader suppose? -Pilfering, perhaps, a pocket handkerchief, or a penny? Not -at all! Of nothing less than <em>Horse-stealing</em>! She and her -brother, a mite two years younger than herself, were -dispatched by their vagabond parents to journey by one -road, while they themselves travelled by another, and on -the way the children, who were, of course, directed to pick -and steal all they could lay hands on, observed an old grey -mare feeding in a field near the road and reflecting that a -ride on horseback would be preferable to their pilgrimage -on foot, they scrambled on the mare’s back and by some means -guided her down the road and went off in triumph. The -aggrieved farmer to whom the mare belonged, brought the -delinquents to justice, and after being tried with all the -solemn forms of British law (their heads scarcely visible -over the dock), the children were sent respectively to a Boy’s -Reformatory, and to Red Lodge. We kept Kitty, of course, -till her full term expired when she was 15, and I am afraid -Miss Carpenter strained the law a little in detaining her still -longer to allow her to gain more discretion before returning -to those dreadful tramps, her parents. She herself, indeed, -felt the danger as she grew older, and attached herself much -to us both. A teacher whom I had imported from Ireland -(one of my own village pupils from Donabate) told me that -Kitty spoke of us with tears, and that she had seen her one -day, when given a stocking of mine whereupon to practise -darning, furtively kissing it when she thought no one was -observing her. She once said, “God bless Exeter jail! I -should never have been here but for that.” But at last, -like George Eliot’s <cite>Gipsy</cite>, the claims of race over-mastered -all her other feelings. Kitty left us to rejoin her mother, -who had perpetually called to see her; and a month or two -later the poor child died of fever, caught in the wretched -haunts of her family.</p> -<div class='figcenter id001'> -<img src='images/i_290.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -<div class='ic001'> -<p><em>Door in Oak Room, Red Lodge,<br /> Mary Carpenter, Kitty, etc.</em></p> -</div> -</div> - -<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_291'>291</span>In a visit which I made to Red Lodge two years ago, -I was struck by the improved physical aspect of the poor -girls in the charge of our successors. The depressed, almost -flattened form of head which the experienced eye of Sir -Walter Crofton had caught (as I did), as a terrible “Note” -of hereditary crime, was no longer visible; nor was the -miserable blear-eyed, scrofulous appearance of the faces of -many of my old pupils to be seen any more. Thirty years -have, I hope and believe, raised even the very lowest -stratum of the population of England.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Miss Carpenter’s work in founding the first Reformatory -for girl-criminals with the munificent aid of that generous -woman Lady Byron, has beyond question, contributed in -no mean degree to thinning the ranks of female crime -during the last quarter of a century. Issuing from the Red -Lodge at the end of their four or five years’ term of -confinement and instruction, the girls rarely returned, -like poor Kitty, to their parents, but passed first through -a probation as Miss Carpenter’s own servants in her -private house, under good Marianne and her successors, and -then into that humbler sort of domestic service which is best -for girls of their class; I mean that wherein the mistress -works and takes her meals with the servant. The pride and -joy of these girls when they settled into steady usefulness was -often a pleasure to witness. Miss Carpenter used to say, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_292'>292</span>“When I hear one of them talk of ‘<em>My</em> Kitchen,’ I know it -is all right!” Of course many of them eventually married -respectably. On the whole I do not think that more than -five, or at the outside ten per cent. fell into either crime or -vice after leaving Red Lodge, and if we suppose that there -have been something like 500 girls in the Reformatory since -Lady Byron bought the Red Lodge and dedicated it to that -benevolent use, we may fairly estimate, that Mary Carpenter -<em>deflected</em> towards goodness the lives of at least four hundred -and fifty women, who, if she had not stirred in their interest, -would almost inevitably have spent their days in crime or -vice, and ended them either in jail or in the “Black Ward” -of the workhouse.</p> - -<p class='c007'>There is an epitaph on a good clergyman in one of the old -churches of Bristol which I have always thought remarkably -fine. It runs thus as far as I remember:—</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c018'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Marble may moulder, monuments decay,</div> - <div class='line'>Time sweeps memorials from the earth away;</div> - <div class='line'>But lasting records are to Brydges given,</div> - <div class='line'>The date Eternity, the archives Heaven;</div> - <div class='line'><em>There</em> living tablets with his worth engraved</div> - <div class='line'>Stand forth for ever in the souls he saved.”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c007'>We do not, in our day (unless we happen to belong to the -Salvation Army) talk much about “saving souls” in the old -Evangelical sense; and I, at least, hold very strongly, and -have even preached to the purpose, that every human soul -is “<cite>Doomed to be Saved</cite>,” destined by irrevocable Divine love -and mercy to be sooner or later, in this world or far off -worlds to come, brought like the Prodigal to the Father’s -feet. But there is a very real sense in which a true -philanthropist “saves” his fellow-men from moral evil—the -sense in which Plutarch uses the word, and which every -theology must accept, and in this sense I unhesitatingly -affirm, that Mary Carpenter <span class='fss'>SAVED</span> four hundred human souls.</p> - -<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_293'>293</span>It must be borne in mind also that it was not only in her -own special Reformatory that her work was carried on. By -advocating in her books and by her active public pleading -the modification of the laws touching juvenile crime, she -practically originated—in concert with Recorder Hill—the -immense improvement which has taken place in the whole -treatment of young criminals who, before her time, were -simply sent to jail, and there too often stamped with the hallmark -of crime for life.</p> - -<p class='c007'>As regards the other part of Miss Carpenter’s work which -she permitted me to share,—the Ragged Schools and Streetboys’ -Sunday School in St. James’s Back,—I laboured, of -course, under the same disadvantage as in the Red Lodge of -never clearly foreseeing how much would be understood of -my words or ideas; and what would be most decidedly -“caviar to the general.” A ludicrous example of this -occurred on one occasion. I always anxiously desired to -instil into the minds of the children admiration for brave and -noble deeds, and therefore told them stories of heroism -whenever my subject afforded an opening for one. Having -to give a lesson on France, and some boy asking a -question about the Guillotine, I narrated, as vivaciously -and dramatically as I knew how, the beautiful tale of the -Nuns who chanted the <i><span lang="la" xml:lang="la">Te Deum</span></i> on the scaffold, till one -voice after another was silenced for ever, and the brave -Abbess still continued to sing the grand old hymn of -Ambrose, till her turn came for death. I fondly hoped -that some of my own feelings in describing the scene -were communicated to my audience. But such hopes were -dashed when, a day or two later, Miss Carpenter came home -from her lesson at the school, and said: “My dear friend, -what in the name of heaven can you have been teaching those -boys? They were all excited about some lesson you had -given them. They said you described cutting off a lot of -<span class='pageno' id='Page_294'>294</span>heads; and it was ‘chop! and a head fell into the basket; -and chop! another head in the basket! They said it was -such a nice lesson!’ But <em>whose</em> heads were cut off, or why, -none of them remembered,—only chop! and a head fell in -the basket!”</p> - -<p class='c007'>I consoled myself, however, for this and many another -defeat by the belief that if my lessons did not much instruct -their wild pates, their hearts were benefitted in some small -measure by being brought under my friendly influence. Miss -Carpenter always made the schoolmaster of the Day School -attend at our Sunday Night-School, fearing some wild -outbreak of the 100 and odd boys and hobbledehoys who -formed our congregation. The first Sunday, however, on -which the school was given into my charge, I told the -schoolmaster he might leave me and go home; and I then -stopped alone (we had no assistants) with the little herd. -My lessons, I am quite sure, were all the more impressive; -and though Miss Carpenter was quite alarmed when she -heard what I had done, she consented to my following my -own system of confidence, and I never had reason to repent -the adoption of it.</p> - -<p class='c007'>In my humble judgment (and I know it was also that of -one much better able to judge, Lord Shaftesbury) these elastic -and irregular Ragged Schools were far better institutions for -the class for whom they were designed than the cast-iron Board -Schools of our time. They were specially designed to <em>civilize</em> -the children: to <em>tame</em> them enough to induce them, for -example, to sit reasonably still on a bench for half-an-hour at -a time; to wash their hands and faces; to comb their -hair; to forbear from shouting, singing, “turning wheels,” -throwing marbles, making faces, or similarly disporting -themselves, while in school; after which preliminaries they -began to acquire the art of learning lessons. It was not -exactly Education in the literary sense, but it was a Training, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_295'>295</span>without which as a substructure the “Three R’s” are of little -avail,—if we may believe in William of Wykeham’s axiom -that “Manners makyth Manne.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>Another, and, as I think, great merit of the Ragged School -system was, that decent and self-respecting parents who -strove to keep their children from the contamination of the -gutter and were willing to pay their penny a week to send -them to school, were not obliged, as now, to suffer their -boys and girls to associate in the Board Schools with the very -lowest and roughest of children fresh from the streets. -Nothing has made me more indignant than a report I read -some time ago in one of the newspapers of a poor widow who -had “seen better days,” being summoned and fined for -engaging a non-certified poor governess to teach her little -girl, rather than allow the child to attend the Board School -and associate with the girls she would meet there. As if all -the learning of a person, if he could pour it into a child’s -brain, would counterbalance in a young girl’s mind the foul -words and ideas familiar to the hapless children of the -“perishing and dangerous classes!”</p> - -<p class='c007'>People talk seriously of the <em>physical</em> infection which may -be conveyed where many young children are gathered in -close contiguity. They would, if they knew more, much -more anxiously deprecate the <em>moral</em> contagion which may be -introduced into a school by a single girl who has been -initiated into the mysteries of a vicious home. On two -separate occasions Miss Carpenter and I were startled by -what I can only describe as a portentous wave of evil which -passed over the entire community of 50 girls in the Red -Lodge. In each case it was undeniably traceable to the -arrival of new comers who had been sent by mistake of -magistrates to our Reformatory when they ought to have -gone to a Penitentiary. It was impossible for us to guess -how, with all the watchful guardianship of the teachers, these -<span class='pageno' id='Page_296'>296</span>unhappy girls had any opportunity for corrupting their -companions, but that they did so (temporarily only, as they -were immediately discovered and banished) I saw with my -own eyes beyond possibility of mistake.</p> - -<p class='c007'>It came to me as part of my work with Miss Carpenter to -visit the homes of all the children who attended our Ragged -Schools—either Day Schools or Night Schools; nominally -to see whether they belonged to the class which should -properly benefit by gratuitous education, but also to find out -whether I could do anything to amend their condition. -Many were the lessons I learned respecting the “short” but -by no means “simple” annals of the poor, when I made -those visits all over the slums of Bristol.</p> - -<p class='c007'>The shoemakers were a very numerous and a very -miserable class among the parents of our pupils. When anything -interfered with trade they were at once thrown into -complete idleness and destitution. Over and over again I -tried to get the poor fellows, when they sat listless and -lamenting, to turn to any other kind of labour in their own -line; to endeavour, <em>e.g.</em>, to make slippers for me, no matter -how roughly, or to mend my boots; promising similar orders -from friends. Not one would, or could, do anything but sew -upper or under leathers, as the case might be! The men -sat all day long when there was work, sewing in their stuffy -rooms with their wives busy washing or attending to the -children, and the whole place in a muddle; but they would -converse eagerly and intelligently with me about politics or -about other towns and countries, whereas the poor over-worked -women would never join in our talk. When I addressed -them they at once called my attention to Jenny’s torn frock -and Tom’s want of a new cap. One of these shoemakers, in -whom I felt rather special interest, turned to me one day, -looked me straight in the face, and said: “I want to ask -you a question. Why does a lady like you come and sit and -<span class='pageno' id='Page_297'>297</span>talk to me?” I thought it a true token of confidence, and -was glad I could answer honestly that I had come first to -see about his children, but now came because I liked him.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Other cases which came to my knowledge in these rounds -were dreadfully sad. In one poor room I found a woman -who had been confined only a few days, sitting up in bed -doing shopwork, her three or four <em>little</em> children all endeavouring -to work likewise for the miserable pay. Her -husband was out looking vainly for work. She showed me -a sheaf of pawntickets for a large quantity of table and house -linen and plated goods. Her husband and she had formerly -kept a flourishing inn, but the railway had ruined it, and -they had been obliged to give it up and come to live in -Bristol, and get such work as they could do—at starvation -wages. She was a gentle, delicate, fair woman, who had -been lady’s maid in a wealthy family known to me by name. -I asked her did she not go out and bring the children to the -Downs on a Sunday? “Ah! we tried it once or twice,” -she said, “but it was too terrible coming back to this room; -we never go now.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>Another case of extreme poverty was less tragic. -There was a woman with three children whose husband -was a soldier in India, to whom she longingly hoped to -be eventually sent out by the military authorities. Meanwhile -she was in extreme poverty in Bristol, and so was -her friend, a fine young Irish woman. Their sole resource -was a neighbour who possessed a pair of good sheets, and -was willing to lend them to them <em>by day</em>, provided they were -restored for her own use every night! This did not appear -a very promising source of income, but the two friends -contrived to make it one. They took the sheets of a morning -to a pawnbroker who allowed them,—I think it was two -shillings, upon them. With this they stocked a basket with -oranges, apples, gooseberries, pins and needles, match boxes, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_298'>298</span>lace,—anything which could be had for such a price, -according to the season. Then one or other of the friends -arrayed herself in the solitary bonnet and shawl which they -possessed between them, and sallied out for the day to dispose -of her wares, while the other remained in their single room -to take care of the children. The evening meal was bought -and brought home by the outgoing friend with the proceeds -of her day’s sales, and then the sheets were redeemed from -pawn at the price of a half-penny each day and gratefully -restored to the proprietor. This ingenious mode of filling -five mouths went on, with a little help, when I came to know -of it, in the way of a fresh-filled basket—for a whole winter. -I thought it so curious that I described it to dear Harriet St. -Leger one day when she was passing through Bristol and -spent some hours with me. She was affected almost to tears -and pushed into my hand, at the last moment at the Station, -all the silver in her purse, to give to the friends. The money -amounted to 7s. 6d., and when Harriet was gone I hastened -to give it to the poor souls. It proved to be one of the -numerous occasions in life in which I have experienced a sort -of fatality, as if the chance of doing a bit of good to somebody -were offered to us by Providence to take or leave and, if we -postpone taking it, the chance is lost. I was tired, and the -room inhabited by the poor women was, as it happened, at -the other end of Bristol, and I could not indulge myself with -a fly, but I reflected that the money now really belonged to -them, and I was bound to take it to them without delay. -When I reached their room I found I was in the very nick of -time. An order had come for the soldier’s wife to present -herself at some military office next day with her children, -and with a certain “kit” of clothes and utensils for the -voyage, and if all were right she would be sent to join her -husband’s regiment in India by a vessel to sail immediately. -Without the proper outfit she would not have been taken; -<span class='pageno' id='Page_299'>299</span>and of course the poor soul had no kit and was in an agony -of anxiety. Harriet’s gift, with some trifling addition, -happily supplied all that was wanted.</p> - -<p class='c007'>I did not see so much of drunkenness in Bristol as the -prominence given to the subject by many philanthropists led -me to expect. Of course I came across terrible cases of it -now and then, as for example a little boy of ten at our Ragged -School who begged Miss Carpenter to let him go home at -mid-day, and on enquiry, it proved that he wanted to <em>release -his mother</em>, whom he had locked in, dead-drunk, at nine in -the morning. I also had a frightful experience of the case -of the drunken wife of a poor man dying of agonizing cancer. -The doctor who attended him told me that a little brandy was -the only thing to help him, and I brought small quantities to -him frequently, till, when I was leaving home for three weeks, -I thought it best to give a whole bottle to his wife under -injunctions to administer it by proper degrees. Happening -to pass by the door of the wretched couple a day later, before -I started, I saw a small crowd, and asked what had happened? -“Mrs. Whale had been drinking and had fallen down stairs -and broken her neck and was dead.” Horror-struck I -mounted the almost perpendicular stair and found it was so; -the poor hapless husband was still alive, and my empty brandy -bottle was on the table.</p> - -<p class='c007'>The other great form of vice however was thrust much -more often on my notice—the ghastly ruin of the wretched -girls who fell into it and the nameless damnation of the hags -and Jews who traded on their souls and bodies. The cruelty -of the fate of some of the young women was often piteous. -Thankful I am that the law for assaults has been made since -those days far more stringent and is oftener put in force. -There were stories which came to my personal knowledge -which would draw tears from many eyes were I to tell them, -but the more cruel the wrong done, the more difficult it -<span class='pageno' id='Page_300'>300</span>generally proved to induce anybody to undertake to receive -the victims into their houses on any terms.</p> - -<p class='c007'>A gentleman whom I met in Italy, who knew Bristol well, -told me he had watched a poor young sailor’s destruction -under the influence of some of the eighteen hundred miserable -women then infesting the city. He had just been paid off -and had received £73 for a long service at sea. Mr. Empson -first saw him in the fangs of two of the wretched creatures, -and next, six weeks later, he found him dying in the -Infirmary, having spent every shilling of his money in drink -and debauchery. He told Mr. Empson that, after the first -week, he had never taken any food at all, but lived only on -stimulants.</p> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_301'>301</span> - <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER<br /> XI.<br /> <span class='large'><em>BRISTOL.</em><br /> <em>THE SICK IN WORKHOUSES.</em></span></h2> -</div> - -<p class='c006'><span class='pageno' id='Page_303'>303</span>My new life on Durdham Down, though solitary, was a -very happy one. I had two nice rooms in Belgrave House -(then the last house on the road opening on the beautiful -Downs from the Redland side), wherein a bright, excellent, -pretty widow, Mrs. Stone, kept several suites of lodgings. -It is not often, alas! that the relations of lodger and landlady -are altogether pleasant, but in my case they were eminently -so, and resulted in cordial and permanent mutual regard. -My little bedroom opened by a French window on a balcony -leading to a small garden, and beyond it I had an immense -view of Bristol and the surrounding country, over the smoke -of which the rising sun often made Turneresque pictures. -My sitting room had a front and a corner view of the -delightful Downs as far as “Cook’s Folly” and the Nightingale -Valley; and often, over the “Sea Wall,” the setting sun went -down in great glory. I walked down every week-day into -Bristol (of course I needed more than ever to economise, and -even the omnibus fare had to be considered), and went -about my various avocations in the schools and workhouse -till I could do no more, when I made my way -home as cheaply as I could contrive, to dinner. I had -my dear dog Hajjin, a lovely mouse-coloured Pomeranian, for -companion at all times, and on Sundays we generally treated -ourselves to a good ramble over the Downs and beyond -them, perhaps as far as Kings’-Weston. The whole district -is dear to me still.</p> - -<p class='c007'>The return to fresh air and to something like country life -was delightful. It had been, I must avow, an immense -<span class='pageno' id='Page_304'>304</span>strain on my resolution to live in Bristol among all the -sordid surroundings of Miss Carpenter’s house; and when -once in a way in those days I left them and caught a glimpse -of the country, the effort to force myself back was a hard -one. One soft spring day, I remember, I had gone across -the Downs and sat for half an hour under a certain horse-chestnut -tree, which was that day in all the exquisite beauty -of its young green leaves. I felt <em>this</em> was all I wanted to be -happy—merely to live in the beauty and peace of Nature, as -of old at Newbridge; and I reflected that, of course, I <em>could</em> -do it, at once, by breaking off with Miss Carpenter -and giving up my work in hideous Bristol. But, <i><span lang="la" xml:lang="la">per -contra</span></i>, I had concluded that this work was wanted to -be done and that I could do it; and had seriously -given myself to it, believing that so I could best do -God’s will. Thus there went on in my mind for a little -while a very stiff fight, one of those which leave us -either stronger or weaker ever after. <em>Now</em> at last, without -any effort on my part, the bond which held me to live in Red -Lodge House, was loosened, and I was able both to go on -with my work in Bristol and also to breathe the fresh air in -the morning and to see the sun rise and set, and often to -enjoy a healthful run over those beautiful Downs. By degrees, -also, I made several friendships in the neighbourhood, some -most dear and faithful ones which have lasted ever since; and -many people were very kind to me and helped me in various -ways in my work. I shall speak of these friends in another -chapter.</p> - -<p class='c007'>One of my superstitions has long been that if any particular -task seems to us at the first outlook specially against the -grain, it will continually happen that in the order of things -it comes knocking at our door and practically saying to our -consciences: “Are you going to get up and do what is -wanted, or sit still and please yourself with something else?” -<span class='pageno' id='Page_305'>305</span>In this guise of disagreeability, workhouse visiting first -presented itself to me. Miss Carpenter frequently mentioned -the workhouse as a place which ought to be -looked after; and which she believed sadly wanted -voluntary inspection; but the very name conveyed to me -such an impression of dreary hopelessness that I shrank from -the thought. When St. Paul coupled <em>Hope</em> with Faith and -Charity he might have said “these three are one,” for -without the Hope of achieving some good (or at least of -stopping some evil) it is hard to gird ourselves to any -practical exertion for our fellow-creatures. To lift up the -criminal and perishing classes of the community and cut off -the root of crime and vice by training children in morality and -religion, this was a soul-inspiring idea. But to bring a small -modicum of cheer to the aged and miserable paupers, who -may be supposed generally to be undergoing the inevitable -penalties of idle or drunken lives, was far from equally uplifting! -However, my first chance-visit to St. Peter’s in -Bristol with Miss Elliot, showed me so much to be done, so -many claims to sympathy and pity, and the sore lack of somebody, -unconnected officially with the place, to meet them, -that I at once felt that here I must put in my oar.</p> - -<p class='c007'>The condition of the English workhouses generally at that -period (1859) was very different from what it is now. I -visited many of them in the following year or two in London -and the provincial towns, and <em>this</em> is what I saw. The -sick lay on wretched beds, fit only for able-bodied tramps, and -were nursed mostly by old pauper women of the very lowest -class. The infirm wards were very frequently placed in the -worst possible positions. I remember one (in London) which -resounded all day long with din from an iron-foundry just -beneath, so that one could not hear oneself speak; and -another, of which the windows could not be opened in the -hottest weather, because carpets were taken to be beaten in -<span class='pageno' id='Page_306'>306</span>the court below. The treatment of the pauper children was -no less deplorable. They were joyless, spiritless little -creatures, without “mothering” (as blessed Mrs. Senior said -a few years later), without toys, without the chance of learning -anything practical for use in after life, even to the lighting of -a fire or cooking a potato. Their poor faces were often -scarred by disease and half blinded by ophthalmia. The girls -wore the hideous workhouse cotton frocks, not half warm -enough to keep them healthy in those bare, draughty -wards, and heavy hob-nailed shoes which acted like galley-slaves’ -bullets on their feet when they were turned to “play” -in a high-walled, sunless yard, which was sometimes, as I have -seen, six inches deep in coarse gravel. As to the infants, if -they happened to have a good motherly matron it was so far -well, though even she (mostly busy elsewhere) could do but -little to make the crabbed old pauper nurses kind and patient. -But how often, we might ask, were the workhouse matrons -of those days really kind-hearted and motherly? Of course -they were selected by the gentlemen guardians (there were -no ladies then on the Boards) for quite other merits; and -as Miss Carpenter once remarked to me from the depth of -her experience:—</p> - -<p class='c007'>“<em>There never yet was man so clever but the Matron of an -Institution could bamboozle him about every department of -her business!</em>”</p> - -<p class='c007'>I have sat in the Infants’ ward when an entire Board of -about two dozen gentlemen tramped through it, for what they -considered to be “inspection”; and anything more helpless -and absurd than those masculine “authorities” appeared as -they glanced at the little cots (never daring to open one of -them) while the awakened babies screamed at them in chorus, -it has seldom been my lot to witness.</p> - -<p class='c007'>On one occasion I visited an enormous workhouse in a -provincial town where there were nearly 500 sick and infirm -<span class='pageno' id='Page_307'>307</span>patients. The Matron told me she had but lately been -appointed to her post. I said, “It is a tremendously heavy -charge for you, especially with only these pauper nurses. No -doubt you have gone through a course of Hospital training, -and know how to direct everything?”</p> - -<p class='c007'>“O, dear. No! Madam!” replied the lady with a toss of -her cap-strings; “I never nursed anybody I can assure -you, except my ’usband, before I came here. It was -misfortune brought me to this!”</p> - -<p class='c007'>How many other Masters and Matrons throughout the -country received their appointments with as little fitness for -them and simply as favours from influential or easy-going -guardians, who may guess?</p> - -<p class='c007'>I had at this time become acquainted with the friend whose -comradeship—cemented in the dreary wards of Bristol Workhouse -more than 30 years ago—has been ever since one of the -great pleasures of my life. All those who know Miss Elliot, -daughter of the late Dean of Bristol, will admit that it would -be very superfluous, not to say impertinent, to enlarge on the -privileges of friendship with her. Miss Elliot was at that -time living at the old Deanery close to Bristol Cathedral, and -taking part in every good work which was going on in the -city and neighbourhood. Among other things she had been -teaching regularly for years in Miss Carpenter’s Reformatory, -regardless of the prejudice against her unitarianism; and one -day she called at Miss Carpenter’s house to ask her what was -to be done with Kitty, who had been very naughty. Miss -Carpenter asked her to see the lady who had come to work -with her; and we met for the first time. Miss Elliot begged -me to return her visit, and though nothing was further from -my mind at that time than to enter into anything like -society, I was tempted by the great attractions of my brilliant -young friend and her sister and of the witty and wide-minded -Dean, and before long (especially after I went to -<span class='pageno' id='Page_308'>308</span>live alone) I enjoyed much intercourse with the delightful -household.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Miss Elliot had been in the habit of visiting a poor old -woman named Mrs. Buckley, who had formerly lived close -to the Deanery and had been removed to the workhouse; -and one day she asked me to accompany her on her errand. -This being over, I wandered off to the various wards where -other poor women, and also the old and invalid men, spent -their dreary days, and soon perceived how large a field was -open for usefulness in the place.</p> - -<p class='c007'>The first matter which occupied us was the condition of -the sick and infirm paupers; first of the women only; later of -both men and women. The good Master and Matron -admitted us quite freely to the wards, and we saw and knew -everything which was going on. St. Peter’s was an -exceptional workhouse in many respects. The house was -evidently at one time (about <span class='fss'>A.D.</span> 1600, like Red Lodge) the -mansion of some merchant prince of Bristol, erected in the -midst of the city. The outer walls are still splendid -specimens of old English wood and stonework; and, within, -the Board-room exhibits still a magnificent chimney-piece. -The larger part of the building, however, has been pulled -about and fashioned into large wards, with oak-beamed -rafters on the upper floor, and intricate stairs and passages -in all directions. Able-bodied paupers and casuals were -lodged elsewhere (at Stapleton Workhouse) and were not -admitted here. There were only the sick, the aged, the -infirm, the insane and epileptic patients and lying-in women.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Here are some notes of the inmates of this place by Miss -Elliot:—</p> - -<p class='c008'>“1. An old woman of nearly 80, and as I thought beyond -power of understanding me. Once however when I was -saying ‘good-bye’ before an absence of some months, I was -attracted by her feeble efforts to catch my attention. She -<span class='pageno' id='Page_309'>309</span>took my hand and gasped out ‘God bless you; you wont -find me when you come back. Thank you for coming.’ -I said most truly that I had never been any good to her, -and how sorry I was I had never spoken to her. ‘Oh, but -I see your face; it is always a great pleasure and seems -bright. I was praying for you last night. I don’t sleep -much of a night. I thank you for coming.’... 2. A -woman between fifty and sixty dying of liver disease. She -had been early left a widow, had struggled bravely, and -reared her son so well that he became foreman at one of the -first printing establishments in the city. His master gave -us an excellent character of him. The poor mother -unhappily had some illness which long confined her in -another hospital, and when she left it her son was dead; -dead without her care in his last hours. The worn-out and -broken-down mother, too weak and hopeless to work any -longer, came to her last place of refuge in the workhouse. -There, day by day, we found her sitting on the side of her -bed, reading and trying to talk cheerfully, but always -breaking down utterly when she came to speak of her son. -3. Opposite to her an old woman of ninety lies, too weak -to sit up. One day, not thinking her asleep, I went to her -bedside. I shall never forget the start of joy, the eager -hand, ‘Oh, Mary, Mary, you are come! Is it you at last?’ -‘Ah, poor dear,’ said the women round her, ‘she most -always dreams of Mary. ’Tis her daughter, ladies, in -London; she has written to her often, but don’t get any -answer.’ The poor old woman made profuse apologies for -her mistake, and laid her head wearily on the pillow where -she had rested and dreamed, literally for years, of Mary.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“4. Further on is a girl of sixteen, paralyzed hopelessly -for life. She had been maid-of-all-work in a family of -twelve, and under her fearful drudgery had broken down -thus early. ‘Oh, ma’am,’ she said with bursts of agony, -‘I did work; I was always willing to work, if God would -let me; I did work while I could, but I shall never get -well; Never!’ Alas, she may live as long as the poor -cripple who died here last summer, after lying forty-six -<span class='pageno' id='Page_310'>310</span>years in the same bed, gazing on the same blank, white -wall. 5. The most cheerful woman in the ward is one -who can never rise from her bed; but she is a good -needlewoman, and is constantly employed in making <em>shrouds</em>. -It would seem as if the dismal work gave her an interest -in something outside the ward, and she is quite eager -when the demand for her manufacture is especially great!</p> - -<p class='c010'>“In the Surgical Ward are some eight or ten patients; -all in painful diseases. One is a young girl dying of consumption, -complicated with the most awful wounds on her -poor limbs. ‘But they don’t hurt so bad,’ she says, ‘as -any one would think who looked at them; and it will soon -be all over. I was just thinking it was four years to-day -since I was brought into the Penitentiary,’ (it was after an -attempt to drown herself after a sad life at Aldershot); ‘and -now I have been here three years. God has been very good -to me, and brought me safe when I didn’t deserve it.’ Over -her head stands a print of the Lost Sheep, and she likes to -have that parable read to her. Very soon that sweet, fair -young face, as innocent as I have ever seen in the world, -will bear no more marks of pain. Life’s whole tragedy -will have been ended, and she is only just nineteen!”</p> - -<p class='c010'>[A few weeks later, on Easter Sunday morning when the -rising sun was shining into the curtainless ward, the few -patients who were awake saw this poor girl, who had not -been able to raise herself or sit upright for many weeks, -suddenly start forward, sitting straight up in bed with her -arms lifted and an expression of ecstacy on her face, and -something like a cry of joy on her lips. Then she fell back, -and all was over. The incident, which was in every way -striking and affecting, helped me to recall the conviction -(set forth in my <cite>Peak in Darien</cite>), that the dying do, sometimes, -catch a glimpse of blessed friends waiting for them -on the threshold.]</p> - -<p class='c010'>“A little way off lies a woman dying in severest sufferings -which have lasted long, and may yet last for weeks. Such -part of her poor face as may be seen expresses almost -angelic patience and submission, and the little she can say -<span class='pageno' id='Page_311'>311</span>is all of gratitude to God and man. On the box beside her -bed there stands usually a cup with a few flowers, or even -leaves or weeds—something to which, in the midst of -that sickening disease, she can look for beauty. When we -bring her flowers her pleasure is almost too affecting to -witness. She says she remembers when she used to climb -the hedge rows to gather them in the ‘beautiful country.’”</p> - -<p class='c006'>Among the few ways open to us of relieving the miseries -of these sick wards and of the parallel ones on the other side -occupied by male sufferers, were the following:—The introduction -of a few easy chairs with cushions for those who -could sit by the fire in winter, and whose thinly-clothed -frames could not bear the benches. Also bed-rests,—long -knitted ones, fastened to the lower posts of the bed and passed -behind the patient’s back, so as to form a kind of sitting -hammock,—very great comforts where there is only one small -bolster or pillow and the patient wants to sit up in bed. -Occasionally we gave little packets of good tea; workhouse -tea at that time being almost too nauseous to drink. -We also brought pictures to hang on the walls. These we -bought coloured and cheaply framed or varnished. Their -effect upon the old women, especially pictures of children, -was startling. One poor soul who had been lying opposite -the same blank wall for twenty years, when I laid one of the -coloured engravings on her bed preparatory to hanging it -before her, actually <em>kissed</em> the face of the little child in the -picture, and burst into tears.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Further, we brought a canary in a cage to hang in the window. -This seems an odd gift, but it was so successful that I believe -the good visitors who came after us have maintained a series -of canaries ever since our time. The common interest excited -by the bird brought friendliness and cheerfulness among the -poor old souls, some of whom had kept up “a coolness” for -years while living next to one another on their beds! The -sleepless ones gloried in the summer-morning-song of Dicky, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_312'>312</span>and every poor visitor, daughter or granddaughter, was sure to -bring a handful of groundsel to the general rejoicing of Dicky’s -friends. Of course, we also brought flowers whenever we -could contrive it; or a little summer fruit or winter apples.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Lastly, Books, magazines, and simple papers of various -kinds; such as <cite>Household Words</cite>, <cite>Chambers’ Magazine</cite>, &c. -These were eagerly borrowed and exchanged, especially among -the men. Nothing could be more dreary than the lives of -those who were not actually suffering from any acute -malady but were paralysed or otherwise disabled from -work. I remember a ship-steward who had been struck -with hemiplegia, and had spent the savings of his life -time—no less than £800,—in futile efforts at cure. Another -was a once-smart groom whom my friend exhorted to patience -and thankfulness. “Yes, Ma’am,” he replied promptly, “I -will be <em>very</em> thankful,—when I get out!”</p> - -<p class='c007'>As an example of the kind of way in which every sort of -wretchedness drains into a workhouse and of what need -there is for someone to watch for it there, I may record how -we one day perceived at the far end of a very large ward a -figure not at all of the normal workhouse stamp,—an -unmistakeable gentleman,—sitting on the side of his bed. -With some diffidence we offered him the most recent and -least childish of our literature. He accepted the papers -graciously, and we learnt from the Master that the poor man -had been found on the Downs a few days before with his -throat cut; happily not irreparably. He had come from -Australia to Europe to dispute some considerable property, -and had lost both his lawsuit and the friendship of all his -English relatives, and was starving, and totally unable to pay -his passage back to his wife and children at the Antipodes. -We got up a little subscription, and the good Freemasons, -finding him to be a Brother, did the rest, and sent him home -across the seas, rejoicing, and with his throat mended!</p> - -<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_313'>313</span>But the cases of the <em>incurable</em> poor weighed heavily on us, -and as we studied it more, we came to see how exceedingly -piteous is their destiny. We found that it is not an -accidental misfortune, but a regular descent down the well-worn -channels of Poverty, Disease and Death, for men and -women to go to one or other of the 270 hospitals for <em>curable</em> -patients which then existed in England (there must be many -more now), and after a longer or shorter sojourn, to be -pronounced “incurable,” destined perhaps to linger for a -year or several years, but to die inevitably from -Consumption, Cancer or some other of the dreadful maladies -which afflict human nature. What then becomes of them? -Their homes, if they had any before going into the hospital, -are almost sure to be too crowded to receive them back, or -too poor to supply them with both support and nursing for -months of helplessness. There is no resource for them but -the workhouse, and there they sink down, hopeless and -miserable; the hospital comforts of good beds and furniture -and carefully prepared food and skilled nurses all lost, and -only the hard workhouse bed to lie, and <em>die</em> upon. The -burst of agony with which many a poor creature has told -me: “I am sent here because I am incurable,” remains one -of the saddest of my memories.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Miss Elliot’s keen and practical mind turned over the -problem of how this misery could be in some degree -alleviated. There was no use in trying to get sufficient -Hospitals for Incurables opened to meet the want. There -were only two at that time in England, and they received -(as they do now) a rather different class from those with -whom we are concerned; namely, the deformed and -permanently diseased. At the lowest rate of £30 a year it -would have needed £900,000 a year to house the 30,000 -patients whom we should have wished to take from the -workhouses. The only possible plan was to improve their -<span class='pageno' id='Page_314'>314</span>condition <em>in</em> the workhouses; and this we fondly hoped might -be done (without burdening the ratepayers) by our plan, -which was as follows:—</p> - -<p class='c007'>That the incurables in workhouses should be avowedly -distinguished from other paupers, and separate wards be -allowed to them. That into those wards private charity be -freely admitted and permitted to introduce, with the sanction -of the medical officer, such comforts as would alleviate the -sufferings of the inmates, <em>e.g.</em>, good spring beds, or air beds; -easy-chairs, air-cushions, small refreshments such as good -tea and lemons and oranges (often an immense boon to the -sick); also snuff, cough lozenges, spectacles, flowers in the -window, books and papers; and, above all, kindly visitors.</p> - -<p class='c007'>The plan was approved by a great many experienced men -and women; and, as it would not have added a shilling anywhere -to the rates, we were very hopeful that it might be -generally adopted. Several pamphlets which we wrote, “<cite>The -Workhouse as a Hospital</cite>,” “<cite>Destitute Incurables</cite>,” and the -“<cite>Sick in Workhouses</cite>,” and “<cite>Remarks on Incurables</cite>,” were -widely circulated. The newspapers were very kind, and -leaders or letters giving us a helping hand were inserted in -nearly all, except the <cite>Saturday Review</cite>, which refused even -one of its own regular contributors’ requests to introduce the -subject. I wrote an article called <cite>Workhouse Sketches</cite> for -Macmillan’s Magazine, dealing with the whole subject, and -begged that it might be inserted gratuitously. To my delight -the editor, Mr. Masson, wrote to me the following kind letter -which I have kept among my pleasant souvenirs:—</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c009'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“23, Henrietta Street,</div> - <div class='line in8'>“Covent Garden,</div> - <div class='line in12'>“February 18th, 1861.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='lg-container-l c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Dear Madam,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c010'>“As soon as possible in this part of the month, when -there is much to do with the forthcoming number, I have -<span class='pageno' id='Page_315'>315</span>read your paper. Having an almost countless number of -MSS. in hand, I greatly feared I might, though very -reluctantly, be compelled to return it, but the reading of -it has so convinced me of the great importance of arousing -interest in the subject, and the paper itself is so touching, -that I think I ought, with whatever difficulty, to find a place -for it....</p> - -<p class='c010'>“In any case accept my best thanks for the opportunity -of reading so admirable and powerful an experience; and -allow me to express my regret that I had not the pleasure -of meeting you at Mrs. Reid’s.</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“I am, dear Madam,</div> - <div class='line in8'>“Yours very truly,</div> - <div class='line in16'>“<span class='sc'>David Masson</span>.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='lg-container-l c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Miss Frances Power Cobbe.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>“Should you object to your name appearing in connexion -with this paper? It is our usual practice.”</p> - -<p class='c006'>The paper appeared and soon after, to my equal astonishment -and delight, came a cheque for £14. It was the first -money I had ever earned and when I had cashed the cheque -I held the sovereigns in my hand and tossed them with a -sense of pride and satisfaction which the gold of the Indies, -if gained by inheritance, would not have given me! Naturally -I went down straight to St. Peter’s and gave the poor old -souls such a tea as had not been known before in the memory -of the “oldest inhabitant.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>We also printed, and ourselves directed and posted circulars -to the 666 Unions which then existed in England. We -received a great many friendly letters in reply, and promises -of help from Guardians in carrying out our plan. A certain -number of Unions, I think 15, actually adopted it and set it -going. We also induced the Social Science people, then very -active and influential, to take it up, and papers on it were -read at the Congresses in Glasgow and Dublin; the latter -<span class='pageno' id='Page_316'>316</span>by myself. The Hon. Sec. (then the young poetess Isa -Craig) wrote to me as follows:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c009'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line in8'>“National Association</div> - <div class='line'>“For the Promotion of Social Science,</div> - <div class='line in12'>“3, Waterloo Place, Pall Mall,</div> - <div class='line in24'>“28th December, 1860.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='lg-container-l c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Dear Miss Cobbe,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c010'>“The case of the poor ‘incurables’ is truly heartrending. -I cried over the proof of your paper—a queer proceeding on -the part of the Sub-editor of the Social Science Transactions, -but I hope an earnest of the sympathy your noble appeal -shall meet with wherever our volume goes, setting in action -the roused sense of humanity and <em>justice</em> to remedy such -bitter wrong and misery.</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Yours sincerely,</div> - <div class='line in20'>“<span class='sc'>Isa Craig</span>.”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c006'>A weightier testimony was that of the late Master of -Balliol. The following letters from him on the subject are, -I think, very characteristic and charming:—</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c009'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Coll. de Ball., Oxon.</div> - <div class='line in8'>“Hawhead, near Selkirk,</div> - <div class='line in24'>“Sept. 24th.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='lg-container-l c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Dear Miss Cobbe,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c010'>“I am very much obliged to you for sending me the -extract from the newspaper which contains the plan for -Destitute Incurables. I entirely agree in the object and -greatly like the touching and simple manner in which you -have described it.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“The only thing that occurs to me in passing is whether -the system of outdoor relief to incurables should not also be -extended? Many would still require to be received into the -house (I do not wish in any degree to take away from the -poor the obligation to support their Incurables outdoors, -and it is, perhaps, better to trust to the natural human -pity of a cottage than to the better attendance, warmth, &c., -<span class='pageno' id='Page_317'>317</span>of a workhouse). But I daresay you are right in sticking -to a simple point.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“All the world seems to be divided into Political -Economists, Poor Law Commissioners, Guardians, Policemen, -and Philanthropists, Enthusiasts, and Christian -Socialists. Is there not a large intermediate ground which -anyone who can write might occupy, and who could combine -a real knowledge of the problems to be solved with the -enthusiasm which impels a person to devote their life to -solving them?</p> - -<p class='c010'>“The way would be to hide the philanthropy altogether -as a weakness of the flesh; and sensible people would then -be willing to listen.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“I entirely like the plan and wish it success....</p> - -<p class='c010'>“I am afraid that I am not likely to have an opportunity -of making the scheme known. But if you have any other -objects in which I can help you I shall think it a great -pleasure to do so.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“Remember me most kindly to the Dean and his -daughters. I thought they were not going to banish -themselves to Cannes. Wherever they are I cannot easily -forget them.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“I hope you enjoy Garibaldi’s success. It is one of the -very few public events that seem to make life happier.</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Believe me, with sincere respect,</div> - <div class='line in24'>“Yours truly,</div> - <div class='line in32'>“<span class='sc'>B. Jowett</span>.”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='lg-container-r c009'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Coll. de Ball., Oxon.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='lg-container-l c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Dear Miss Cobbe,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c010'>“I write a line to thank you for the little pamphlet you -have sent me which I read and like very much.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“There is no end of good that you may do by writing in -that simple and touching style upon social questions.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“But don’t go to war with Political Economy. 1st. -Because the P. E.’s are a powerful and dangerous class. -<span class='pageno' id='Page_318'>318</span>2nd. Because it is impossible for ladies and gentlemen to -fill up the interstices of legislation if they run counter to the -common motives of self-interest. 3rd. (You won’t agree to -this) Because the P. E.’s have really done more for the -labouring classes by their advocacy of free trade, &c., than -all the Philanthropists put together.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“I wish that it were possible as a matter of taste to get -rid of all philanthropic expressions, ‘missions, &c.,’ which -are distasteful to the educated. But I suppose they are -necessary for the Collection of Money. And no doubt as a -matter of taste there is a good deal that might be corrected -in the Political Economists.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“The light of the feelings never teaches the best way of -dealing with the world <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">en masse</span></i> and the dry light never -finds its way to the heart either of man or beast.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“You see I want all the humanities combined with -Political Economy. Perhaps, it may be replied that such -a combination is not possible in human nature.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“Excuse my speculations and believe me in haste,</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Yours very truly,</div> - <div class='line in8'>“<span class='sc'>B. Jowett</span>.”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c006'>About the same time that we began to visit the Bristol work -house, Miss Louisa Twining bravely undertook a systematic -reform of the whole system throughout the country. It was -an enormous task, but she had great energy, and a fund of -good sense; and with the support of Lord Mount-Temple -(then Hon. William Cowper-Temple), Mrs. Tait, and several -other excellent and influential persons, she carried out a -grand reformation through the length and breadth of the land. -Her <cite>Workhouse Visiting Society</cite>, and the monthly <cite>Journal</cite> -she edited as its organ, brought by degrees good sense and -good feeling quietly and unostentatiously to bear on the -Boards of Guardians and their officials all over the country, -and one abuse after another was disclosed, discussed, -condemned, and finally, in most cases abolished. I went up -<span class='pageno' id='Page_319'>319</span>for a short visit to London at one time on purpose to learn -all I could from <em>General</em> Twining (as I used to call her), and -then returned to Bristol. I have been gratified to read in -her charming <cite>Recollections</cite> published last year (1893), that -in her well-qualified judgment Miss Elliot’s work and mine -was really the beginning of much that has subsequently been -done for the sick and for workhouse girls. She says:</p> - -<p class='c008'>“In 1861<a id='r16' /><a href='#f16' class='c013'><sup>[16]</sup></a> began the consideration of ‘Destitute Incurables,’ -which was in its results to bring forth such a complete -reform in the care of the sick in Workhouses, or at least -I am surely justified in considering it one of the good seeds -sown, which brought<a id='t319'></a> forth fruit in due season. One of the -first to press the claims of these helpless ones on the -notice of the public, who were, almost universally, utterly -ignorant of their existence and their needs, was Frances -Power Cobbe, who was then introduced to me; she lived -near Bristol, and with her friend Miss Elliot, also of that -place, had long visited the workhouse, and become -acquainted with the inmates, helping more especially the -school children, and befriending the girls after they went -to service. This may be said to be one of the first beginnings -of all those efforts now so largely developed by more -than one society expressly for this object.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“I accompanied Miss Cobbe to the St. Giles’s Schools -and to the Strand, West London, and Holborn Unions, -and to the Hospital for Incurables at Putney, in aid of -her plans.”—<cite>Recollections</cite>, p. 170.</p> - -<p class='c006'>While our plan for the Incurables was still in progress, I -was obliged to spend a winter in Italy for my health, and on -my way I went over the Hotel Dieu and the Salpêtrière in Paris, -and several hospitals in Italy, to learn how best to treat this -class of sufferers. I did not gain much. There were no -arrangements that I noticed as better or more humane than -<span class='pageno' id='Page_320'>320</span>our own, and in many cases they seemed to be worse. In -particular the proximity of infectious with other cases in the -Hotel Dieu was a great evil. I was examining the bed of a -poor victim of rheumatism when, on looking a few feet across -the floor, I beheld the most awful case of small-pox which -could be conceived. Both in Paris, Florence and the great -San-Spirito Hospital in Rome, the nurses, who in those days -all were Sisters of Charity, seemed to me very heartless; proud -of their tidy cupboards full of lint and bandages, but very -indifferent to their patients. Walking a little in advance of -one of them in Florence, I came into a ward where a poor -woman was lying in a bed behind the door, in the last -“agony.” A label at the foot of her bed bore the inscription -“<i><span lang="it" xml:lang="it">Olio Santo</span></i>,” showing that her condition had been -observed—yet there was no friendly breast on which -the poor creature’s head could rest, no hand to wipe -the deathsweats from her face. I called hastily to -the Nun for help, but she replied with great coolness, -“<i><span lang="it" xml:lang="it">Ci vuole del cotone!</span></i>” and seemed astonished when -I used my own handkerchief. In San-Spirito the -doctor who conducted me, and who was personally known -to me, told me he would rather have our English pauper -nurses than the Sisters. This, however, may have been a -choice grounded on other reasons beside humanity to the -patients. At the terrible hospital “degli Incurabili,” -in the via de’ Greci, Rome, I saw fearful cases of disease -(cancer, &c.), receiving so little comfort in the way of diet -that the wretched creatures rose all down the wards, literally -<em>screaming</em> to me for money to buy food, coffee, and so on. -I asked the Sister, “Had they no lady visitors?” “O yes: -there was the Princess So and so, and the Countess So and so, -saintly ladies, who came once a week or once a month.” -“Then do they not provide the things these poor souls -want?” “No, Signora, they don’t do that.” “Then, in -<span class='pageno' id='Page_321'>321</span>Heaven’s name, what do they come to do for them?” It -was some moments before I could be made to understand, -“<i><span lang="it" xml:lang="it">Per pettinarle, Signora!</span></i>”—To comb their hair! The -task was so disgusting that the great ladies came on purpose -to perform it as a work of merit; for the good of their -<em>own</em> souls!</p> - -<p class='c007'>The saddest sight which I ever beheld, however, I think -was not in these Italian hospitals but in the Salpêtrière -in Paris. As I was going round the wards with a Sister, I -noticed on a bed opposite us a very handsome woman lying -with her head a little raised and her marble neck somewhat -exposed, while her arms lay rigidly on each side out of the -bed-clothes. “What is the matter with that patient?” I asked. -Before the Nun could tell me that, (except in her head,) she -was completely paralyzed, there came in response to me an -unearthly, inarticulate cry like that of an animal in agony; -and I understood that the hapless creature was trying to call -me. I went and stood over her and her eyes burnt into -mine with the hungry eagerness of a woman famishing for -sympathy and comfort in her awful affliction. She was a -<em>living statue</em>; unable even to speak, much less to move hand -or foot; yet still young; not over thirty I should think, and -likely to live for years on that bed! The horror of her fate -and the piteousness of the appeal in her eyes, and her -inarticulate moans and cries, completely broke me down. -I poured out all I could think of to say to comfort her, of -prayer and patience and eternal hope; and at last was -releasing her hand which I had been holding, and on which -my tears had been falling fast,—when I felt a thrill run -down her poor stiffened arm. It was the uttermost efforts -she could make, striving with all her might to return my -pressure.</p> - -<p class='c007'>In recent years I have heard of “scientific experiments” -conducted by the late Dr. Charcot and a coterie of medical -<span class='pageno' id='Page_322'>322</span>men, upon the patients of the Salpêtrière. When I have -read of these, I have thought of that paralyzed woman with -dread lest she might be yet alive to suffer; and with indignation -against the Science which counts cases like these -of uttermost human affliction, “interesting” subjects for -investigation!</p> - -<p class='c007'>Some years after this time, hearing of the great Asylum -designed by Mr. Holloway, I made an effort to bring -influence from many quarters to bear on him to induce him -to change its destination at that early stage, and make it the -much-needed Home for Incurables. Many ladies and -gentlemen whose names I hoped would carry weight with -him, were kindly willing to write to him on the subject. -Among them was the Hon. Mrs. Monsell, then Lady -Superior of Clewer. Her letter to me on the subject was so -wise that I have preserved it. Mr. Holloway, however, was -inexorable. Would to Heaven that some other millionaire, -instead of spending tens of thousands on Palaces of Delight -and places of public amusement, would take to heart the case -of those most wretched of human beings, the Destitute -Incurables, who are still sent every year by thousands to die -in the workhouses of England and Ireland with scarcely one -of the comforts which their miserable condition demands.</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c009'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“House of Mercy,</div> - <div class='line in12'>“Clewer,</div> - <div class='line in16'>“Windsor.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='lg-container-l c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Madam,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c010'>“I have read your letter with much interest, and have at -once forwarded it to Mrs. Wellesley, asking her to show it -to Princess Christian, and also to speak to Mrs. Gladstone.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“I have no doubt that a large sum of money would be -better expended on an <em>Incurable</em> than on a <em>Convalescent</em> -Hospital. It would be wiser not to congregate so many -Convalescents. For <em>Incurables</em>, under good management -<span class='pageno' id='Page_323'>323</span>and liberal Christian teaching, it would not signify how -many were gathered together, provided the space were large -enough for the work.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“By ‘liberal Christian teaching’ I mean, that, while I -presume Mr. Holloway would make it a Church of -England Institution, Roman Catholics ought to have the -comfort of free access from their own teachers.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“An Incurable Hospital without the religious element -fairly represented, and the blessing which Religion brings to -each individually, would be a miserable desolation. But -there should be the most entire freedom of conscience -allowed to each, in what, if that great sum were expended, -must become a National Institution.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“I earnestly hope Mr. Holloway will take the subject of -the needs of Incurables into consideration. In our own -Hospital, at St. Andrew’s, and St. Raphael’s, Torquay, we -shrink from turning out our dying cases, and yet it does -not do to let them die in the wards with convalescent -patients. Few can estimate the misery of the incurable -cases; and the expense connected with the nursing is so -great, it is not easy for private benevolence to provide -Incurable Hospitals on a small scale. Besides, they need -room for classification. The truth is, an Incurable Hospital -is a far more difficult machine to work than a Convalescent; -and so the work, if well done, would be far nobler.</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Believe me, Madam,</div> - <div class='line in8'>“Yours faithfully,</div> - <div class='line in16'>“<span class='sc'>H. Monsell</span>.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='lg-container-l c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“June 23rd, 1874.”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c006'>In concluding these observations generally on the <cite>Sick in -Workhouses</cite> I should like to offer to humane visitors one -definite result of my own experience. “Do not imagine that -what will best cheer the poor souls will be <em>your</em> conversation, -however well designed to entertain or instruct them. That -which will really brighten their dreary lives is, to be <em>made to -<span class='pageno' id='Page_324'>324</span>talk themselves</em>, and to enjoy the privilege of a good listener. -Draw them out about their old homes in ‘the beautiful -country,’ as they always call it; or in whatever town -sheltered them in childhood. Ask about their fathers and -mothers, brothers and sisters, everything connected with -their early lives, and tell them if possible any late news -about the place and people connected therewith by ever so -slight a thread. But before all things make <span class='fss'>THEM</span> talk; -and show yourself interested in what they say.”</p> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_325'>325</span> - <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER<br /> XII.<br /> <span class='large'><em>BRISTOL.</em><br /> <em>WORKHOUSE GIRLS.</em></span></h2> -</div> - -<p class='c006'><span class='pageno' id='Page_327'>327</span>Beside the poor sick and aged people in the Workhouse, -the attention of Miss Elliot and myself was much drawn to -the girls who were sent out from thence to service on -attaining (about) their sixteenth year. On all hands, and -notably from Miss Twining and from some excellent Irish -philanthropists, we heard the most deplorable reports of the -incompetence of the poor children to perform the simplest -duties of domestic life, and their consequent dismissal from -one place after another till they ended in ruin. It was stated -at the time (1862), on good authority, that, on tracing the -subsequent history of 80 girls who had been brought up in -a single London Workhouse, <em>every one</em> was found to be on the -streets! In short these hapless “children of the State,” as -my friend Miss Florence Davenport Hill most properly named -them, seemed at that time as if they were being trained on -purpose to fall into a life of sin; having nothing to keep -them out of it,—no friends, no affections, no homes, no -training for any kind of useful labour, no habits of self-control -or self-guidance.</p> - -<p class='c007'>It was never realized by the <em>men</em> (who, in those days, -alone managed our pauper system) that girls cannot be -trained <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">en masse</span></i> to be general servants, nurses, cooks, -or anything else. The strict routine, the vast half-furnished -wards, the huge utensils and furnaces of a -large workhouse, have too little in common with the ways -of family life and the furniture of a common kitchen, -to furnish any sort of practising ground for household -service. The Report of the Royal Commission on -<span class='pageno' id='Page_328'>328</span>Education, issued about that time, concluded that Workhouse -Schools leave the pauper taint on the children, <em>but</em> “that -District and separate schools give an education to the -children contained in them which effectually tends to -emancipate them from pauperism.” Accordingly, the vast -District schools, containing each the children from many -Unions, was then in full blast, and the girls were taught -extremely well to read, write and cipher; but were neither -taught to cook for any ordinary household, or to scour, or -sweep, or nurse, or serve the humblest table. What was far -more deplorable, they were not, and could not be, taught to -love or trust any human being, since no one loved or cared for -them; or to exercise even so much self-control as should help -them to forbear from stealing lumps of sugar out of the first -bowl left in their way. “But,” we may be told, “they -received excellent religious instruction!” Let any one try -to realize the idea of God which any child can possibly reach -<em>who has never been loved</em>; and he will then perhaps rightly -estimate the value of such “religious instruction” in a -dreary pauper school. I have never quite seen the force of -the argument “If a man love not his neighbour whom he -hath seen, how shall he love God whom he hath not seen?” -But the converse is very clear. “If a man <em>hath not been -beloved</em> by his neighbour or his parents, how shall he believe -in the Love of the invisible God?” Religion is a plant -which grows and flourishes in an atmosphere of a certain -degree of warmth and softness, but not in the Frozen Zone -of lovelessness, wherein is no sweetness, no beauty, no -tenderness.</p> - -<p class='c007'>How to prevent the girls who left Bristol workhouse from -falling into the same gulf as the unhappy ones in London, -occupied very much the thoughts of Miss Elliot and her -sister (afterwards Mrs. Montague Blackett) and myself, in -1851 and 1860–61. Our friend, Miss Sarah Stephen (daughter -<span class='pageno' id='Page_329'>329</span>of Sergeant Stephen, niece of Sir James), then residing in -Clifton, had for some time been working successfully a -Preventive Mission for the poorer class of girls in Bristol; -with a good motherly old woman as her agent to look after -them. This naturally helped us to an idea which developed -itself into the following plan—</p> - -<p class='c007'>Miss Elliot and her sister, as I have said, resided at that -time with their father at the old Bristol Deanery, close to -the Cathedral in College Green. This house was known -to every one in the city, which was a great advantage -at starting. A Sunday afternoon School for workhouse girls -only, was opened by the two kind and wise sisters; and soon -frequented by a happy little class. The first step in each -case (which eventually fell chiefly to my share of the business) -was to receive notice from the Workhouse of the address of -every girl when sent out to her first service, and thereupon -to go at once and call on her new mistress, and ask her -permission for the little servant’s attendance at the Deanery -Class. As Miss Eliott wrote most truly, in speaking of the -need of haste in this preliminary visit—</p> - -<p class='c008'>“There are few times in a girl’s life when kindness is -more valued by her, or more necessary to her, than when -she is taken from the shelter and routine of school life and -plunged suddenly and alone into a new struggling world -full of temptations and trials. That this is the turning -point in the life of many I feel confident, and I think delay -in beginning friendly intercourse most dangerous; they, like -other human beings, will seek friends of some kind. We -found them very ready to take good ones if the chance -were offered, and, as it seemed, grateful for such chance. -But good friends failing them, they will most assuredly -find bad ones.”—(<cite>Workhouse Girls. Notes by M. Elliot</cite>, p. 7.)</p> - -<p class='c006'>As a rule the mistresses, who were all of the humbler sort -and of course persons of good reputation, seemed to welcome -<span class='pageno' id='Page_330'>330</span>my rather intrusive visit and questions, which were, of -course, made with every possible courtesy. A little by-play -about the insufficient outfit given by the Workhouse, and an -offer of small additional adornments for Sundays, was -generally well received; and the happy fact of having such -an ostensibly and unmistakeably respectable address for the -Sunday school, secured many assents which might otherwise -have been denied. The mistresses were generally in a state of -chronic vexation at their little servants’ stupidity and incompetence; -and on this head I could produce great effect by -inveighing against the useless Workhouse education. There -was often difficulty in getting leave of absence for the girls -on Sunday afternoon, but with the patience and good humour -of the teachers (who gave their lessons to as many or as few -as came to them), there was always something of a class, and -the poor girls themselves were most eager to lose no chance -of attending.</p> - -<p class='c007'>A little reading of <cite>Pilgrim’s Progress</cite> and other good -books: more explanations and talk; much hymn singing -and repeating of hymns learned during the week; and -a penny banking account,—such were some of the -devices of the kind teachers to reach the hearts of -their little pupils. And very effectually they did so, as -the 30 letters which they wrote between them to Miss Elliot -when she, or they, left Bristol, amply testified. Here is one -of these epistles; surely a model of prudence and candour on -the occasion of the approaching marriage of the writer! The -back-handed compliment to the looks of her betrothed is -specially delightful.</p> - -<p class='c008'>“You pointed out one thing in your kind letter, that to -be sure that the young man was steady. I have been with -him now two years, and I hope I know his failings; and I -can say I have never known any one so steady and trustworthy -as he is. I might have bettered myself as regards -<span class='pageno' id='Page_331'>331</span>the outside looks; but, dear Madam, I think of the future, -and what my home would be then; and perhaps if I married -a gay man, I should always be unhappy. But John has a -kind heart, and all he thinks of is to make others happy; -and I hope I shall never have a cause to regret my choice, -and I will try and do my best to do my duty, so that one -day you may see me comfortable. Dear Madam, I cannot -thank you enough for your kindness to me.”</p> - -<p class='c006'>The whole experiment was marvellously successful. Nearly -all the poor children seemed to have been improved in various -ways as well as certainly made happier by their Sundays at -the Deanery, and not one of them, I believe, turned out ill -afterwards or fell into any serious trouble. Many of them -married respectably. In short it proved to be a good plan, -which we have had no hesitation in recommending ever since. -Eventually it was taken up by humane ladies in London, and -there it slowly developed into the now imposing society with -the long name (commonly abbreviated into M.A.B.Y.S.) the -<em>Metropolitan Association for Befriending Young Servants</em>. -Two or three years ago when I attended and spoke at the -annual meeting of this large body, with the Lord Mayor of -London in the chair and a Bishop to address us, it seemed -very astonishing and delightful to Miss Elliot and me that -our small beginnings of thirty years before should have -swelled to such an assembly!</p> - -<p class='c007'>My experience of the wrongs and perils of young servant -girls, acquired during my work as <em>Whipper-in</em> to the -Deanery class, remains a painful memory, and supplies strong -arguments in favour of extending some such protection to -such girls generally. Some cases of oppression and -injustice on the part of mistresses (themselves, no -doubt, poor and over-strained, and not unnaturally -exasperated by their poor little slave’s incompetence) -were very cruel. I heard of one case which had occurred -<span class='pageno' id='Page_332'>332</span>just before we began our work, wherein the girl had been -left in charge of a small shop. A man came in out of the -street, and seeing only this helpless child of fifteen behind the -counter, laid hands on something (worth sixpence as it -proved) and walked off with it without payment. When the -mistress returned the girl told her what had happened, -whereupon she and her husband stormed and scolded; and -eventually <em>turned the girl out of the house</em>! This was at -nine o’clock at night, in one of the lowest parts of Bristol, -and the unhappy girl had not a shilling in her possession. -A murder would scarcely have been more wicked.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Sometimes the mistresses sent their servants away without -paying them any wages at all, making up their accounts in -a style like this: “I owe you five and sixpence; but you -broke my teapot, which was worth three shillings; and you -burnt a tablecover worth two, and broke two plates and a -saucer, and lost a spoon, and I gave you an old pair of boots, -worth at least eighteen-pence, so <em>you owe me</em> half-a-crown; -and if you don’t go away quietly I’ll call the police and give -you in charge!” The mere name of the police would -inevitably terrify the poor little drudge into submission to -her oppressor. That the law could ever <em>defend</em> and not -punish her would be quite outside her comprehension.</p> - -<p class='c007'>The wretched holes under stairs, or in cellars, or garrets, -where these girls were made to sleep, were often most -unhealthy; and their exposure to cold, with only the thin -workhouse cotton frock, leaving arms and neck bare, was -cruel in winter. One day I had an example of this, not -easily to be forgotten. I had just received notice that a girl -of sixteen had been sent from the workhouse (Bristol or -Clifton, I forget which) to a place in St. Philip’s, at the far -end of Bristol. It was a snowy day but I walked to the -place with the same odd conviction over me of which I have -spoken, that I was bound to go at <em>once</em>. When I reached -<span class='pageno' id='Page_333'>333</span>the house, I found it was one a little above the usual class -for workhouse-girl servants and had an area. The snow -was falling fast, and as I knocked I looked down into the -area and saw a girl in her cotton dress standing out at a -wash-tub;—head, neck and arms all bare, and the snow -falling on them with the bitter wind eddying through -the area. Presently the door was opened and there -stood the girl, in such a condition of bronchitis as I -hardly ever saw in my life. When the mistress appeared -I told her civilly that I was very sorry, but that -the girl was in mortal danger of inflammation of the -lungs and <em>must</em> be put to bed immediately. “O, that -was entirely out of the question.” “But it <em>must</em> be -done,” I said. Eventually after much angry altercation, the -woman consented to my fetching a fly, putting the girl into -it, driving with her to the Infirmary (for which I had always -tickets) and leaving her there in charge of a friendly doctor. -Next day when I called to enquire, he told me she could -scarcely have lived after another hour of exposure, and that -she could recover only by the most stringent and immediate -treatment. It was another instance of the verification of -my superstition.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Of course we tried to draw attention generally to the need -for some supervision of the poor Workhouse girls throughout -the country. I wrote and read at a Social Science Congress -a paper on “<cite>Friendless Girls and How to Help them</cite>,” giving -a full account of Miss Stephen’s admirable <cite>Preventive Mission</cite>; -and this I had reason to hope, aroused some interest. -Several years later Miss Elliot wrote a charming little book -with full details about her girls and their letters; “<cite>Workhouse -Girls; Notes of an attempt to help them</cite>,” published -by Nisbet. Also we managed to get numerous articles -and letters into newspapers touching on Workhouse -abuses and needs generally. Miss Elliot having many -<span class='pageno' id='Page_334'>334</span>influential friends was able to do a great deal in the -way of getting our ideas put before the public. I used to -write my papers after coming home in the evening and often -late into the night. Sometimes, when I was very anxious -that something should go off by the early morning mail, -I got out of the side window of my sitting-room at two or -three o’clock and walked the half-mile to the solitary post-office -near the <em>Black Boy</em> (Pillar posts were undreamed of -in those days), and then climbed in at the window again, -to sleep soundly!</p> - -<p class='c007'>Some years afterwards I wrote in <cite>Fraser’s Magazine</cite> and -later again republished in my <cite>Studies: Ethical and Social</cite>, a -somewhat elaborate article on the <cite>Philosophy of the Poor Laws</cite> -as I had come to understand it after my experience at Bristol. -This paper was so fortunate as to fall in the way of an -Australian philanthropic gentleman, President of a Royal -Commission to enquire into the question of Pauper legislation -in New South Wales. He, (Mr. Windeyer,) approved of -several of my suggestions and recommended them in the -Report of his Commission, and eventually procured their -embodiment in the laws of the Colony.</p> - -<p class='c007'>The following is one of several letters which I received -from him on the subject.</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c009'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Chambers,</div> - <div class='line in4'>“Sydney,</div> - <div class='line in8'>“June 6th, 1874.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='lg-container-l c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“My Dear Madam,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c010'>“Though personally unknown to you I take the liberty as -a warm admirer of your writings, to which I owe so much -both of intellectual entertainment and profoundest spiritual -comfort, to send you herewith a copy of a Report upon the -Public Charities of New South Wales, brought up by a -Royal Commission of which I was the President. I may -add that the document was written by me; and that my -<span class='pageno' id='Page_335'>335</span>brother Commissioners did me the honour of adopting it -without any alteration. As the views to which I have -endeavoured to give expression have been so eloquently -advocated by you, I have ventured to hope that my attempt -to give practical expression to them in this Colony may not -be without interest to you, as the first effort made in this -young country to promulgate sounder and more philosophic -views as to the training of pauper children.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“In your large heart the feeling <i><span lang="la" xml:lang="la">Homo sum</span></i> will, I think, -make room for some kindly sympathy with those who, far -off, in a small provincial way, try to rouse the attention -and direct the energies of men for the benefit of their kind, -and if any good comes of this bit of work, I should like -you to know how much I have been sustained amidst much -of the opposition which all new ideas encounter, by the -convictions which you have so materially aided in building -up and confirming. If you care to look further into our -inquiry I shall be sending a copy of the evidence to the -Misses Hill, whose acquaintance I had the great pleasure -of making on their visit to this country, and they doubtless -would show it to you if caring to see it, but I have not -presumed to bore you with anything further than the -Report.</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Believe me, your faithful servant,</div> - <div class='line in16'>“<span class='sc'>Will. C. Windeyer</span>.”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c006'>I have since learned with great pleasure from an official -Report sent from Australia to a Congress held during the -World’s Fair of 1893 at Chicago, that the arrangement has -been found perfectly successful, and has been permanently -adopted in the Colony.</p> - -<p class='c007'>While earnestly advocating some such friendly care and -guardianship of these Workhouse Girls as I have described, I -would nevertheless enter here my serious protest against the -excessive lengths to which one Society in particular—devoted -to the welfare of the humbler class of girls generally—has -<span class='pageno' id='Page_336'>336</span>gone of late years in the matter of incessant pleasure-parties -for them. I do not think that encouragement to (what is to -them) dissipation, conduces to their real welfare or happiness. -It is always only too easy for all of us to remove the centre -of our interest from the <em>Business</em> of life to its <em>Pleasures</em>. The -moment this is done, whether in the case of poor persons or -rich, Duty becomes a weariness. Success in our proper work -is no longer an object of ambition, and the hours necessarily -occupied by it are grudged and curtailed. Amusement usurps -the foreground, instead of being kept in the background, of -thought. This is the kind of moral <em>dislocation</em> which is even -now destroying, in the higher ranks, much of the duty-loving -character bequeathed to our Anglo-Saxon race by our Puritan -fathers. Ladies and gentlemen do not indeed now “live to eat” -like the old epicures, but they live to shoot, to hunt, to -play tennis or golf; to give and attend parties of one sort or -another; and the result, I think, is to a great degree traceable -in the prevailing Pessimism. But bad as excessive -Pleasure-seeking and Duty-neglecting is for those who are -not compelled to earn their bread, it is absolutely fatal to -those who must needs do so. The temptations which lie in -the way of a young servant who has acquired a distaste for -honest work and a passion for pleasure, require no words of -mine to set forth in their terrible colours. Even too much -and too exciting <em>reading</em>, and endless letter-writing may -render wholesome toil obnoxious. A good maid I once -possessed simply observed to me (on hearing that a friend’s -servant had read twenty volumes in a fortnight and neglected -meanwhile to mend her mistress’s clothes), “I never knew -anyone who was so fond of books who did not <em>hate her -work</em>!” It is surely no kindness to train people to hate the -means by which they can honourably support themselves, -and which might, in itself, be interesting and pleasant to -them. But incessant tea-parties and concerts and excursions -<span class='pageno' id='Page_337'>337</span>are much more calculated to distract and dissipate the minds -of girls than even the most exciting story books, and the -good folks who would be shocked to supply them with -an unintermittent series of novels, do not see the mischief of -encouraging the perpetual entertainments now in vogue all -over the country. Let us make the girls, first <em>safe</em>; then as -<em>happy</em> as we can. But it is an error to imagine that overindulgence -in dissipation,—even in the shape of the most -respectable tea-parties and excursions,—is the way to make -them either safe or happy.</p> - -<p class='c007'>The following is an account which Miss Florence D. Hill -has kindly written for me, of the details of her own work on -behalf of pauper children which dovetailed with ours for -Workhouse girls:—</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c009'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“March 27th, 1894.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c010'>“I well remember the deep interest with which I learnt -from your own lips the simple but effective plan by which -you and Miss Elliot and her sister befriended the elder -girls from Bristol Workhouse, and heard you read your -paper, ‘<cite>Friendless Girls, and How to Help Them</cite>,’ at the -meeting of the British Association in Dublin in 1861. -Gradually another benevolent scheme was coming into -effect, which not only bestows friends but a home and -family affections on the forlorn pauper child, taking it in -hand from infancy. The reference in your ‘<cite>Philosophy of -the Poor Laws</cite>’ to Mr. Greig’s Report on Boarding-out as -pursued for many years at Edinburgh, caused my cousin, -Miss Clark, to make the experiment in South Australia, -which has developed into a noble system for dealing under -natural conditions with all destitute and erring children -in the great Colonies of the South Seas. Meanwhile, at -home the evidence of success attained by Mrs. Archer in -Wiltshire and her disciples elsewhere, and by other -independent workers, in placing orphan and deserted -children in the care of foster parents, enabled the late -<span class='pageno' id='Page_338'>338</span>Dr. Goodeve, <i><span lang="la" xml:lang="la">ex-officio</span></i> Guardian for Clifton, to obtain the -adoption of the plan by his Board; his wife becoming -President of one of the very first Committees formed to -find suitable homes and supervise the children.</p> - -<p class='c006'>After my efforts above detailed on behalf of the little -Girl-thieves, the Ragged street boys, the Incurables and -other Sick in Workhouses, and finally for Befriending young -Servants, there was another undertaking in which both -Miss Elliot and I took great interest for some years after we -had ceased to live at Bristol. This was the Housing of the -poor in large Cities.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Among the many excellent citizens who then and always -have done honour to Bristol, there was a Town Councillor, -Mr. T. Territ Taylor, a jeweller, carrying on his business in -College Green. At a time when a bad fever seemed to have -become endemic in the district of St. Jude’s, this gentleman -told us that in his opinion it would never be banished till -some fresh legislation were obtained for the <em>compulsory</em> -destruction of insanitary dwellings, such as abounded in -that quarter. We wondered whether it would be possible -to interest some influential M.P.’s among our acquaintances -in Mr. Taylor’s views, and after many delays and much -consultation with them, I wrote an article in <cite>Fraser’s -Magazine</cite> for February, 1866, in which I was able to print -a full sketch by Mr. Taylor of his matured project, and to -give the reasons which appeared to us to make such -legislation as he advocated exceedingly desirable. I said:—</p> - -<p class='c008'>“The supply of lodgings for the indigent classes in the -great towns has long failed to equal the demand. Each -year the case becomes worse, as population increases, and -no tendency arises for capital to be invested in meeting the -want....</p> - -<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_339'>339</span>“But, it is asked, why does not capital come in here, as -everywhere else, and supply a want as soon as it exists? -The reason is simple. Property in our poor lodgings is very -undesirable for large capitalists. It can be made to pay a -high interest only on three conditions:—1st, That the -labour of collecting the rents (which is always excessive) -shall not be deducted from the returns by agents; 2nd, -That very little mercy shall be shown to tenants in -distress; 3rd, That small expense be incurred in attempting -to keep in repair, paint, or otherwise refresh the houses, -which, being inhabited by the roughest of the community, -require double outlay to preserve in anything better than a -squalid and rack-rent condition.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“Convinced long ago of this fact, philanthropists have -for years attempted to mitigate the evil by building, in -London and other great towns, model lodging-houses for -the Working Classes, and after long remaining a doubtful -experiment, a success has been achieved in the case of -Mr. Peabody’s, Alderman Waterlow’s, and perhaps some -others. But as regards the two great objects we are considering,—the -elevation of the Indigent, and the prevention -of pestilence,—these schemes only point the way to an -enterprise too large for any private funds. All the existing -model lodging-houses not only fix their rents above the -means of the Indigent class, but actually make it a rule -not to admit the persons of whom the class chiefly consists—namely, -those who get their living upon the streets. Thus, -for the elevation of the Indigent and the purifying of -those cesspools of wretchedness, wherein cholera and fever -have their source, these model lodging-houses are even -professedly unavailing.”—Reprinted in <cite>Hours of Work and -Play</cite>, pp. 46, 47.</p> - -<p class='c006'>Mr. Thomas Hare had, shortly before, set forth in the -<cite>Times</cite> a startlingly magnificent scheme whereby a great -Board should raise money, partly from the Rates, to build -splendid rows of workmen’s lodging-houses, of which the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_340'>340</span>workmen would eventually, in this ingenious plan become -freeholders. Mr. Taylor’s plan was much more modest, and -involved in fact only one principal point, the grant of -compulsory powers to purchase, indispensable where the -refusal of one landlord might invalidate, for sanitary -purposes, the purification of a district; and the greed of the -class would inevitably render the proposed renovation -preposterously costly. Mr. Taylor’s Scheme, as drawn up -by himself and placed in our hands, was briefly as follows:—</p> - -<p class='c008'>“An Act of Parliament must be obtained to enable Town -Councils and Local Boards of Health (or other Boards, as -may hereafter be thought best) to purchase, under compulsory -powers, the property in overcrowded and pestilential -districts within their jurisdiction, and build thereon suitable -dwellings for the labouring classes.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“The usual powers must be given to borrow money of -the Government at a low rate of interest, on condition of -repayment within a specified time, say from 15 to 20 years, -as in the case of the County Lunatic Asylums.”</p> - -<p class='c006'>Miss Elliot and I having shown this sketch to our friends, -a Bill was drawn up embodying it with some additions; -“<em>For the improvement of the Dwellings of the Working -Classes</em>,” and was presented to Parliament by Mr. McCullagh -Torrens and my cousin John Locke, in 1867. But though -both the Governments of Lord Derby and of Lord Russell -the latter of whom Miss Elliot had interested personally in -the matter were favourable to the Bill, it was not passed -till the following Session; when it became law (with -considerable modifications); as 31, 32 Vict., Cap. cxxx., -“<cite>An Act to provide better dwellings for Artisans and -Labourers</cite>,” 31st July, 1868.</p> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_341'>341</span> - <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER<br /> XIII.<br /> <span class='large'><em>BRISTOL.</em><br /> <em>FRIENDS.</em></span></h2> -</div> - -<p class='c006'><span class='pageno' id='Page_343'>343</span><em>What is Chance?</em> How often does that question recur in -the course of every history, small or great? My whole course -of life was deflected by the mishap of stepping a little awry -out of a train at Bath, and miscalculating the height of the -platform, which is there unusually low. I had gone to spend -a day with a friend, and on my way back to Bristol I thus -sprained my ankle. I was at that time forty years of age (a -date I now alas! regard as quite the prime of life!), and in -splendid health and spirits, fully intending to continue for the -rest of my days labouring on the same lines as prospects of -usefulness might open. I remember feeling the delight of -walking over the springy sward of the Downs and laughing -as I said to myself “I do believe I could walk down anybody -and perhaps <em>talk</em> down anybody too!” The next week I -was a poor cripple on crutches, never to take a step without -them for four long years, during which period I grew practically -into an old woman, and (unhappily for me) into a very -large and heavy one for want of the exercise to which I had -been accustomed. The morning after my mishap, finding my -ankle much swollen and being in a great hurry to go on with -my work, I sent for one of the principal surgeons in Bristol, -who bound the limb so tightly that the circulation (always -rather feeble) was impeded, and every sort of distressful condition -supervened. Of course the surgeon threw the blame -on me for attempting to use the leg; but it was very little I -<em>could</em> do in this way even if I had tried, without excessive -pain; and, after a few weeks, I went to London in the full -confidence that I had only to bespeak “the best advice” to -<span class='pageno' id='Page_344'>344</span>be speedily cured. I did get what all the world would still -consider the “best advice;” but bad was that best. Guineas -I could ill spare ran away like water while the great surgeon -came and went, doing me no good at all; the evil conditions -growing worse daily. I returned back from London -and spent some wretched months at Clifton. An artery, I -believe, was stopped, and there was danger of inflammation -of the joint. At last with infinite regret I gave up the hope -of ever recovering such activity as would permit me to carry -on my work either in the schools or workhouse. No one who -has not known the miseries of lameness, the perpetual contention -with ignoble difficulties which it involves, can judge -how hard a trial it is to an active mind to become a cripple.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Still believing in my simplicity that great surgeons might -remedy every evil, I went again to London to consult the -most eminent, and by the mistake of a friend, it chanced that -I summoned two very great personages on the same day, -though, fortunately, at different hours. The case was, of -course, of the simplest; but the two gentlemen gave me -precisely opposite advice. <em>One</em> sent me abroad to certain -baths, which proved to be the wrong ones for my trouble, -and gave me a letter to his friend there, a certain Baron. -The moment the Baron-Doctor saw my foot he exclaimed -that it ought never to have been allowed to get into the state -of swollen veins and arrested circulation in which he found -it; astringents and all sorts of measures ought to have been -applied. In truth I was in a most miserable condition, for I -could not drop the limb for two minutes without the blood -running into it till it became like an ink-bottle, when, if I -held it up, it became as white as if dead. And all this had been -getting worse and worse while I was consulting ten doctors -in succession, and chiefly the most eminent in England! The -Baron-Doctor first told me that the waters <em>would</em> bring out -the gout, and then, when I objected, assured me they should -<span class='pageno' id='Page_345'>345</span><em>not</em> bring it out; after which I relinquished the privilege of -his visits and he charged me for an entire course of -treatment.</p> - -<p class='c007'>The <em>second</em> great London surgeon told me <em>not</em> to go -abroad, but to have a gutta-percha boot made for my leg to -keep it stiff. I had the boot made, (with much distress and -expense), took it abroad in my trunk, and asked the -successor of the Baron-Doctor (who could make the waters give -the gout or not as he pleased), “Whether he advised me to -wear the wonderful machine?” The good old Frenchman, -who was also Mayor of his town, and who did me more good -than anybody else, replied cautiously, “If you wish, Madame, -to be lame for life you will wear that boot. A great many -English come to us here to be unstiffened after having had -their joints stiffened by English surgeons’ devices of this sort, -but we can do nothing for them. A joint once thoroughly stiff -can never be restored.” It may be guessed that the expensive -boot was quietly deposited on the nearest heap of rubbish.</p> - -<p class='c007'>After that experience I tried the baths in Savoy and others in -Italy. But my lameness seemed permanent. A great Italian -Doctor could think of nothing better than to put a few walnut-leaves -on my ankle—a process which might perhaps have -effected something in fifty years! Only the good and great -Nélaton, whom I consulted in Paris, told me he believed I -should recover some time; but he could not tell me anything -to do to hasten the event. Returned to London I sent for -Sir William Fergusson, and that honest man on hearing my -story said simply: “And if you had gone to nobody and not -bandaged your ankle, but merely bathed it, you would have -been well in three weeks.” Thus I learned from the best -authority, that I had paid for the folly of consulting an -eminent surgeon for a common sprain, by four years of -miserable helplessness and by the breaking up of my whole -plan of life.</p> - -<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_346'>346</span>I must conclude this dismal record by one last trait of -medical character. I had determined, after seeing Fergusson, -to consult no other doctor; indeed I could ill afford to do so. -But a friend conveyed to me a message from a London -surgeon of repute (since dead) that he would like to be allowed -to treat me gratuitously; having felt much interest in my -books. I was simple enough to fall into the trap and to feel -grateful for his offer: and I paid him several visits, during -which he chatted pleasantly, and once did some trifling thing -to relieve my foot. One day I wrote and asked him kindly to -advise me by letter about some directions he had given me; -whereupon he answered tartly that he “could not correspond; -and that I must always attend at his house.” The suspicion -dawned on me, and soon reached conviction, that what he -wanted was not so much to cure <em>me</em>, as to swell the scanty -show of patients in his waiting-room! Of course after this, -I speedily retreated; offering many thanks and some small, -and as I hoped, acceptable <em>souvenir</em> with inscription to lie on -his table. But when I thought this had concluded my -relations with Mr. ——, I found I had reckoned without my—<em>doctor</em>! -One after another he wrote to me three or four -peremptory notes requesting me to send him introductions -for himself or his family, to influential friends of mine rather -out of his sphere. I would rather have paid him fifty fees -than have felt bound to give these introductions.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Finally I ceased to do anything whatever to my -unfortunate ankle, except what most of my advisers had -forbidden, namely, to walk upon it,—and a year or two afterwards -I climbed Cader Idris; walking quietly with my friend -to the summit. Sitting there, on the Giants’ Chair we passed -an unanimous resolution. It was: “<em>Hang the Doctors!</em>”</p> - -<p class='c007'>I must now set down a few recollections of the many friends -and interesting acquaintances whom I met at Bristol. In -the first place I may say briefly that all Miss Carpenter’s -<span class='pageno' id='Page_347'>347</span>friends (mostly Unitarians) were very kind to me, and that -though I did not go out to any sort of entertainment while -I lived with her, it was not for lack of hospitable invitations.</p> - -<p class='c007'>The family next to that of the Dean with which I became -closely acquainted and to which I owed most, was that of -Matthew Davenport Hill, the Recorder of Birmingham, -whose labours (summed up in his own <cite>Repression of Crime</cite> and -in his <cite>Biography</cite> by his daughters) did more, I believe, than -those of any other philanthropist beside Mary Carpenter, to -improve the treatment of both adult and juvenile crime in -England. I am not competent to offer judgment on the many -questions of jurisprudence with which he dealt, but I can -well testify to the exceeding goodness of his large heart, the -massiveness of his grasp of his subjects, and (never-to-be-forgotten) -his most delightful humour. He was a man who -from unlucky chances never attained a position commensurate -with his abilities and his worth, but who was beloved and -admired in no ordinary degree by all who came near him. -His family of sons and daughters formed a centre of usefulness -in the neighbourhood of Bristol as they have since done in -London, where Miss Hill is, I believe, now the senior member -of the School Board, while her sister, Miss Florence Davenport -Hill, has been equally active as a Poor Law Guardian, -and most especially as the promoter of the great and farreaching -reform in the management of pauper orphans, known -as the system of Boarding-out, of which I have spoken in the -last chapter. I must not indulge myself by writing at too -great length of such friends, but will insert here a few notes I -made of Recorder Hill’s wonderfully interesting conversation -during a Christmas visit I paid to him at Heath House.</p> - -<p class='c008'>“Dec. 26th. I spent yesterday and last night with my -kind friends the Hills at Heath House. In the evening I -drew out the Recorder to speak of questions of evidence, -and he told me many remarkable anecdotes in his own -<span class='pageno' id='Page_348'>348</span>practice at the Bar, of doubtful identity, &c. On one -occasion a case was tried three times; and he observed -how the <em>certainty</em> of the witnesses, the clearness of -details, and unhesitating asseveration of facts which -at first had been doubtfully stated, <em>grew</em> in each trial. -He said ‘the most dangerous of all witnesses are -those who <em>honestly</em> give <em>false</em> witness—a most numerous -class.’</p> - -<p class='c010'>“To-day he invited me to walk with him on his terrace -and up and down the approach. The snow lay thick on -the grass, but the sun shone bright, and I walked for more -than an hour and a-half beside the dear old man. He told -me how he had by degrees learned to distrust all ideas of -Retribution, and to believe in the ‘aggressive power of love -and kindness,’ (a phrase Lady Byron had liked); and how at -last it struck him that all this was in the new Testament; -and that few, except religious Christians, ever aided the -great causes of philanthropy. I said, it was quite true, -Christ had revealed that religion of love; and that there -were unhappily very few who, having intellectually doubted -the Christian creed, pressed on further to any clear or -fervent religion beyond; but that without religion, <em>i.e.</em>, love -of God, I hardly believed it possible to work for man. He -said he had known nearly all the eminent men of his time -in every line, and had somehow got close to them, and had -never found one of them really believe Christianity. I said, -‘No; no strong intellect of our day could do so, altogether; -but that I thought it was faithless in us to doubt that if we -pushed bravely on to whatever seemed <em>truth</em> we should -there find all the more reason to love God and man, and -never lose any <em>real</em> good of Christianity.’ He agreed, but -said, ‘You are a watchmaker, I am a weaver; this is your -work, I have a different one,—and I cannot afford to part -with the Evangelicals, who are my best helpers. Thus -though I wholly disagree with them about Sunday I never -publish my difference.’ I said I felt the great danger of -pushing uneducated people beyond the bounds of an -authoritative creed, and for my own part would think it -<span class='pageno' id='Page_349'>349</span>safest that Jowett’s views should prevail for a generation, -preparatory to Theism.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“Then we spoke of Immortality, and he expressed -himself nobly on the thought that all our differences of rich -and poor, wise or ignorant, are lost in comparison of that -one fact of our common Immortality. As he said, he felt -that waiting a moment jostled in a crowd at a railway -station, was a larger point in comparison of his whole life -than this life is, to the future. We joined in condemning -Emerson and George Eliot’s ideas of the ‘little value’ -of ordinary souls. His burst of indignation at her phrase -‘<em>Guano races of men</em>’ was very fine. He said, talking of -Reformatories, ‘A century hence,—in 1960,—some people -will walk this terrace and talk of the great improvement -of the new asylums where hopeless criminals and vicious -persons will be permanently consigned. They will not be -formally condemned for life, but we shall all know that -they will never fulfil the conditions of their release. They -will not be made unhappy, but forced to work and kept -under strong control; the happiest state for them.’”</p> - -<p class='c006'>Here is a very flattering letter from Mr. Hill written a few -years later, on receipt of a copy of my <cite>Italics</cite>:—</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c009'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“The Hawthorns,</div> - <div class='line in4'>“Edgbaston, Birmingham,</div> - <div class='line in16'>“25th Oct., 1864.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='lg-container-l c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“My dear Miss Cobbe,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c010'>“Although I am kept out of court to-day at the instance -of my physician, who threatens me with bronchitis if I do -not keep house, yet it has been a day not devoid of much -enjoyment. Your charming book which, alas, I have nearly -finished, is carrying me through it only too rapidly. What a -harvest of observation, thought, reading, and discourse have -you brought home from Italy! But I am too much overwhelmed -with it to talk much about it, especially in the -obfuscated state of my intellect to which I am just now -reduced. But I must just tell you how I am amused in -<span class='pageno' id='Page_350'>350</span>midst of my admiration, with your humility as regards -your sex; said humility being a cloak which, opening a -little at one page, discloses a rich garment of pride underneath -(<i><span lang="la" xml:lang="la">vide</span></i> page 438 towards the bottom). I say no more, -only as I don’t mean to give up the follies of youth for the -next eight years, that is until I am eighty, I don’t choose -to be called ‘venerable.’ One might as well consent to -become an Archdeacon at once!</p> - -<p class='c010'>“Your portraits are delightful, some of the originals I -know, and the likeness is good, but alas, idealized!</p> - -<p class='c010'>“To call your book a ‘trifling’ work is just as absurd as -to call me ‘venerable.’ It deals nobly, fearlessly, and I -will add in many parts <em>profoundly</em>, with the greatest -questions that can employ human intellect or touch the -human heart, and although I do not always agree with you, I -always respect your opinions and learn from the arguments -by which they are supported. But certainly in the vast -majority of instances I do agree with you, and more than -agree, which is a cold, unimpressive term.</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Most truly yours,</div> - <div class='line in8'>“<span class='sc'>M. D. Hill</span>.”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='lg-container-r c009'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Heath House, Stapleton, Bristol,</div> - <div class='line in16'>“17th August, 1871.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='lg-container-l c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“My dear Miss Cobbe,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c010'>“That is to say falsest of woman-kind! You have cruelly -jilted me. Florry wrote to say you were coming here as -you ought to have done long ago. Well, as your countryman, -Ossian, or his double, Macpherson, says, ‘Age is dark -and unlovely,’ and therefore the rival of the American -Giantess turns a broad back upon me. I must submit -to my fall....</p> - -<p class='c010'>“Though I take in the <cite>Echo</cite>, I have not lately seen any -article which I could confidently attribute to your pen.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“I have, however, been much gratified with your article -on <cite>The Devil</cite>, the only writing I ever read on the origin of -evil which did not appear to me absolutely contemptible. -Talking of these matters, Coleridge said to Thelwall (<i><span lang="la" xml:lang="la">ex -<span class='pageno' id='Page_351'>351</span>relatione</span></i> Thelwall), ‘God has all the power that <em>is</em>, but there -is no power over a contradiction expressed or implied.’ -Your suggestion that the existence of evil is due to -contradiction, is, I have no doubt, very just, but my stupid -head is this morning quite unable to put on paper what is -foggily floating in my mind, and so I leave it.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“I spent a good part of yesterday morning in reading the -<cite>Westminster Review</cite> of Walt Whitman’s works, which quite -laid hold of me.</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Most truly yours,</div> - <div class='line in8'>“<span class='sc'>M. D. Hill</span>.”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c006'>Another interesting person whom I first came to know at -Bristol, (where he visited at the Deanery and at Dr. Symonds’ -house,) was the late Master of Balliol. I have already cited -some kind letters from him referring to our plans for -Incurables and Workhouse Girls. I will be vain enough to -quote here, with the permission of the friend to whom they -were addressed, some of his remarks about my <cite>Intuitive -Morals</cite> and <cite>Broken Lights</cite>; and also his opinion of -Theodore Parker, which will interest many readers:—</p> - -<p class='c008'>“From Rev. Benjamin Jowett.</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“January 22nd, 1861.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c010'>“I heard of your friend Miss Cobbe the other day at -Fulham.... Pray urge her to go on with her books -and try to make them more interesting. (This can only be -done by throwing more feeling into them and adapting -them more to what other people are thinking and feeling -about). I am not speaking of changing her ideas, but the -mode of expressing them. The great labour of writing is -adapting what you say to others. She has great ability, -and there is something really fine and striking in her views -of things, so that it is worth while she should consider the -form of her writings.”...</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“April 16th, 1861.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c010'>“Let me pass to a more interesting subject—Miss Cobbe. -Since I wrote to you last I have read the greater part of -<span class='pageno' id='Page_352'>352</span>her book” (<cite>Intuitive Morals</cite>) “which I quite agree with you -in thinking full of interest. It shows great power and -knowledge of the subject, yet I should fear it would be -hardly intelligible to anyone who had not been nourished -at some time of their lives on the philosophy of Kant; -and also she seems to me to be too exclusive and antagonistic -towards other systems—<em>e.g.</em>, the Utilitarian. All systems -of Philosophy have their place and use, and lay hold on -some minds, and therefore though they are not all equally -true, it is no use to rail at Bentham and the Utilitarians -after the manner of <cite>Blackwood’s Magazine</cite>. Perhaps, however, -Miss Cobbe would retort on me that her attacks on -the Utilitarians have their place and their use too; only -they were not meant for people who ‘revel in Scepticism’ -like me (the <cite>Saturday Review</cite> says, is it not very Irish of -them to say so?) Pray exhort her to write (for it is really -worth while) and not to spend her money and time wholly -in schemes of philanthropy. For a woman of her ability, -writing offers a great field, better in many respects than -practical life.”</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“October 10th, 1861.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c010'>“A day or two ago I was at Clifton and saw Miss -Cobbe, who might be truly described as very ‘jolly.’ -I went to a five o’clock tea with her and met various -people—an aged physician named Dr. Brabant who -about thirty years ago gave up his practice to study -Hebrew and became the friend of German Theologians; -Miss Blagden, whom you probably know, an amiable lady -who has written a novel and is the owner of a little white -puppy wearing a scarlet coat; Dr. Goodeve, an Indian -Medical Officer; and various others.”...</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“February 2nd, 1862.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c010'>“Remember me to Miss Cobbe. I hope she gains from -you sound notions on Political Economy. I shall always -maintain that Philanthropy is intolerable when not based -on sound ideas of Political Economy.”</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'><span class='pageno' id='Page_353'>353</span>“June 4th, 1862.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c010'>“The articles in the <cite>Daily News</cite> I did not see. Were they -Miss Cobbe’s? I read her paper in Fraser in which the -story of the Carnival was extremely well told.”...</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“March 15th, 1863.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c010'>“I write to thank you for Miss Cobbe’s pamphlet, which -I have read with great pleasure. I think her writing is -always good and able. I have never seen Theodore Parker’s -works: he was, I imagine, a sort of hero and prophet; but -I think I would rather have the Church of England large -enough for us all with old memories and feelings, notwithstanding -many difficulties and some iniquities, than new -systems of Theism.”...</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“March 10th, 1864.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c010'>“Miss Cobbe has also kindly sent me a little book -called <cite>Broken Lights</cite>, which appears to me to be -extremely good. (I think the title is rather a mistake.) I -dare say that you have read the book. The style is -excellent, and the moderation and calmness with which the -different parties are treated is beyond praise. The only -adverse criticism that I should venture to make is that the -latter part is too much narrowed to Theodore Parker’s -point of view, who was a great man, but too confident, I -think, that the world could be held together by spiritual -instincts.”</p> - -<p class='c006'>And here are three charming letters from Mr. Jowett to -me, one of them in reply to a letter from me from Rome, the -others of a later date.</p> - -<div class='lg-container-l c009'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Dear Miss Cobbe,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c010'>“I write to thank you for the Fraser which I received this -morning and have read with great amusement and interest. -I think that I should really feel happier living to see the -end of the Pope, at least in his present mode of existence.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“I did indeed receive a most capital letter from you with -a kind note from Miss Elliot. And ‘I do remember me of -<span class='pageno' id='Page_354'>354</span>my faults this day.’ The truth is that being very busy with -Plato (do you know the intolerable burden of writing a fat -book in two vols.?) I put off answering the letters until I -was not quite certain whether the kind writers of them were -still at Rome. I thought the Plato would have been out by -this time, but this was only one of the numerous delusions -in which authors indulge. The notes, however, are really -finished, and the Essays will be done in a few months. I -suspect you can read Greek, and shall therefore hope to send -you a copy.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“I was always inclined to think well of the Romans from -their defence of Rome in 1848, and their greatness and -strength really does seem to show that they mean to be the -centre of a great nation.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“Will you give my very kind regards to the Elliots? I -should write to them if I knew exactly where: I hear that -the Dean is transformed into a worshipper of the Virgin -and of other pictures of the Saints.<a id='r17' /><a href='#f17' class='c013'><sup>[17]</sup></a></p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Believe me, dear Miss Cobbe,</div> - <div class='line in16'>“Yours very truly,</div> - <div class='line in24'>“<span class='sc'>B. Jowett</span>.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='lg-container-l c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Bal. Coll., May 19th.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='lg-container-r c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Coll. de Bal., Oxon.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='lg-container-l c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Dear Miss Cobbe,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c010'>“I shall certainly read your paper on Political Economy. -Political Economy seems to me in this imperfect world -to be Humanity on a large scale (though not the whole of -humanity). And I am always afraid of it being partially -supplanted by humanity on the small scale, which relieves -one-sixth of the poor whom we see, and pauperizes the -mind of five-sixths whom we don’t see.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“I won’t trouble you with any more reflections on such an -old subject. Remember me most kindly to the Dean and his -daughters. I was going to send him a copy of the Articles -against Dr. Williams. But upon second thoughts, I won’t.<a id='t354'></a> -<span class='pageno' id='Page_355'>355</span>It is such an ungracious, unsavoury matter. I hope that -he won’t give up the Prolocutorship, or that, if he does, -he will state boldly his reasons for doing so. It is true -that neither he nor anyone can do much good there. But -the mere fact of a great position in the Church of England -being held by a liberal clergyman is of great importance.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“I should have much liked to go to Rome this -winter. But I am so entangled, first, with Plato, -and, second, with the necessity of getting rid of -Plato and writing something on Theology, that I do not -feel justified in leaving my work. The vote of last Tuesday -deferring indefinitely the endowment of my Professorship -makes me feel that life is becoming a serious business to -me. Not that I complain; the amount of sympathy and -support which I have received has been enough to sustain -anyone, if they needed it, (you should have seen an -excellent squib written by a young undergraduate). But -my friends are sanguine in imagining they will succeed -hereafter. Next year it is true that they probably will get -a small majority in Congregation. This, however, is of no -use, as the other party will always bring up the country -clergy in Convocation. I have, therefore, requested Dr. -Stanley to take no further steps in the Council on the -subject; it seems to me undignified to keep the University -squabbling about my income.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“Excuse this long story which is partly suggested by -your kind letter. I hope you will enjoy Rome. With -sincere regard,</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Believe me, yours truly,</div> - <div class='line in16'>“<span class='sc'>B. Jowett</span>.”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='lg-container-r c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Rev. Benjamin Jowett to Miss Cobbe.</div> - <div class='line in16'>“Coll. de Ball., Oxon,</div> - <div class='line in24'>“February 24th, 1865.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='lg-container-l c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“My Dear Miss Cobbe,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c010'>“I write to thank you for your very kind note. I am -much more pleased at the rejoicings of my friends than at -the result which has been so long delayed as to be almost -<span class='pageno' id='Page_356'>356</span>indifferent to me. I used to be annoyed at feeling that I -was such a bad example to young men, because they saw, -as they were intended to see, that unless they concealed -their opinions they would suffer. I hope they will have -more cheerful prospects now.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“I trust that some day I shall be able to write something -more on Theology. But the Plato has proved an -enormous work, having expanded into a sort of translation -of the whole of the Dialogues. I believe this will be -finished and printed about Christmas, but not before.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“I have been sorry to hear of your continued illness. -When I come to London I shall hope to look in upon you in -Hereford Square.</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“In haste, believe me,</div> - <div class='line in8'>“Yours very truly,</div> - <div class='line in20'>“<span class='sc'>B. Jowett</span>.”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c010'>“I read a book of Theodore Parker’s the other day—‘Discourses -on Religion.’ He was a friend of yours, I -believe? I admire his character—a sort of religious Titan. -But I thought his philosophy seemed to rest too much on -instincts.”</p> - -<p class='c006'>How much Mr. Jowett had to bear from the animosity of -his orthodox contemporaries in the Sixties at Oxford was -illustrated by the following incident. I was, one day about -this time, showing his photograph to a lady, when her son, late -from Oxford, came into the room with a dog at his heels. -Seeing the photograph, he remarked, “Ah, yes! very like. -<em>This dog</em> pinned him in quod one day, and was made so much -of afterwards! The Dean of —— especially invited him” (the -dog) “to lunch. Jowett complained of me, and I had to send -all my dogs out of Oxford!”</p> - -<p class='c007'>The following is a Note which I made of two of his visits -to me on Durdham Down:</p> - -<p class='c008'>“Two visits from Mr. Jowett, who each time drank tea -with me. He said he felt writing to be a great labour; but -<span class='pageno' id='Page_357'>357</span>regularly wrote one page every day. The liberal, -benevolent way he spoke of all creeds was delightful. In -particular he spoke of the temptation to Pantheism and -praised Hegel, whom, he said, he had studied deeply. -Advising me kindly to go on writing books, he maintained -against me the vast power of books in the world.”</p> - -<p class='c006'>Mr. Jowett was, of course, at all times a most interesting -personality, and one whose intercourse was delightful and -highly exciting to the intellect. But his excessive shyness, -combined with his faculty for saying exceedingly sharp -things, must have precluded, I should think, much ease of -conversation between him and the majority of his friends. -As usually happens in the case of shy people, he exhibited -rather less of the characteristic with an acquaintance like -myself who was never shy (my mother’s training saved me -from that affliction!) and who was not at all afraid of him.</p> - -<p class='c007'>In later years Mr. Jowett obtained for me (in 1876) the -signatures of the Heads of every College in Oxford to a -Petition which I had myself written, to the House of Lords -in favour of Lord Carnarvon’s original Bill for the restriction -of Vivisection. At a later date the Master of Balliol declined -to support me further in the agitation for the prohibition of the -practice; referring me to the assurances of a certain eminent -Boanerges of Science as guarantee for the necessity of the -practice and the humanity of vivisectors. It is very surprising -to me how good and strong men, who would disdain to accept -a <em>religious</em> principle or dogma from pope or Council, will take -a <em>moral</em> one without hesitation from any doctor or professor -of science who may lay down the law for them, and present -the facts so as to make the scale turn his way. Where would -Protestant divines be, if they squared their theologies with -all the historical statements and legends of Romanism? If -we construct our ethical judgments upon the statements and -<span class='pageno' id='Page_358'>358</span>representations of persons interested in maintaining a practice, -what chance is there that they should be sound?</p> - -<p class='c007'>I find, in a letter to a friend (dated May, 1868) the following -<em>souvenir</em> of a sermon by Mr. Jowett, delivered in a church -near Soho:—</p> - -<p class='c008'>“We went to that sermon on Sunday. It was really very -fine and very bold; much better than the report in the -<cite>Pall Mall Gazette</cite> made it. Mr. Albert D—— was there, -but few else who looked as if they could understand him. -He has a good voice and delivery, and the “cherubic” -countenance and appealing eyes suit the pulpit; but he <em>looks -at one</em> as I never knew any preacher do. We sat close to -him, and it was as if we were in a drawing-room. M. says -that all the first part was taken from my <cite>Broken Lights</cite>; -that is,—it was a sketch of existing opinions on the same -plan. It was good when he said:</p> - -<p class='c010'>“The High church watchword is: <em>The Church; always and -ever the same</em>.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“The Low church watchword is: <em>The Bible only the Religion -of Protestants</em>.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“The party of Knowledge has for its principle: ‘<em>The -Truth ever and always, and wherever it be found</em>.’</p> - -<p class='c010'>“He gave each their share of praise and blame, saying: -‘the fault of the last party’ (his own, of course) was—that -‘sometimes in the pursuit of <em>Knowledge</em> they forgot -<em>Goodness</em>.’”</p> - -<p class='c006'>I heard him preach more than once afterwards in the -same gloomy old church. His aspect in his surplice was -exceedingly quaint. His face, even in old age, was like that -of an innocent, round-faced child; and his short, slender -figure, wrapped in the long white garment, irresistibly -suggested to me the idea of “an elderly cherub prepared for -bed”! Altogether, taking into account his entire career, the -Master of Balliol was an unique figure in English life, whom -I much rejoice to have known; a modern Melchisedek.</p> - -<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_359'>359</span>Here is another memorandum about the same date, -respecting another eminent man, interesting in another -way:—</p> - -<p class='c008'>“Sept. 25th, 1860. A pleasant evening at Canon -Guthrie’s. Introduced to old Lord Lansdowne; a gentle, -courteous old man with deep-set, faded grey eyes, and heavy -eyebrows; a blue coat and <em>brass buttons</em>! In the course of -the evening I was carrying on war in a corner of the room -against the Dean of Bristol, Mr. C—— and Margaret Elliot, -about Toryism. I argued that if <em>Justice to all</em> were the -chief end of Government, the power should be lodged in -the hands of the class who <em>best understood Justice</em>; and that -the consequence of the opposite course was manifest in -America, where the freest government which had ever -existed, supported also the most gigantic of all wrongs—Slavery. -On this Countess Rothkirch who sat by, clapped -her hands with joy; and the Dean came down on me saying, -‘That if power should only be given to those who would -use it justly, then the Tories should never have any power -at all; for they <em>never</em> used it justly.’ Hearing the laughter -at my discomfiture, Lord Lansdowne toddled across the -room and sat down beside me saying: ‘What is it all about?’ -I cried: ‘Oh Lord Lansdowne! you are the very person in -the whole world to help me—<em>I am defending Tory principles!</em>’ -He laughed heartily, and said ‘I am afraid I can hardly do -that.’ ‘Oh, yes,’ I said, ‘you may be converted at the -eleventh hour!’ ‘Don’t you know,’ he said, ‘what a -child asked her mother: “Are Tories <em>born</em> wicked, mother, -or do they only become so?”’ Margaret said this was really -asked by a cousin of her own, one of the Adam family. It -ended in much laughter and talking about ‘<cite>Transformation</cite>,’ -and the ‘<cite>Semi-attached Couple</cite>‘—which Lord Lansdowne -said he was just reading. ‘I like novels very much,’ he -said, ‘only I take a little time between each of them.’ -When I got up to go away the kind old man rose in the most -courtly way to shake hands, and paid me a little old-world -compliment.”</p> - -<p class='c006'><span class='pageno' id='Page_360'>360</span>This was the eloquent statesman and patron of literature, -Henry, third Marquis of Lansdowne, in whose time his house, -(Bowood,) was the resort of the finest intellectual society of -England. I have a droll letter in my possession referring -to this Bowood society, by Sydney Smith, written to Mrs. -Kemble, then Mrs. Butler. It has come to me with all her -other papers and with seven letters from Lord Lansdowne -pressing her to pay him visits. Sydney Smith writes on his -invitation to her to come to Combe Fleury; after minute -directions about the route:—</p> - -<p class='c008'>“The interval between breakfast and dinner brings you -to Combe Fleury. We are the next stage (to Bowood). -Lord Lansdowne’s guests commonly come here <em>dilated and -disordered</em> with high living.”</p> - -<p class='c006'>In another letter conveying a similar invitation he says, -with his usual bitterness and injustice as regards America:</p> - -<p class='c008'>“Be brave my dear lady. Hoist the American flag. -Barbarise your manners. <em>Dissyntax</em> your language. Fling -a thick mantle over your lively spirits, and become the -fust of American women. You will always remain a bright -vision in my recollection. Do not forget me. Call me -Butler’s Hudibras. Any appellation provided I am not -forgotten.”</p> - -<p class='c006'>Among the residents in Clifton and at Stoke Bishop over the -Downs I had many kind friends, some of whom helped me -essentially in my work by placing tickets for hospitals and -money in my hands for the poor. One of these whom I specially -recall with gratitude was that ever zealous moral reformer, -Mrs. Woolcott Browne, who is still working bravely with her -daughter for many good causes in London. I must not -write here without permission of the many others whose -names have not come before the public, but whose affectionate -consideration made my life very pleasant, and whom I ever -<span class='pageno' id='Page_361'>361</span>remember with tender regard. Of one excellent couple I may -venture to speak,—Dr. and Mrs. Goodeve of Cook’s Folly. -Mrs. Goodeve herself told me their singular and beautiful -story, and since she and her husband are now both dead, I -think I may allow myself to repeat it.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Dr. Goodeve was a young medical man who had just -married, and was going out to seek his fortune in India, -having no prospects in England. As part of their honeymoon -holiday the young couple went to visit Cook’s Folly; then a -small, half-ruinous, castellated building, standing in a spot of -extraordinary beauty over the Avon, looking down the Bristol -Channel. As they were descending the turret-stair and -taking, as they thought, a last look on the loveliness of -England, the young wife perceived that her husband’s head -was bent down in deep depression. She laid her hand on -his shoulder and whispered “Never mind, Harry? You shall -make a fortune in India and we will come back and buy -Cook’s Folly.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>They went to Calcutta and were there most kindly received -by a gentleman named Hurry, who edited a newspaper and -whose own history had been strange and tragic. Started in -his profession by his interest, Dr. Goodeve soon fell into -good practice, and by degrees became a very successful -physician, the founder (I believe) of the existing Medical -College of Calcutta. Going on a shooting party, his face was -most terribly shattered by a chance shot which threatened -to prove mortal, but Mrs. Goodeve, without help or -appliances, alone with him in a tent in a wild district, pulled -him back to life. At last they returned to England, wealthy -and respected by all, and bringing a splendid collection -of Indian furniture and <em>curios</em>. The very week they -landed, Cook’s Folly was advertised to be sold! They -remembered it well,—went to see it,—bought it—and -rebuilded it; making it a most charming and beautiful -<span class='pageno' id='Page_362'>362</span>house. A peculiarity of its structure as remodelled -by them was, that there was an entire suite of rooms,—a -large library overlooking the river Avon, bedroom, bathroom -and servant’s room,—all capable of being shut off from -the rest of the house, by double doors, so that the occupant -might be quite undisturbed. When everything was finished, -and splendidly furnished, the Goodeves wrote to Mr. Hurry: -“It is time for you to give up your paper and come home. -You acted a father’s part to us when we went out first to India. -Now come to us, and live as with your son and daughter.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>Mr. Hurry accepted the invitation and found waiting for -him and his Indian servant the beautiful suite of rooms built -for him, and the tenderest welcome. I saw him often seated -by their fireside just as a father might have been. When -the time came for him to die, Mrs. Goodeve nursed him -with such devoted care, and strained herself so much in -lifting and helping him, that her own health was irretrievably -injured, and she died not long afterwards.</p> - -<p class='c006'>I could write more of Bristol and Clifton friends, high and -low, but must draw this chapter of my life to a close. I -went to Bristol an utter stranger, knowing no human being -there. I left it after a few years all peopled, as it seemed to -me, with kind souls; and without one single remembrance of -anything else but kindness received there either from gentle -or simple.</p> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_363'>363</span> - <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER<br /> XIV.<br /> <span class='large'><em>ITALY. 1857–1879.</em></span></h2> -</div> - -<p class='c006'><span class='pageno' id='Page_365'>365</span>I visited Italy six times between the above dates. The -reader need not be wearied by reminiscences of such familiar -journeyings, which, in my case, were always made quickly -through France, (a country which I intensely dislike) and -extended pretty evenly over the most beautiful cities of -Italy. I spent several seasons in Rome and Florence, and a -winter in Pisa; and I visited once, twice or three times, Venice, -Bologna, Naples, Perugia, Assisi, Verona, Padua, Genoa, -Milan and Turin. The only interest which these wanderings -can claim belongs to the people with whom they brought me -into contact, and these include a somewhat remarkable list: -Mr. and Mrs. Browning, Mrs. Somerville, Theodore Parker, -Walter Savage Landor, Massimo d’ Azeglio, John Gibson, -Charlotte Cushman, Count Guido Usedom, Adolphus -Trollope and his first wife, Mr. W. W. Story, and Mrs. -Beecher Stowe. Of many of these I gave slight sketches in -my book, <cite>Italics</cite>; and must refer to them very briefly here. -That book, I may mention, was written principally at Villa -Gnecco, a beautiful villa at Nervi on the Riviera di Levante, -then rented by my kind friend Count Usedom, the Prussian -Ambassador and his English wife. Count Guido Usedom,—now -alas! gone over to the majority,—was an extremely -cultivated man, who had been at one time Secretary to -Bunsen’s Embassy in Rome. He was so good as to undertake -what I may call my (Italian) Political Education; -instructing me not only of the facts of recent history, but of -the <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">dessous des cartes</span></i> of each event as they were known to the -initiated. He placed all his despatches for many years in -<span class='pageno' id='Page_366'>366</span>my hands, and explained the policy of each nation concerned; -and even taught me the cryptographs then in diplomatic use. -His own letters to his King, the late Emperor Wilhelm I., -were lively and delightful sketches of Italian affairs; for, as -he said, he had discovered that to induce the King to read -them they must be both amusing and beautifully transcribed. -From him and the Prefects and other influential men who -came to visit him at Villa Gnecco, I gained some views of -politics not perhaps unworthy of record.</p> - -<p class='c007'>One day I asked him, “Whether it were exactly true that -Cavour had told a distinct falsehood in the Chambers about -Garibaldi’s invasion of Naples?” Count Usedom replied, -“He <em>did</em>; and I do not believe there is a statesman in Europe -who would not have done the same when a kingdom was in -question.” He obviously thought, (scrupulously conscientious -as he was himself) that, to diplomatists in general and their -sovereigns, the laws of morality and honour were like ladies’ -bracelets, highly ornamental and to be worn habitually, but -to be slipped off when any serious work was to be done which -required free hands. He said: “People (especially women) -often asked me is such a King a <em>good man</em>? Is Napoleon III. -a <em>good man</em>? This is nonsense. They are all good men, -in so far that they will not do a cruel, or treacherous, or -unjust thing <em>without strong reasons</em> for it. That would be not -only a crime but a blunder. But when great dynastic -interests are concerned, Kings and Emperors and their -ministers are neither guided by moral considerations or -deterred from following their interests because a life, or -many lives, stand in the way.” He adduced Napoleon III.’s -<i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Coup d’état</span></i> as an example. Napoleon was not a man to -indulge in any cruel or vindictive sentiment; but neither was -he one to forego a step needed for his policy.</p> - -<p class='c007'>The year following these studies under Count Usedom I -was living in London, and met Mazzini one evening by special -<span class='pageno' id='Page_367'>367</span>invitation alone at the house of Mr. and Mrs. James Stansfeld -(I speak of Mr. Stansfeld’s first wife, sister of Madame -Venturi). After dinner our hosts left us alone, and Mazzini, -whom I had often met before and who was always very good -to me, asked me if I would listen to his version of the recent -history of Italy, since he thought I had been much misinformed -on the subject? Of course I could only express my -sense of the honour he did me by the proposal; and then, -somewhat to my amazement and amusement, Mazzini -descended from his armchair, seated himself opposite me -cross-legged on the magnificent white rug before Mrs. -Stansfeld’s blazing fire, and proceeded to pour out,—I believe -for quite two hours,—the entire story of all that went before -and after the siege of Rome, his Triumvirate, and the subsequent -risings, plots and battles. If any one could have taken -down that wonderful story in shorthand it would possess -immense value, and I regret profoundly that I did not at -least attempt, when I went home, to write my recollections -of it. But I was merely bewildered. Each event which -Mazzini named,—sitting so coolly there on the rug at my -feet:—“I sent an army here, I ordered a rising there,” -appeared under an aspect so entirely different from that -which it had borne as represented to me by my political -friends in Italy, that I was continually mystified, and -asked: “But Signor Mazzini, are you talking of such and -such an event?”—“<i><span lang="it" xml:lang="it">Ma sì, Signora</span></i>”—and off he would go -again with vivid and eloquent explanations and descriptions, -which fairly took my breath away. At last (I believe -it was near midnight), Mrs. Stansfeld, who had, of course, -arranged this effort for my conversion to Italian Republicanism, -returned to the drawing-room; and I fear that the truly -noble-hearted man who had done me so high a favour, rose -disappointed from his lowly rug! He said to me at another -time: “You English, who are blessed with loyal sovereigns, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_368'>368</span>cannot understand that one of our reasons for being Republicans -is, that we cannot trust our Kings and Grand Dukes -an inch. They are each one of them a <i><span lang="co" xml:lang="co">Rè Traditore</span></i>!” One -could quite concede that a constitutional government under a -traitor-prince would not hold out any prospect of success; -but at all events Victor Emanuel and Umberto have completely -exonerated themselves from such suspicions.</p> - -<p class='c007'>To return to Italy and the men I know there. Count -Usedom’s reference to Napoleon’s <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Coup d’état</span></i> reminds -me of the clever saying which I have quoted elsewhere, -of a greater diplomatist than he; Cavaliere Massimo -d’ Azeglio. Talking with him, as I had the privilege of doing -every day for many months at the table d’hôte in the -hotel where we both spent a winter in Pisa, I made -some remark about the mistake of founding Religion on -histories of Miracles. “Ah, les miracles!” exclaimed -D’ Azeglio; “<span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">je n’en crois rien! <em>Ce sont des coups d’état -célestes!</em></span>” Could the strongest argument against them have -been more neatly packed in one simile? A <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">coup d’état</span></i> is a -practical confession that the regular and orderly methods of -Government <em>have failed</em> in the hands of the Governor, and -that he is driven to have recourse to irregular and lawless -methods to compass his ends and vindicate his sovereignty. -A <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">coup d’état</span></i> is like the act of an impatient chess player who, -finding himself losing the game while playing fairly, sweeps -some pieces from the board to recover his advantage. Is -this to be believed of Divine rule of the universe?</p> - -<p class='c007'>D’ Azeglio was one of those men, of whom I have met -about a dozen in life, who impressed me as having in their -characters elements of real <em>greatness</em>; not being merely clever -or gifted, but large-souled. When I knew him he was a -fallen Statesman, an almost forgotten Author, a General on -the shelf, a Prime Minister reduced to living in a single -room at an hotel, without a secretary or even a valet; yet he -<span class='pageno' id='Page_369'>369</span>was the cheeriest Italian I ever knew. His spirits never -seemed to falter. He was the life of our table every day, -and I used to hear him singing continually over his watercolour -drawing in his room adjoining mine at the <i><span lang="it" xml:lang="it">Gran’ -Bretagna</span></i>, on the dull Lung-Arno of Pisa. The fate of Italy, -which still hung in suspense, was, however, ever near his -heart. One day it was talked over at the <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">table d’hôte</span></i>, and -D’ Azeglio looked grave, and said: “We speak of this man and -the other; but it is <span class='sc'>God</span> who is making Italy!” It was so -unusual a sentiment for an Italian gentleman to utter, that -it impressed the listeners almost with awe. Another day, -talking of Thackeray and the ugliness of his school of -novelists, he observed: “It is all right to seek to express -Truth. But why do these people always seem to think <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">qu’il -n’y a rien de vrai excepté le laid</span></i>?” The reason,—I might -have replied,—is, that it is extremely difficult to depict Beauty, -and extremely easy to create Ugliness! Beauty means -Proportion, Refinement, Elevation, Simplicity. How much -harder it is to convey <em>these</em> truly, than Disproportion, -Coarseness, Baseness, Duplicity? Since D’ Azeglio spoke -we have gone on creating Ugliness and calling it Truth, till -M. Zola has originated a literature in honour of <span class='sc'>Le Laid</span>, -and given us books like <cite><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">L’Assommoir</span></cite> in which it is perfected, -almost as Beauty was of old in a statue of Praxiteles or in -the Dresden Madonna.</p> - -<p class='c007'>One day that M. d’ Azeglio was doing me the honour of -paying me a visit in my room, he narrated to me the following -singular little bit of history. It seems that when he was -Premier of Sardinia and Lord John Russell of England, -the latter sent him through Lord Minto a distinct message,—“that -he might safely undertake a certain line of policy, -since, if a given contingency arose, England would afford him -armed support.” The contingency did occur; but Lord -Russell was unable to give the armed support which he had -<span class='pageno' id='Page_370'>370</span>promised; “and this,” said D’ Azeglio, “caused my <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">fiasco</span></i>.” -He resigned office, and, I think, then retired from public life; -but some years later, being in England, he was invited to -Windsor. There he happened to be laid up with a cold, and Lord -Russell and Lord Minto, who were also guests at the castle, -paid him a visit in his apartments. “Then,” said D’ Azeglio, -“I turned on them both, and challenged them to say whether -Lord Minto had not conveyed that message to me from Lord -Russell, and whether he had not failed to keep his engagement? -They did not attempt to deny that it was so.” -D’ Azeglio (I understood him to say) had himself sent the -Sardinian contingent to fight with our troops and the French -in the Crimea, for the express and sole purpose of making -Europe recognise that there was a <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Question d’Italie</span></i>; (or -possibly he spoke of this being the motive of the Minister -who did so). Another remark which this charming old man -made has remained very clearly on my memory for a reason -to be presently explained. He observed, laughing: “People -seem to think that Ministers have indefinite time at their -disposal, but they have only 24 hours like other men, and -they must eat and sleep and rest like the remainder of the -human race. When I was Premier I calculated that dividing -the subjects which demanded attention and the time I had to -bestow on them, there were just <em>three minutes and a-half</em> on an -average for ordinary subjects, and <em>eight</em> minutes for important -ones! And if that be so in a little State like Piedmont, what -must it be in the case of a Prime Minister of England? I -cannot think how mortal man can bear the office!”</p> - -<p class='c007'>Many years afterwards I told this to an English Statesman, -and he replied—with rather startling <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">gaieté de cœur</span></i>, considering -the responsibilities for Irish murders then resting on his -shoulders:—“Quite true, it is all a scuffle and a scramble -from morning to night. If you had seen me two hours ago -you would have found me listening to a very important -<span class='pageno' id='Page_371'>371</span>dispatch read to me by one of my secretaries while I was -dictating another, equally important; to another. All a scuffle -and a scramble from morning to night!” Count Usedom told -me that at one time he had been Minister of War in Prussia, -and that he knew a great battle was imminent next day, the -Prussian army having just come up with the enemy. He -lay awake all night reflecting on the horrors of the ensuing -fight; remembering that he had the power to telegraph to -the General in command to stop it, and longing with all his -soul to do so, but knowing that the act would be treachery to -his country. Of this sort of anxiety I strongly suspect some -statesmen have never felt a twinge.</p> - -<p class='c007'>It was at Florence in 1860 that I met Theodore Parker for -the first time. After the letters of deep sympathy and agreement -on religious matters which had passed between us, it -was a strange turn of fate which brought him to die in -Florence, and me to stand beside his death-bed and his grave. -The world has, as is natural, passed on over the road which -he did much to open, and his name is scarcely known to the -younger generation; but looking back at his work and at his -books again after thirty years, and when early enthusiasm -has given place to the calm judgment of age, I still feel that -Theodore Parker was a very great religious teacher and -Confessor,—as Albert Reville wrote of him: “<i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Cet homme -fût un Prophète</span></i>.” That is, he received the truths of what -he called “Absolute Religion” at first hand in his own faithful -soul, and spoke them out, fearless of consequences, with -unequalled straightforwardness. He was not subtle-minded. -He did not at all see obliquely round corners, as men like -Cardinal Newman always seem to have done; nor estimate -the limitations which his broad statements sometimes required. -It would have been scarcely possible to have been both the -man he was, and also a fine critic and metaphysician. But -his was a clear, trumpet voice, to which many a freed and -<span class='pageno' id='Page_372'>372</span>rejoicing spirit responded; and if he founded no sect or school, -he did better. He infused into the religious life of England -and America an element, hardly present before, of natural -confidence in the absolute goodness of God independent of -theologies. No man did more than he to awaken the Protestant -nations from the hideous nightmare of an Eternal Hell, which -within my own recollection, hovered over the piety of -England. As he was wont himself to say, laughingly, he had -“knocked the bottom out of hell!”</p> - -<p class='c007'>I will copy here some Notes of my only interviews with -this honoured friend and teacher, to whom I owed so much:</p> - -<p class='c008'>“28th April. Saw Mr. Parker for the first time. He was -lying in bed with his back to the light. Mrs. Parker -brought me into the room. He took my hand tenderly and -said in a low, hurried voice, holding it: ‘After all our -wishes to meet, Miss Cobbe, how strange it is we should -meet <em>thus</em>.’ I pressed his hand and he turned his eyes, -which were trembling painfully and evidently seeing -nothing, towards me and said, ‘You must not think you -have seen <em>me</em>. This is not <em>me</em>, only the wreck of the man I -was.’ Then, after a pause he added: ‘Those who love me -most can only wish me a quick passage to the other world. -Of course I am not <em>afraid</em> to die (he smiled as he spoke) but -there was so much to be done!’ I said: ‘You have given -your life to God and His truth as truly as any martyr -of old.’ He replied: ‘I do not know; I had great powers -committed to me, I have but half used them.’ I gave him -a nosegay of roses and lily-of-the-valley. He smiled and -touched the lily-of-the-valley, saying it was the sweetest of -all flowers. I begged him, if his lodgings were not all he -desired, to come to villa Brichieri” [a villa on Bellosguardo, -which I then shared with Miss Blagden], “but he said he was -most comfortable where he was. Then his mind wandered -a little about a bad dream which haunted him, and I left -him.”</p> - -<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_373'>373</span>“April 29th. I was told on arriving that Mr. Parker had -spoken very tenderly of my visit of the day before, but had -said, ‘I must not see her often. It makes my heart swell -too high. But you (to his wife) must see her every day. -Remember there is but one Miss Cobbe in the world.’ -Afterwards he told Dr. Appleton that he wanted him to get -an inkstand for me as a last gift. [This inkstand I have -used ever since.] He received me very kindly, but almost -at once his mind wandered, and he spoke of ‘going home -immediately.’ He asked what day of the week it was? I -said: ‘This is the blessed day; it is Sunday.’ ‘Ah yes!’ -he said, ‘It is a blessed day when one has got over the -superstition of it. I will try to go to you to-morrow.’ (Of -course this was utterly out of the question.) Then he -looked at the lily of Florence which I had brought, and -told him how I had got it down from one of the old walls -for him, and he smiled the same sweet smile as yesterday, -and touched the beautiful blue Iris, and soon seemed to -sleep.”</p> - -<p class='c006'>I called after this every day, generally twice a day, at the -Pension Molini where he lay; but rarely could interchange a -word. Parker’s friend, Dr. Appleton of Boston, who was -faithfully attending him, sent for another friend, Prof. Desor, -and they and the three ladies of the party nursed him, of -course, devotedly. On the 10th May I saw him lying -breathing quietly, while life ebbed gently. I returned to -Bellosguardo and at eight o’clock in the evening Prof. Desor -and Dr. Appleton came up to tell me he had passed peacefully -away.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Parker had, long before his death, desired that the first -eleven verses of the Sermon on the Mount should be read at -his funeral. Whether he intended that they should form the -only service was not known; but Desor and Appleton arranged -that so it should be, and that they should be read by Rev. -W. Cunningham, an American Unitarian clergyman who was -<span class='pageno' id='Page_374'>374</span>fortunately at the time living near us on Bellosguardo, and who -was a man of much feeling and dignity of aspect. The funeral -took place on Sunday, the 13th May, at the beautiful old -Campo Santo Inglese, outside the walls of Florence, which -contains the dust of Mrs. Browning, of Arthur Hugh -Clough, and many others dear to English memories. It -was the first funeral I had ever attended. The coffin -when I arrived, was already lying in the mortuary chapel. -My companions placed a wreath of laurels on it, and I added -a large bunch of the lily-of-the-valley which he had loved. -Then eight Italian pall-bearers took up the coffin and carried -it on a side-walk to the grave. When it had been lowered -with some difficulty to the last resting-place, my notes -say:—</p> - -<p class='c008'>“Dr. Appleton then handed a Bible to Mr. Cunningham. -I was standing close to him and heard his voice falter. He -read like a man who felt all the holy words he said, and -those sacred Blessings came with unspeakable rest to my -heart. Then Desor, who had been pale as death, threw in -one handful of clay.... The burial ground is exquisitely -lovely, a very wilderness of flowers and perfume. Only a -few cypresses give it grandeur, not gloom. All Florence -was decorated with flags in honour of the anniversary of -Piedmontese Constitution. We said to one another: ‘It is -a festival for us also—the solemn feast of an Ascension.’”</p> - -<p class='c006'>Of course I visited this grave when I returned to Florence -several years afterwards. The cypresses had grown large -and dark and somewhat shadowed it. I had the violets, &c., -renewed upon it more than once, but I heard later that it had -become somewhat dilapidated, and I was glad to join a subscription -got up by an American gentleman to erect a new -tombstone. I hope it has been done, as he would have desired, -with simplicity. I shall never see that grave again.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Two or three years later I edited all the twelve vols. of -Parker’s Works for Messrs. Trübner, and wrote a somewhat -<span class='pageno' id='Page_375'>375</span>lengthy Preface for them; afterwards reprinted as a separate -pamphlet entitled the <cite>Religious Demands of the Age</cite>. Three -Biographies of Parker have appeared; the shortest, published -in England by Rev. Peter Dean, being in my opinion the best. -The letters which I received from Parker in the years before -I saw him are all printed by my permission in Mr. Weiss’ -<cite>Life</cite>, and therefore will not be reproduced here.</p> - -<p class='c007'>That venerable old man, Rev. John J. Tayler, writing to me -a few years later, summed up Parker’s character I think as -justly as did Mr. Jowett in calling him a “religious Titan.”</p> - -<p class='c008'>“I read lately with much pleasure your Preface to the -forthcoming edition of Theodore Parker’s works. I agree -cordially with your estimate of his character. His virtues -were of the highest type of the hero and the martyr. His -faults, such as they were, were such as are incident to -every ardent and earnest soul fighting against wickedness -and hypocrisy; faults which colder and more worldly -natures easily avoid, faults which he shared with some of -the best and noblest of our race—a Milton, a Luther, and a -Paul. When freedom and justice have achieved some -conquests yet to come, his memory will be cherished with -deeper reverence and affection than it is, except by a small -number, now.</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“I remain, dear Miss Cobbe, very truly yours,</div> - <div class='line in36'>“<span class='sc'>J. J. Tayler</span>.”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c006'>At the time of Parker’s death I was sharing the apartment -of my clever and charming friend, Isa Blagden, in Villa -Brichieri on Bellosguardo. It was a delightful house -with a small <i><span lang="la" xml:lang="la">podere</span></i> off the road, and with a -broad balcony (accommodating any number of chairs) -opening from the airy drawing-room, and commanding -a splendid view of Florence backed by Fiesole and -the Apennines. On the balcony, and in our drawing-rooms, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_376'>376</span>assembled regularly every week and often on other -occasions, an interesting and varied company. We were -both of us poor, but in those days poverty in Florence -permitted us to rent 14 well-furnished rooms in a charming -villa, and to keep a maid and a man-servant. The latter -bought our meals every morning in Florence, cooked and -served them; being always clean and respectably dressed. -He swept our floors and he opened our doors and announced -our company and served our ices and tea with uniform -quietness and success. A treasure, indeed, was good old -Ansano! Also we were able to engage an open carriage with -a pair of horses to do our shopping and pay our visits in -Florence as often as we needed. And what does the reader -think it cost us to live like this, fire and candles and food for -four included? In those halcyon days under the old <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">régime</span></i>, -it was precisely £20 a month! We divided everything -exactly and it never exceeded £10 apiece.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Among our most frequent visitors was Mr. Browning. -Mrs. Browning was never able to drive so far, but -her warm friendship for Miss Blagden was heartily -shared by her husband and we saw a great deal of -him. Always full of spirits, full of interest in everything -from politics to hedge-flowers, cordial and utterly -unaffected, he was at all times a charming member of society; -but I confess that in those days I had no adequate sense of -his greatness as a poet. I could not read his poetry, though -he had not then written his most difficult pieces, and his -conversation was so playful and light that it never occurred to -me that I was wasting precious time chatting frivolously -with him when I might have been gaining high thoughts and -instruction. There was always a ripple of laughter round the -sofa where he used to seat himself, generally beside some lady -of the company, towards whom, in his eagerness, he would -push nearer and nearer till she frequently rose to avoid falling -<span class='pageno' id='Page_377'>377</span>off at the end! When we drove out in parties he would -discuss every tree and weed, and get excited about the difference -between eglantine and eglatere (if there be any), and -between either of them and honeysuckle. He and Isa were -always wrangling in an affectionate way over some book or -music; (he was a fine performer himself on the piano), and one -night when I had left Villa Brichieri and was living at Villa -Niccolini at least half-a-mile off, the air, being in some singular -condition of sonority, carried their voices between the walls of -the two villas so clearly across to me that I actually heard -some of the words of their quarrel, and closed my window -lest I should be an eavesdropper. I believe it was about -Spirit-rapping they were fighting, for which, and the professors -of the art, Browning had a horror. I have seen him -stamping on the floor in a frenzy of rage at the way some -believers and mediums were deceiving Mrs. Browning.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Thirty years afterwards, the last time I ever had the privilege -of talking with Robert Browning (it was in Surrey House -in London), I referred to these old days and to our friend, -long laid in that Campo Santo at Florence. His voice fell -and softened, and he said: “Ah, poor, <em>dear</em> Isa!” with -deep feeling.</p> - -<p class='c007'>At that time I do not think that any one, certainly no one -of the society which surrounded him, thought of Mr. Browning -as a great poet, or as an equal one to his wife, whose <cite>Aurora -Leigh</cite> was then a new book. The utter unselfishness and -generosity wherewith he gloried in his wife’s fame,—bringing -us up constantly good reviews of her poems and eagerly -recounting how many editions had been called for,—perhaps -helped to blind us, stupid that we were! to his own claims. -Never, certainly did the proverb about the “<i><span lang="la" xml:lang="la">irritabile genus</span></i>” -of Poets prove less true. All through his life, even when the -world had found him out, and societies existed for what Mr. -Frederic Harrison might justly have called a “culte” of -<span class='pageno' id='Page_378'>378</span>Browning, if not a “latria,” he remained the same absolutely -unaffected, unassuming, genial English gentleman.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Of Mrs. Browning I never saw much. Sundry visits we -paid to each other missed, and when I did find her at home -in Casa Guidi we did not fall on congenial themes. I was -bubbling over with enthusiasm for her poetry, but had not -the audacity to express my admiration, (which, in truth, had -been my special reason for visiting Florence;) and she -entangled me in erudite discussions about Tuscan and -Bolognese schools of painting, concerning which I knew -little and, perhaps, cared less. But I am glad I looked into -the splendid eyes which <em>lived</em> like coals, in her pain-worn -face, and revealed the soul which Robert Browning trusted -to meet again on the threshold of eternity.<a id='r18' /><a href='#f18' class='c013'><sup>[18]</sup></a> Was there ever -such a testimony as their <em>perfect</em> marriage,—living on as it did -in the survivor’s heart for a quarter of a century,—to the -possibility of the eternal union of Genius and Love?</p> - -<p class='c007'>I received in later years from Mr. Browning several -letters which I may as well insert in this place.</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c009'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“19, Warwick Crescent, W.,</div> - <div class='line in8'>“December 28th, 1874.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='lg-container-l c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Dear Miss Cobbe,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c010'>“I return the Petition, for the one good reason, that I -have just signed its fellow forwarded to me by Mr. Leslie -Stephen. You have heard ‘I take an equal interest with -yourself in the effort to suppress Vivisection.’ I dare not -so honour my mere wishes and prayers as to put them for a -moment beside your noble acts, but this I know, I would -rather submit to the worst of deaths, so far as pain goes, -than have a single dog or cat tortured on the pretence of -sparing me a twinge or two. I return the paper, because I -<span class='pageno' id='Page_379'>379</span>shall be probably shut up here for the next week or two, -and prevented from seeing my friends, whoever would -refuse to sign would certainly not be of the number.”</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Ever truly and gratefully yours,</div> - <div class='line in20'>“<span class='sc'>Robert Browning</span>.”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='lg-container-r c009'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“19, Warwick Crescent, W.,</div> - <div class='line in16'>“July 3rd, 1881.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='lg-container-l c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Dear Miss Cobbe,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c010'>“I wish I were not irretrievably engaged on Monday -afternoon, twice over, as it prevents me from accepting -your invitation. By all I hear, Mr. Bishop’s performance -must be instructive to those who need it, and amusing to -everybody.<a id='r19' /><a href='#f19' class='c013'><sup>[19]</sup></a></p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Thank you very much,</div> - <div class='line in12'>“Ever truly yours,</div> - <div class='line in16'>“<span class='sc'>Robert Browning</span>.”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='lg-container-r c009'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'><span class='pageno' id='Page_380'>380</span>“19, Warwick Crescent, W.,</div> - <div class='line in12'>“October 22nd, 1882,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='lg-container-l c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Dear Miss Cobbe,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c010'>“It is about a week ago since I had to write to the new -Editor of the ‘Fortnightly,’ Mr. Escott—and assure him -that I was so tied and bound by old promises ‘to give something -to this and that Magazine if I gave at all’—that it -became impossible I could oblige anybody in even so trifling -a matter. It comes of making rash resolutions—but, once -made, there is no escape from the consequence—though I -rarely have felt this so much of a hardship as now when I -am forced to leave a request of yours uncomplied with. -For the rest, I shall indeed rejoice if that abominable and -stupid cruelty of pigeon-shooting is put a stop to. The -other detestable practice, Vivisection, strikes deeper root, -I fear; but God bless whoever tugs at it!</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Ever yours most truly,</div> - <div class='line in8'>“<span class='sc'>Robert Browning</span>.”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c006'><span class='pageno' id='Page_381'>381</span>Another of our most frequent visitors at Villa Brichieri -was Mr. T. Adolphus Trollope, author of the <cite>Girlhood of -Catherine de’ Medici</cite>, “<cite>A Decade of Italian Women</cite>” and other -books. Though not so successful an author as his brilliant -brother Anthony, he was an interesting man, whom we much -liked. One day he came up and pressed us to go back with -him and pay a visit to a guest at his Villino Trollope in the -Piazza Maria Antonia,—a lovely house he had built, with a -broad verandah behind it, opening on a garden of cypresses -and oranges backed by the old crenelated and Iris-decked -walls of Florence. He had, he told us, a most interesting -person staying with him and Mrs. Trollope;—Mrs. Lewes—who -had written <cite>Adam Bede</cite>, and was then writing <cite>Romola</cite>. -Miss Blagden alone went with him, and was enchanted, -like all the world, with George Eliot.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Mr. Trollope told me many curious facts concerning Italian -society which, from his long residence, he knew more -intimately than almost any other foreigner. He described -the marriage settlement of a nobleman which had actually -passed through his hands, wherein the intending husband, -with wondrous foresight and precaution, deliberately named -three or four gentlemen, amongst whom his future wife might -choose her <i><span lang="it" xml:lang="it">cavaliere servente</span></i>!</p> - -<p class='c007'>We had several other <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">habitués</span></i> at our villas; Dall’ Ongaro, -a poet and ex-priest; Romanelli, the sculptor; and Miss Linda -White, now Madame Villari, the charming authoress and -hostess of a brilliant <em>salon</em>, wife of the eminent historian -who was recently Minister of Education.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Perhaps the most interesting of our visitors, after Mr. -Browning, was Mrs. Beecher Stowe. She impressed me -much, and the criticisms I have read of her “<cite>Sunny Memories</cite>” -and other books have failed to diminish my admiration for -her. She was one of the few women, I suppose, who have -actually <em>felt</em> Fame, as heroes do who receive national -<span class='pageno' id='Page_382'>382</span>Triumphs; and she seemed to be as simple and unpretentious, -as little elated as it was possible to be. She had even a trick -of looking down as if she had been stared out of countenance; -but this was perhaps a part of that singular habit which -most Evangelicals of her class exhibited thirty years ago, of -shyness in society and inability to converse except with the -person seated next them in company. It was the verification -after eighteen centuries of the old heathen taunt against the -Christians, recorded in the dialogues of Minucius Felix, “<i><span lang="la" xml:lang="la">In -publicam muta, in angulis garrula!</span></i>” I have recorded -elsewhere Mrs. Stowe’s remark when I spoke with -grief of the end of Theodore Parker’s work. “Do you -think,” she said, suddenly looking up at me with -flashing eyes, “that Theodore Parker has no work to -do for God <em>now</em>?” I must not repeat again her -interesting conversation as we sat on our balcony watching -the sun go down over the Val d’ Arno. After much serious -talk as to the nearness of the next life, Mrs. Stowe narrated a -saying of her boy on which, (as I told her), a good heterodox -sermon <em>in my sense</em> might be preached. She taught the child -that Anger was sinful, whereupon he asked: “Then why, -Mama, does the Bible say so often that God was angry?” -She replied motherlike: “You will understand it when you -are older.” The boy pondered seriously for awhile and then -burst out: “O Mama, I have found it out! God is angry, -<em>because God is not a Christian</em>!”</p> - -<p class='c007'>Another of our <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">habitués</span></i> on my first visit to Florence was -Walter Savage Landor. At that time he was, with his dear -Pomeranian dog, <em>Giallo</em>, living alone in very ordinary lodgings -in Florence, having quarrelled with his family and left his villa -in their possession. He had a grand, leonine head with long -white hair and beard, and to hear him denouncing his children -was to witness a performance of Lear never matched on any -stage! He was very kind to me, and we often walked about -<span class='pageno' id='Page_383'>383</span>odd nooks of Florence together, while he poured out reminiscences -of Byron and Shelley, some of which I have recorded -(Chap. IX., p. 257), and of others of the older generation whom -he had known, so that I seemed in touch with them all. He -was then about 88 years of age, and perhaps his great and -cultivated intellect was already failing. Much that he said in -wrath and even fury seemed like raving, but he was gentle as -a child to us women, and to his dog whom he passionately -loved. When I wrote the first Memorial against Prof. Schiff -which started the anti-vivisection crusade, Mr. Landor’s name -was one of the first appended to it. He added some words -to his signature so fierce and contemptuous that I never -dared to publish them!</p> - -<p class='c007'>We also saw much of Dr. Grisanowski, a very clever Pole, -who afterwards became a prominent advocate of the science-tortured -brutes. When I discussed the matter with him he -was entirely on the side of Science. After some years he sent -me his deeply thought-out pamphlet, with the endorsement -“For Miss Cobbe,—who was right when I was wrong;” a -very generous retractation. We also received Mr. Frederick -Tennyson, (Lord Tennyson’s brother), Madame Venturi, -Madame Alberto Mario, the late Lord Justice Bowen, (then a -brilliant young man from Oxford,) and many more.</p> - -<p class='c007'>By far the best and dearest of my friends in Florence -however, was one who never came up our hill, and who was -already then an aged woman—Mrs. Somerville. I had -brought a letter of introduction to her, being anxious to see -one who had been such an honour to womanhood; but I -expected to find her an incarnation of Science, having very -little affinity with such a person as I. Instead of this, I -found in her the dearest old lady in all the world, who took -me to her heart as if I had been a newly-found daughter, and -for whom I soon felt such tender affection that sitting beside -her on her sofa, (as I mostly did on account of her deafness) -<span class='pageno' id='Page_384'>384</span>I could hardly keep myself from caressing her. In a letter -to Harriet St. Leger I wrote of her: “She is the very ideal -of an old lady, so gentle, cordial and dignified, like my mother; -and as fresh, eager and intelligent <em>now</em>, as she can ever have -been.” Her religious ideas proved to be exactly like my -own; and being no doubt somewhat a-thirst for sympathy on -a subject on which she felt profoundly, (her daughters -differing from her), she opened her heart to me entirely. -Here are a few notes I made after talks with her:—</p> - -<p class='c007'>“Mrs. Somerville thinks no one can be eloquent who has -not studied the Bible. We discussed the character of Christ. -She agreed to all I said, adding she thought it clear -the Apostles never thought he was God, only the image of -the perfection of God. She kissed me tenderly when I rose -to go and bade me come back at any hour—at three in the -morning if I liked!—May 18th. Mrs. Somerville gave me -her photograph. She says she always feels a regret thinking -of the next life that we shall see no more the flowers of this -world. I said we should no doubt see others still fairer. -“Ah! yes,” she said, “but <em>our own</em> roses and mignonette! -I shall miss them. The dear animals I believe we <em>shall</em> meet. -They suffer so often here, they must live again.”—June 3rd. -Wished farewell to Mrs. Somerville. She said kissing me -with many tears, “We shall meet in Heaven! I shall claim -you there.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>I saw Mrs. Somerville again on my other visits to Italy, -at Genoa, Spezzia and Naples; of course making it a great -object of my plans to be for some weeks near her. In my -last journey, in 1879, I saw at Naples the noble monument -erected over her grave by her daughter. It represents her -(heroic size) reclining on a classic chair,—in somewhat the -attitude of the statue of Agrippina in the Vatican.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Mrs. Somerville ought to have been buried in Westminster -Abbey. When I saw her death announced on the posters of -<span class='pageno' id='Page_385'>385</span>the newspapers in the streets in London, I hurried as soon as -I could recover myself, to ask Dean Stanley to arrange for -her interment in the Abbey. The Dean consented freely and -with hearty approval to my proposition, and Mrs. Somerville’s -nephew, Sir William Fairfax, promised at once to defray all -expenses. There was only one thing further needed, and that -was the usual formal request from some public body or official -persons to the Dean and Chapter of Westminster. Dean -Stanley had immediately written to the Astronomer Royal to -suggest that he and the President of the Royal Society, as -the representatives of the sciences with which Mrs. Somerville’s -fame was connected, should address to him the demand -which would authorize his proceeding with the matter. But -that gentleman <em>refused</em> to do it—on the ground that <em>he</em> had -never read Mrs. Somerville’s books! Whether he had read -one in which she took the opposite side from his in the sharp -and angry Adams-Le Verrier controversy, it is not for me to -say. Any way, jealousy, either scientific or masculine, declined -to admit Mary Somerville’s claims to a place in the national -Valhalla, wherein so many men neither intellectually nor -morally her equals have been welcomed.</p> - -<p class='c007'>From the time of our first meeting till her death in 1872, -Mrs. Somerville maintained a close correspondence with me. -I have had all her beautifully-written letters bound together, -and they form a considerable volume. Of course it was a -delight to me to send her everything which might interest -her, and among other things I sent her a volume of Theodore -Parker’s Prayers; edited by myself. In October, 1863, I spent -a long time at Spezzia to enjoy the immense pleasure of her -society. I was then a cripple and unable to walk to her -house, and wrote of her visits as follows to Miss Elliot:</p> - -<p class='c008'>“Mrs. Somerville comes to me every day. She is looking -younger than three years ago and she talked to me for three -<span class='pageno' id='Page_386'>386</span>hours yesterday, pouring out such stores of recent science -as I never heard before. Then we talked a little heresy, -and she thanked me with tears in her eyes for Parker’s -<cite>Prayers</cite>, saying she had found them the greatest comfort -and the most perfect expression of religious feeling of any -prayers she has known.”</p> - -<p class='c006'>Another time I sent her my <cite>Hopes of the Human Race</cite>. -She wrote, three weeks before her death, “God bless you -dearest friend for your irresistible argument for our -Immortality! Not that I ever doubted of it, but as I -shall soon enter my ninety-third year, your words are an -inexpressible comfort.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>Mary Somerville was the living refutation of all the idle, -foolish things which have been said of intellectual women. -There never existed a more womanly woman. Her <cite>Life</cite>, edited -by her eldest daughter Martha Somerville (her son by her first -marriage, Mr. Woronzow Greig, died long before her), has -been much read and liked. I reviewed it in the <cite>Quarterly</cite> -(January, 1874), and am tempted to enclose a letter which -Martha Somerville (then and always my good friend) wrote -about it:</p> - -<p class='c008'>“From Miss Somerville to F. P. C.</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“22nd January, Naples.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='lg-container-l c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“My dear Frances,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c010'>“I have this morning received the <cite>Quarterly Review</cite> and -some slips from newspapers. What can I say to express -my gratitude to you for the article,—so admirably written; -and giving so touching a picture of my Mother,—as you, -her best friend (notwithstanding the great difference of age) -knew her? Also I received lately the <cite>Academy</cite> which -pleased me much, too. The Memoir has been received far -more favourably than I ventured to expect.”</p> - -<p class='c006'>A long time after this, I paid a visit to friends at St. -Andrews and stopped from Saturday to Monday, on my way, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_387'>387</span>at Burntisland. Writing from thence to Miss Elliot about her -own country, and countrymen, I said:—</p> - -<p class='c008'>“I came here to look up the scene of Mrs. Somerville’s -childhood, and I have found everything just as she described -it;—the Links; the pretty hills and woods full of wild -flowers; the rocky bit of shore with boulders full of fossil -shells which excited her childish wonder when she wandered -about, a beautiful little girl, as she must have been. If -ever there were a case of—</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c020'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“‘Nourishing a youth sublime,</div> - <div class='line'>With the fairy tales of science and the long results of Time,’</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c021'>it was surely hers. Very naturally I was thinking of her -all day and wondering whether she is <em>now</em> studying the -flora of Heaven, of which she used to speak, and pursuing -Astronomy among the stars; or whether it <em>can</em> be possible -these things pass away for ever! I wanted very much to -make out where Sir William Fairfax’ house had been, and -finally was directed to the schoolmaster who, it was said, -knew all about it. I found the good man in a large schoolhouse -where he has 600 pupils; and as soon as he learned -my name he seized my hand and made great demonstrations; -and straightway proceeded to constitute himself my -guide to the localities in question. The joke however was -this. Hardly were we out of the house before he said, ‘I’ll -send you a pamphlet of mine—not about Science, I don’t -care for Science, I care for Morals;—and I’ve found out -there is only <em>a very little thing to be done, to stop all -pauperism and all crime</em>! You are just the person to understand -me!’ The idea of this poor schoolmaster in -Burntisland compressing <em>that</em> modest programme into a -‘pamphlet’ seems to me deliciously characteristic of -Scotland.”</p> - -<p class='c006'>A college for Ladies was opened some years ago at Oxford -and named after Mrs. Somerville. I greatly rejoiced at the time -at this very fitting tribute to her memory; and induced my -<span class='pageno' id='Page_388'>388</span>brother to send his daughter, my dear niece, Frances Conway -Cobbe, to the Hall. I ceased to rejoice, however, when I -found that a lady bearing a name identified with Vivisection -in England was nominated for election as a member of the -Council of the College. I entered, (as a Subscriber,) the most -vigorous protest I could make against the proposed choice, -but, alas! in vain.</p> - -<p class='c007'>One of our visitors at Villa Brichieri was a very pious -French lady, who came up to us one day to dinner straight -from her devotions in the Duomo, where a Triduo was -going on against Renan; and, as it chanced, she began to praise -somewhat excessively a lady of rank whose reputation had -suffered more than one serious injury. My English friend -remarked, smiling, in mitigation of the eulogy:—</p> - -<p class='c008'>“Elle a eue ses petits délassements!”</p> - -<p class='c006'>the answer was deliciously XVIII. Century—</p> - -<p class='c007'>“C’est ce qui m’occupe le moins. Pourvu que cela soit -fait avec du bon goût! D’ailleurs on ne parle sérieusement -que de deux ou trois. Le Prince de S., par exemple. Encore -est il mort celui-là!”</p> - -<p class='c007'>It was during one of my visits to Florence that I saw -King Victor Emanuel’s public entry into the city, which had -just elected him King. This is how I described the scene to -Harriet St. Leger:—</p> - -<p class='c008'>“Happily we had a fine day for the king’s entry on -Monday last. It was a glorious sight! The beautiful old -city blossomed out in flowers, flags, garlands, hangings and -gonfalons beyond all English imagination. In every street -there was a triumphal arch, while <em>boulevards</em> of artificial -trees loaded with camelias, ran from the railway to the -gate and down the via Calzaiuoli. Even the mean little -sdrucciolo de’ Pitti was made into one long arbour by twenty -green arches sustaining hanging baskets of flowers. The -Pitti itself had its rugged old face decked with wreaths. I -<span class='pageno' id='Page_389'>389</span>had the good fortune to stand on a balcony commanding a -view of the whole procession. Victor Emanuel, riding his -charger of Solferino, looked—coarse and fat as he is,—a <em>man</em> -and a soldier, and more sympathetic than Kings in general. -Cavour has a Luther-like face, which wore a gleam of -natural pleasure at his reception. The people were quite -mad with joy. They did not cheer as we do, but uttered a -sort of deep roar of ecstacy, flinging clouds of flowers under -the King’s horse’s feet, and seeming as if they would fling -themselves also from their balconies. Our hostess, an -Italian lady, went directly into hysterics, and all the party, -men and women cried and kissed and laughed in the wildest -way. At night there was a marvellous illumination, -extending as far as the eye could reach, in every palazzo -and cottage down the Val d’ Arno and up the slopes of the -Apennines, where bonfires blazed on all the heights.”</p> - -<p class='c006'>In Florence my friends had been principally literary men -and women. In Rome they were chiefly artists. Harriet -Hosmer, to whom I had letters, was the first I knew. She -was in those days the most bewitching sprite the world ever -saw. Never have I laughed so helplessly as at the infinite -fun of this bright Yankee girl. Even in later years when we -perforce grew a little graver, she needed only to begin one of -her descriptive stories to make us all young again. I have -not seen her now for many years since she has returned to -America, nor yet any one in the least like her; and it is vain -to hope to convey to any reader the contagion of her merriment. -O! what a gift,—beyond rubies, are such spirits! -And what fools, what cruel fools, are those who damp them -down in children possessed of them!</p> - -<p class='c007'>Of Miss Hosmer’s sculpture I hoped, and every one hoped, -great things. Her <cite>Zenobia</cite>, her <cite>Puck</cite>, her <cite>Sleeping Faun</cite> -were beautiful creations in a very pure style of art. But she -was lured away from sculpture by some invention of her -own of a mechanical kind, over which many years of her life -<span class='pageno' id='Page_390'>390</span>have been lost. Now I believe she has achieved a fine statue -of Isabella of Spain, which has been erected in San Francisco.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Jealous rivals in Rome spread abroad at one time a slanderous -story that Harriet Hosmer did not make her own statues. I -have in my possession an autograph by her master, Gibson, -which he wrote at the time to rebut this falsehood, and which -bears all the marks of his quaint style of English composition.</p> - -<p class='c008'>“Finding that my pupil Miss Hosmer’s progress in her -art begins to agitate some rivals of the male sex, as proved -by the following malicious words printed in the Art journal;—</p> - -<p class='c010'>“‘Zenobia—said to be by Miss Hosmer, but really executed -by an Italian workman at Rome’;—</p> - -<p class='c010'>“I feel it is but justice on my part to state that Miss -Hosmer became my pupil on her arrival at Rome from -America. I soon found that she had uncommon talent. -She studied under my own eyes for seven years, modelling -from the antique and her own original works from the living -models.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“The first report of her Zenobia was that it was the work -of Mr. Gibson. Afterwards that it is by a Roman workman. -So far it is true that it was built up by my man from her -own original small model, according to the practice of our -profession; the long study and finishing is by herself, like -every other sculptor.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“If Miss Hosmer’s works were the productions of other -artists and not her own there would be in my studio two -impostors—Miss Hosmer and Myself.</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“<span class='sc'>John Gibson</span>, R.A.</div> - <div class='line in8'>“Rome, Nov., 1863.”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c006'>Gibson was himself a most interesting person; an old -Greek soul, born by haphazard in a Welsh village. He -had wonderfully little (for a Welshman) of anything like -what Mr. Matthew Arnold calls Hebraism in his composition. -There was a story current among us of some one telling him -of a bet which had been made that another member of our -<span class='pageno' id='Page_391'>391</span>society could not repeat the Lord’s Prayer; and it was added -that the party defied to repeat it had begun (instead of it) with -a doggerel American prayer for children:—</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c018'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Before I lay me down to sleep,</div> - <div class='line'>I pray the Lord my soul to keep.”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c019'>“Ah! you see,” said Gibson, “He <em>did</em> know the Lord’s -Prayer after all!”</p> - -<p class='c007'>Once he sat by me on the Pincian and said: “You know I -don’t often read the Bible, I have my sculpture to attend to. -But I have had to look into it for my bas-relief of the Children -coming to Christ, and, do you know, I find that Jesus Christ -really said a good thing?”</p> - -<p class='c007'>I smothered my laughter, and said: “O certainly, Mr. -Gibson, a great many excellent things.” “Yes!” he said in -his slow way. “Yes, he did. There were some people -called Pharisees who came and asked him troublesome -questions. And he said,—he said,—well, I forget exactly -what he said, but ‘Deeds not words,’ was what he meant -to say.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>The exquisite grace of Gibson’s statues was all a part of -the purity and delicacy of his mind. He was in many respects -an unique character; a simple-hearted and single-minded -worshipper of Beauty; and if my good friend Lady Eastlake -had not thought fit to prune his extraordinarily quaint and -original Autobiography, (which I have read in the MS.) to -ordinary book form and modernised style, I believe it would -have been deemed one of the gems of original literature, like -Benvenuto Cellini’s, and the renown of Gibson as a great -artist would have been kept alive thereby.</p> - -<p class='c007'>A merry party, of whom Mr. Gibson was usually one, used -to meet frequently that winter at the hospitable table of -Charlotte Cushman, the actress. She had, then, long retired -from the stage, and had a handsome house in the via -Gregoriana, in which also lived her friend Miss Stebbins and -<span class='pageno' id='Page_392'>392</span>Miss Hosmer. Our dinners of American oysters and wild -boar with agro-dolce-sauce, and déjeuners including an awful -refection menacing sudden death, called “Woffles,” eaten -with molasses (of which woffles I have seen five plates divided -between four American ladies!) were extremely hilarious. -There was a brightness, freedom and joyousness among these -gifted Americans, which was quite delightful to me. Miss -Cushman in particular I greatly admired and respected. She -had, of course, like all actors, the acquired habit of giving -vivid outward expression to every emotion, just as we quiet -English ladies are taught from our cradles to repress such -signs, and to cultivate a calm demeanour under all emergencies. -But this vivacity rendered her all the more interesting. She -often read to us Mrs. Browning’s or Lowell’s poetry in a very -fine way indeed. Some years after this happy winter a certain -celebrated London surgeon pronounced her to be dying of a -terrible disease. She wished us farewell courageously, and -went back to New England, as we all sadly thought to die -there. The next thing we heard of Charlotte Cushman was, -that she had returned to the stage and was acting Meg -Merrilies to immense and delighted audiences! Next we -heard that she had thus earned £5,000, and that she was -building a house with her earnings. Finally we learned that -the house was finished, and that she was living in it! She -did so, and enjoyed it for some years before the end came -from other causes than the one threatened by the great -London surgeon.</p> - -<p class='c007'>One day when I had been lunching at her house, Miss -Cushman asked whether I would drive with her in her -brougham to call on a friend of Mrs. Somerville, who had -particularly desired that she and I should meet,—a Welsh -lady, Miss Lloyd, of Hengwrt? I was, of course, very -willing indeed to meet a friend of Mrs. Somerville. We -happily found Miss Lloyd, busy in her sculptor’s studio -<span class='pageno' id='Page_393'>393</span>over a model of her Arab horse, and, on hearing that I was -anxious to ride, she kindly offered to mount me if I would join -her in her rides on the Campagna. Then began an -acquaintance, which was further improved two years later -when Miss Lloyd came to meet and help me when I was a -cripple, at Aix-les-Bains; and from that time, now more than -thirty years ago, she and I have lived together. Of a friendship -like this, which has been to my later life what my -mother’s affection was to my youth, I shall not be expected -to say more.</p> - -<p class='c007'>On my way home through France to Bristol from one of -my earlier journeys and before I became crippled, I had the -pleasure of making for the first time the acquaintance of -Mdlle. Rosa Bonheur. Miss Lloyd, who knew her very -intimately and had worked in her studio, gave me an -introduction to her and I reported my visit in a letter to Miss -Lloyd in Rome.</p> - -<p class='c008'>“Mdlle Bonheur received me most cordially when I sent -up your note. She was working in that most picturesque -studio (at By, near Thoméry). I had fancied from her -picture that she was so much taller and larger that I hardly -supposed that it was she who greeted me, but her face is -<em>charming</em>; such fine, clear eyes looking straight into one’s -own, and frank bearing; an Englishwoman’s honesty with -a Frenchwoman’s courtesy. She spoke of you with great -warmth of regard; remembered everything you had said, -and wanted to know all about your sculpture studies in -Rome. I said it had encouraged me to intrude on her to -hope I might persuade her to fulfil her promise of stopping -with you next winter, and added how very much you wished -it, and described the association she would have with you, -sketching excursions, <i><span lang="la" xml:lang="la">bovi</span></i>, and Thalaba” (Miss Lloyd’s Arab -horse). “She said over and over she would not go to Italy -without going to see you; and that she hoped to go soon, -possibly next winter.... Somehow, from talking of -<span class='pageno' id='Page_394'>394</span>Italy we passed to talking of the North, which Mdlle. Bonheur -thinks has a deeper poetry than the South, and then to -Ireland, where she wishes to go next summer (I hope stopping -at my brother’s <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">en passant</span></i>) and of which country she said such -beautiful, dreamy things that even I grew poetic about our -‘<em>Brumes</em>,’—to which she quickly applied the epithet -‘grandiose,’—and our sea, looking, I said, like an angel’s eye -with a tear in it. At this simile she was so pleased that -we grew quite friends, and I can only hope she will not see -that sea on a grey day and think me an impostor! Nothing -I liked about her, so much, however, as her interest in -Hattie Hosmer, and her delight in hearing about her -<cite>Zenobia</cite><a id='r20' /><a href='#f20' class='c013'><sup>[20]</sup></a> (<i><span lang="la" xml:lang="la">triumphans</span></i>) in the Exhibition; at which report of -mine she exclaimed: ‘That is the thing above all others I -shall wish to see in London! You know I have seen Miss -Hosmer, but I have never seen any of her works, and I do -very much desire to do so’.... Her one-eyed friend sat -by painting all the time. She is not enticing to look at, -but I dare say, not bad. I said I always envied friends -whom I caught working together and that I lived alone; to -which she replied ‘<i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Je vous plains alors!</span></i>’ in a tone of -conviction, showing that, in her case at all events, friendship -was a very pleasant thing. Mdlle. Bonheur showed me three -or four fine pictures she is painting, and some prints, but of -course I was as stupid as usual in studios and only remarked -(as a buffalo might have done,) that Roman <i><span lang="la" xml:lang="la">bovi</span></i> were more -majestic and like Homeric Junos than those wiry little -Scotch short-horns her soul delighteth to honour. But O! -she has done a Dog, <em>such</em> a dog! Like Bush in outward dog, -but the inner soul of him more profoundly, unutterably wise -than tongue may tell! a Dog to be set up and worshipped -as Anubis. Certainly Mdlle. Bonheur is a finer artist than -Landseer in this, his own line. I wish she would leave the -cattle and ‘go to the dogs.’”</p> - -<p class='c006'><span class='pageno' id='Page_395'>395</span>My last journey but one to Italy was taken when I was -lame; and, after my sojourn at Aix-les-Bains, I spent the -autumn in Florence and the winter in Pisa; where I met -Cav. d’ Azeglio as above recorded. Miss Lloyd rejoined me -at Genoa in the spring to help me to return to England, -as I was still (after four years!) miserably helpless. We -returned over Mont Cenis which had no tunnel through -it in those days; and, on the very summit, our carriage -broke down. We were in a sad dilemma, for I was -quite unable to walk a hundred yards; but a train of -carts happily coming up and lending us ropes enough to -hold our trap together for my use alone, Miss Lloyd ran -down the mountain, and at last we found ourselves safe at -the bottom.</p> - -<p class='c007'>After another very pleasant visit together to her friend -Mdlle. Rosa Bonheur, and many promises on her part to -come to us in England (which, alas! she never fulfilled) we -made our way to London; and, within a few weeks, Miss -Lloyd—one morning before breakfast,—found, and, in an -incredibly short time, <em>bought</em> the dear little house in South -Kensington which became our home with few interruptions -for a quarter of a century; No. 26, Hereford Square. It -was at that time almost at the end of London. All up the -Gloucester Road between it and the Park were market-gardens; -and behind it and alongside of it, where Rosary Gardens and -Wetherby Place now stand, there were large fields of grass -with abundance of fine old lime trees and elms, and one -magnificent walnut tree which ought never to have been -cut down. Behind us we had a large piece of ground, -which we rented temporarily and called the “<em>Boundless -Prairie</em>,” (!) where we gave afternoon tea to our friends -under the limes, when they were in bloom. On a part -of our garden Miss Lloyd erected a sculptor’s Studio. -The House itself, though small, was very pretty and airy; -<span class='pageno' id='Page_396'>396</span>every room in it lightsome and pleasant, and somehow -capable of containing a good many people. We often -had in it as many as 50 or 60 guests. In short, I had -once more a home, and a most happy one; and my lonely -wanderings were over.</p> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_397'>397</span> - <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER<br /> XV.<br /> <span class='large'><em>LONDON IN THE SIXTIES AND SEVENTIES.</em><br /> <em>LITERARY LIFE.</em></span></h2> -</div> - -<p class='c006'><span class='pageno' id='Page_399'>399</span>For some time before I took up my abode in London I -had been writing busily for the press. When my active -work at Bristol came to an end and I became for four years -a cripple, I naturally turned to use my pen, and, finding from -my happy experience of <cite>Workhouse Sketches</cite> in <cite>Macmillan’s -Magazine</cite> that I could make money without much difficulty, -I soon obtained almost as many openings as I could profit -by to add to my income. I wrote a series of articles for -<cite>Fraser’s Magazine</cite>, then edited by Mr. Froude, who had -been my brother’s friend at Oxford, and who from that time -I had the high privilege to count as mine also. These first -papers were sketches of Rome, Cairo, Athens, Jerusalem, -etc.; and they were eventually reprinted in a rather successful -little volume called <cite>Cities of the Past</cite>, now long out of print. -I also wrote many papers connected with women’s affairs -and claims, in both <cite>Macmillan</cite> and <cite>Fraser</cite>; and these likewise -were reprinted in a volume; <cite>Pursuits of Women</cite>. -Beside writing these longer articles, I acted as “Own Correspondent” -to the <cite>Daily News</cite> in Rome one year, and in -Florence another, and sent a great many articles to the -<cite>Spectator</cite>, <cite>Economist</cite>, <cite>Reader</cite>, &c. In short I turned out (as -a painter would say) a great many <em>Pot-Boilers</em>. These, -with my small patrimony, enabled me to bear the expense -of travelling and of keeping a maid; a luxury which had -become indispensable.</p> - -<p class='c007'>I also at this time edited, as I have mentioned, for Messrs. -Trübner, the 12 vols. of <cite>Parker’s Works</cite>, with a <cite>Preface</cite>. -The arrangement of the great mass of miscellaneous papers -<span class='pageno' id='Page_400'>400</span>was very laborious and perplexing, but I think I marshalled -the volumes fairly well. I did not perform as fully as I -ought to have done my editorial duty of correcting for the -press; indeed I did not understand that it fell to my share, -or I must have declined to undertake the task. Mr. Trübner -paid me £50 for this editing, which I had proposed to do -gratuitously.</p> - -<p class='c007'>I had much at heart,—from the time I gave up my practical -work among the poor folk at Bristol,—to write again on -religious matters, and to help so far as might be possible for -me to clear a way through the maze of new controversies -which, in those days of <cite>Essays</cite> and <cite>Reviews</cite>, Colenso’s -<cite>Pentateuch</cite> and Renan’s <cite>Vie de Jésus</cite>, were remarkably lively -and wide-spread through all classes of society. With this -hope, and while spending a summer in my crippled condition -at Aix-les-Bains, and on the Diablerêts, I wrote to Harriet -St. Leger:—</p> - -<p class='c008'>“I am now striving to write a book about present controversies -and the future basis of religious faith. I want to -do justice to existing parties, High, Low and Broad, yet to -show (as of course I believe) that none of them can really -solve the problem; and that the faith of the future must -be one not <em>based</em> on a special History, though corroborated -by all history.”</p> - -<p class='c006'>The plan of this book—named <cite>Broken Lights</cite>—is as follows: -I discriminate the different sections of thinkers from the -point of view of the answers they would respectively give to -the supreme question, “What are the ultimate grounds of our -faith in God, in Duty and in Immortality?” First, I distinguish -between those who hold those grounds to rest on -the <em>Traditional Revelation</em>; and those who hold them to be -the <em>Original Revelation</em> of the Divine Spirit in each faithful -soul. The former are divided again, naturally, into those -<span class='pageno' id='Page_401'>401</span>who take their authoritative tradition from a <em>Living Prophet</em>, -a <em>Church</em>, or a <em>Book</em>. But in Christian times we have only -had a few obscure prophets (Montanus, Joseph Smith, -Swedenborg, Brother Prince, Mr. Harris, &c.), and the choice -practically lies between resting faith on a <em>Church</em>, or resting -it on a <em>Book</em>.</p> - -<p class='c007'>I classify both the parties in the English Church who rest -respectively on a Church and on a Book, as <em>Palæologians</em>, -the one, the <em>High Church</em>, whose ground of religious faith is: -“<em>The Bible authenticated and interpreted by the Church</em>;” -and the other the <em>Low Church</em>, whose theory is still the -formula of Chillingworth: “<em>The Bible, and the Bible only, -is the religion of Protestants</em>.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>But it has come to pass that all the distinctive doctrines -of Christianity (over and above Theism) which the Traditionalists -maintain, are, in these days, more or less opposed to -modern sentiment, criticism and science; and among those -who adhere to them, one or other attitude as regards this -opposition must be taken up. The Palæologian party in both -wings insists on the old doctrines more or less crudely and -strictly, and would fain <em>bend modern ideas</em> to harmonize with -them. Another party, which is generally called the <em>Neologian</em>, -endeavours to <em>modify or explain the old doctrines</em>, so as -to harmonize them with the ethics and criticism of our -generation.</p> - -<p class='c007'>After a somewhat careful study of the positions, merits and -failures of the two Palæologian parties, I proceed to define -among the Neologians, the <cite>First Broad Church</cite> (of Maurice -and Kingsley), whose programme was: “To harmonize the -doctrines of Church and Bible with modern thought.” This -end it attempted to reach by new readings and interpretations, -consonant with the highest modern sentiment; but -it remained of course obvious, that the supposed Divinely-inspired -Authorities had failed to convey the sense of these -<span class='pageno' id='Page_402'>402</span>interpretations to men’s minds for eighteen centuries; indeed -had conveyed the reverse. The old received doctrine of an -eternal Hell, for example, was the absolute contradiction of -the doctrines of Divine universal love and everlasting Mercy, -which the new teachers professed to derive from the same -traditional authority. This school emphatically “put the new -wine into old bottles;” and the success of the experiment -could only be temporary, since it rests on the assumption -that God has miraculously taught men in language which they -have, for fifty generations, uniformly misinterpreted.</p> - -<p class='c007'>The other branch of the Neologian party I call the <em>Second -Broad Church</em> (the party of Stanley and Jowett). It may -be considered as forming the Extreme Left of the Revelationists; -the furthest from mere Authority and the nearest to -Rationalism; just as the High Church party forms the -Extreme Right; the nearest to Authority and furthest from -Rationalism. I endeavour to define the difference between the -<cite>First</cite> and <cite>Second Broad Church</cite> parties as follows:—</p> - -<p class='c008'>“The First Broad Church, as we have seen, maintains -that the doctrines of the Bible and the Church can be -perfectly harmonized with the results of modern thought, -<em>by a new, but legitimate exegesis of the Bible and interpretation -of Church formulæ</em>. The Second Broad Church -seems prepared to admit that, in many cases, they can only -be harmonized <em>by the sacrifice of Biblical infallibility</em>. The -First Broad Church has recourse (to harmonize them) to -various logical processes, but principally to that of -diverting the student, at all difficult points, from criticism -to edification. The Second Broad Church uses no -ambiguity, but frankly avows that when the Bible -contradicts Science, the Bible must be in error. The First -Broad Church maintains that the Inspiration of the Bible -differs in <em>kind</em> as well as in <em>degree</em>, from that of other books. -The Second Broad Church appears to hold that it differs in -degree, but <em>not</em> in kind.”</p> - -<p class='c006'><span class='pageno' id='Page_403'>403</span>After a considerable discussion on the various doctrines of -the nature and limitations of Inspiration, I ask, p. 110, 111:—</p> - -<p class='c008'>“Admit the Inspiration of Prophets and Apostles to have -been substantially the same with that always granted to -faithful souls;—admit, therefore, the existence of a human -element in Revelation, can we still look to that Revelation -as the safe foundation for our Religion?”</p> - -<p class='c010'>“To this question the leaders of the Second Broad Church -answer unhesitatingly: ‘Yes. It has been an egregious -error of modern times to confound the Record of the -Revelation with the Revelation itself, and to assume that -God’s lessons lose their value because they have been transmitted -to us through the natural channels of human reason -and conscience. Returning to the true view, we shall only -get rid of uncounted difficulties and objections which prevent -the reception of Christianity by the most honest minds -here in England and in heathen countries.’”</p> - -<p class='c006'>But in conclusion I ask—</p> - -<p class='c008'>“‘What influence can the Second Broad Church -exercise on the future religion of the world? What -answer will it supply to the doubts of the age, and whereon -would it rest our faith in God and Immortality?’ The -reply seems to be brief. The Second Broad Church would, -like all the other parties in the Church, call on us to rest -our faith on History; but in their case, it is History -corroborated by consciousness, not opposed thereto. In -the next Chapter it will be my effort to show that under -<em>no</em> conditions is it probable that History can afford us our -ultimate grounds of faith. Meanwhile, it must appear that -if any form of Historical faith may escape such a conclusion -and approve itself to mankind in time to come, it is that -which is proposed by the Second Broad Church, and which -it worthily presents,—to the intellect by its learning, and -to the religious sentiment by its profound and tender -piety.”—<cite>Broken Lights</cite>, p. 120.</p> - -<p class='c006'>These four parties, two Palæologian and two Neologian, -thus examined, included between them all the members of -<span class='pageno' id='Page_404'>404</span>the Church of England, and all the Orthodox Dissenters. -There remained the Jews, Roman Catholics, Quakers and -Unitarians, and of each of these the book contains a sketch -and criticism; finally concluding with an exposition (so far -as I could give it) of <cite>Theoretic</cite> and of <cite>Practical Theism</cite>.</p> - -<p class='c007'>The book contains further two <em>Appendices</em>. The first -treats of Bishop Colenso’s onslaught on the Pentateuch; -then greatly disturbing English orthodoxy. The second -Appendix deals with the other most notable book of that -period; Renan’s <cite><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Vie de Jésus</span></cite>. After maintaining that -Renan has failed in delineating his principal figure, -while he has vastly illuminated his environment, I give -with diffidence my own view of Christ, lest Traditionalists -should, without contradiction, assume that Renan has -given the general Theistic idea of his character. After -referring to the measureless importance of the <em>palingenesia</em> of -which Christ spoke to Nicodemus, I draw a comparison -between the New Birth in the individual soul, and the -historically-traceable results of Christ’s life on the human -race. (P. 167.)</p> - -<p class='c008'>“Taking the whole ancient world in comparison with the -modern, of Heathendom with Christendom, the general -character of the two is absolutely analogous to that which -in individuals we call Unregenerate and Regenerate. Of -course there were thousands of regenerated souls, Hebrew, -Greek, Indian, of all nations and languages, before Christ, -and of course there are millions unregenerate now. But -nevertheless, from this time onward we trace through -history a <em>new spirit</em> in the world: a leaven working through -the whole mass of souls.”...</p> - -<p class='c006'>The language of the old world was one of <em>self-satisfaction</em>, -as its Art was of <em>completeness</em>. On the other hand:</p> - -<p class='c008'>“The language of the new world, coming to us through -the thousand tongues of our multiform civilization, is one -<span class='pageno' id='Page_405'>405</span>long cry of longing aspiration: ‘Would that I could create -the ineffable Beauty! Would that I could discover the -eternal and absolute Truth! Would! O, would it were -possible to live out the good, the noble, and the -holy!’”...</p> - -<p class='c010'>“This great phenomenon of history surely points to -some corresponding great event whereby the revolution -was accomplished. There must have been a moment when -the old order stopped and the new began. Some action -must have taken place upon the souls of men which thenceforth -started them in a different career, and opened the age -of progressive life. When did this moment arrive? What -was the primal act of the endless progress? By whom was -that age opened?”</p> - -<p class='c010'>“Here we have really ground to go upon. There is no need -to establish the authenticity or veracity of special books or -harmonize discordant narratives to obtain an answer to our -question. The whole voice of human history unconsciously -and without premeditation bears its unmistakeable -testimony. The turning point between the old world and -the new was the beginning of the Christian movement. -The action upon human nature which started it on its new -course was the teaching and example of Christ. Christ -was he who opened the age of endless progress.”</p> - -<p class='c010'>“The view, therefore, which seems to be the best fitting -one for our estimate of the character of Christ, is that -which regards him as the great Regenerator of Humanity. -<em>His coming was to the life of humanity what Regeneration is to -the life of the individual.</em> This is not a conclusion doubtfully -deduced from questionable biographies; but a broad, plain -inference from the universal history of our race. We may -dispute all details; but the grand result is beyond criticism. -The world has changed, and that change is historically -traceable to Christ. The honour, then, which Christ -demands of us must be in proportion of our estimate of -the value of such Regeneration. He is not merely a Moral -Reformer inculcating pure ethics; not merely a Religious -Reformer clearing away old theologic errors and teaching -<span class='pageno' id='Page_406'>406</span>higher ideas of God. These things he was; but he might, -for all we can tell, have been them both as fully, and yet have -failed to be what he has actually been to our race. He -might have taught the world better ethics and better -theology, and yet have failed to infuse into it that new Life -which has ever since coursed through its arteries and -penetrated its minutest veins.”</p> - -<p class='c006'><cite>Broken Lights</cite> proved to be (with the exception of my -<cite>Duties of Women</cite>) the most successful of my books. It -went through three English editions, and I believe quite as -many in America; but of these last all I knew was the -occasional present of a single specimen copy. It was very -favourably reviewed, but some of my fellow Theists rather -disapproved of the tribute I had paid to Christ (as quoted -above); and my good friend, Prof. F. W. Newman, actually -wrote a severe pamphlet against me, entitled “<cite>Hero-Making -Religion</cite>.” It did not alter my view. I do not believe that -our <em>Religion</em> (the relation of our souls to God) can ever -properly rest upon History. Nay I cannot understand how any -one who knows the intricacies and obscurities attendant on the -verification of any ancient History, should for a moment be -content to suppose that God has required of all men to rest -their faith in Him on such grounds, or on what others report -to them of such grounds. In the case of Christianity, where -scholars like Renan and Martineau—profoundly learned in -ancient and obsolete tongues, and equipped with the whole -arsenal of criticism of modern Germany, France and England,—can -differ about the age and authority of the principal <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">piéce -de conviction</span></i> (the Gospel of St. John), it is truly preposterous -to suggest that ordinary men and women should form any -judgment at all on the matter. The <em>Ideal Christ</em> needs only -a good heart to find and love him. The <em>Historical</em> Christ -needs the best critic in Europe, a Lightfoot, a Koenen, a -<span class='pageno' id='Page_407'>407</span>Martineau, to trace his footsteps on the sands of time. And -<em>they</em> differ as regards nearly every one of them!</p> - -<p class='c007'>But though History cannot rightly <em>be</em> Religion or the basis -of Religion, there is, and must be, <em>a History of Religion</em>; as -there is a history of geometry and astronomy; and of that -History of the whole world’s Religion the supreme interest -centres in the record of</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c018'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“The sinless years</div> - <div class='line'>That breathed beneath the Syrian blue.”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c007'>Yet, as regards my own personal feeling, I must avow that -the halo which has gathered round Jesus Christ obscures him -to my eyes. I see that he is much more real to many of my -friends, both Orthodox and Unitarian, than he can ever be to -me. There is nothing, no, not one single sentence or action -attributed to him of which (if we open our minds to criticism) -we can feel sufficiently certain to base on it any definite -conclusion, and this to me envelopes him in a cloud. -Each Christian age has indeed, (as I remark in my <cite>Dawning -Lights</cite>), seen a Christ of its own; so that we could imagine -students in the future arguing that there must have been -“several Christs,” as old scholars held there were several -Zoroasters and several Buddhas. Just as Michael Angelo’s -Christ was the production of that dark and stormy age when -first his awful form loomed out of the shadows of the Sistine, -in no less a degree do the portraits of <cite><span lang="la" xml:lang="la">Ecce Homo</span></cite> and the -<cite><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Vie de Jésus</span></cite> belong to our era of sentiment and philanthropy. -We have no sun-made photograph of his features; only such -wavering image of them as may have rested on the waters of -Galilee, rippling in the breeze. I must not however further -prolong these reflections on a subject discussed to the best of -my poor ability in my more serious books.</p> - -<p class='c007'>After <span class='sc'>Broken Lights</span>, I wrote the sequel: <cite>Dawning Lights</cite> -just quoted above. In the first I had endeavoured to sketch -<span class='pageno' id='Page_408'>408</span>the <cite>Conditions and Prospects</cite> of religious belief. In the second -I speculated on the <cite>Results</cite> of the changes which were taking -place in various articles of that belief. The chapters deal -consecutively with Changes in the <cite>Method of Theology</cite>,—in -the <cite>Idea of God</cite>; in the <cite>Idea of Christ</cite>; in the <cite>Doctrine of Sin</cite>, -theoretical and practical; in the idea of the <cite>Relation of this -life to the next</cite>; in the idea of the <cite>Perfect Life</cite>; in the <cite>Idea of -Happiness</cite>; in the <cite>Doctrine of Prayer</cite>; in the <cite>Idea of Death</cite>; -and in the <cite>Doctrine of the eternity of Punishment</cite>.</p> - -<p class='c007'>This book also was fairly successful, and went into a -second edition.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Somewhere about this time (I have no exact record) I -edited a little book called <cite>Alone to the Alone</cite>, consisting of -private prayers for Theists. It contains contributions from -fifteen men and women, of Prayers, mostly written for -personal use, before the idea of the book had been suggested, -under the influence of those occasional deeper insights and -more fervent feelings which all religious persons desire to -perpetuate. They are all anonymous. In the <cite>Preface</cite> I say -that the result of such a compilation,</p> - -<p class='c008'>“‘Is necessarily altogether imperfect and fragmentary, -but in the great solitude where most of us pass our lives as -regards our deeper emotions, it may be more helpful to -know that other human hearts are feeling as we feel, and -thinking as we think, rather than to read far nobler words -which come to us only as echoes of the Past.’ The book -is ‘designed for the use of those who desire to cultivate the -feelings which culminate in Prayer, but who find the rich -and beautiful collections of the Churches of Christendom no -longer available, either because of the doctrines whose -acceptance they imply or of the nature of the requests to -which they give utterance. Adequately to replace in a -generation, or in several generations, such books, through -which the piety of ages has been poured, is wholly beyond -hope; and the ambition to do so would betray ignorance of -<span class='pageno' id='Page_409'>409</span>the way in which these precious drops are distilled slowly -year after year, from the great Incense-tree of humanity.’”</p> - -<p class='c006'>The remainder of the <cite>Preface</cite>, which is somewhat lengthy, -discusses the validity of Prayer for the attainment of -<em>spiritual</em> (not physical) benefits. It concludes thus—p. -xxxvi.</p> - -<p class='c008'>“And, lastly, if Religion is still to be to mankind in the -future what it has been in the past, it must still be a -religion of Prayer. Nothing is changed in human nature -because it has outgrown some of the errors of the past. -The spiritual experience of the saintly souls of old was -true and real experience, even when their intellectual -creeds were full of mistakes. By the gate through which -they entered the paradise of love and peace, even by that -same narrow portal of Prayer must we pass into it. No -present or future discoveries in science will ever transmute -the moral dross in human nature into the pure gold of -virtue. No spectrum analysis of the light of the nebulæ -will enable us to find God. If we are to be made holy, we -must ask the Holy One to sanctify us. If we are to know -the infinite joy of Divine Love, we must seek it in Divine -communion.”</p> - -<p class='c006'>This book was first published in 1871; one of the years of -the rising tide of liberal-religious hope. A third edition was -called for in 1881, when the ebb had set in. In a short -<cite>Preface</cite> to this third edition I notice this fact, and say that -those hopes were doubtless all too hasty for the slow order -of Divine things.</p> - -<p class='c008'>“Nay, it would seem that, far from the immediate -aurora of such a morning, the world is destined first to -endure a great ‘horror of darkness,’ and to pass through -the dreary and disaster-laden experience of a night of -materialism and agnosticism. Perhaps it will only be when -men have seen with their eyes how the universe appears -<span class='pageno' id='Page_410'>410</span>without a thought of God to illumine its dark places, and -gauged for themselves where human life will sink without -hope of immortality to elevate it, that they will recognise -aright the unutterable preciousness of religion. Faith, -when restored after such an eclipse, will be prized as it has -never been prized heretofore....</p> - -<p class='c010'>“And Faith <em>must</em> return to mankind sooner or later. So -sure as God <em>is</em>, so sure must it be that he will not finally -leave his creatures, whom he has led upward for thousands -of years, to lose sight of him altogether, or to be drowned -for ever in the slough of atheism and carnalism. He will -doubtless reveal himself afresh to the souls of men in his -own time and in his own way,—whether, as of old, through -prophet-souls filled with inspiration, or by other methods -yet unknown. God is over us, and Heaven is waiting for -us all the same, even though all the men of science in -Europe unite to tell us there is only Matter in the universe, -and only corruption in the grave. Atheism may prevail for -a night, but faith cometh in the morning. Theism is -‘bound to win’ at last; not necessarily that special type -of Theism which our poor thoughts in this generation have -striven to define; but that great fundamental faith,—the -needful substructure of every other possible religious faith—the -faith in a Righteous and loving God, and in a life for -man beyond the tomb.”</p> - -<p class='c006'>The book contains 72 Prayers; half of which refer to -the outer and half to the inner life. Among the former, are -Noon and Sunset prayers; thanksgivings for the love of -friends, and for the beauty of the world; also a Prayer -respecting the sufferings of animals from human cruelty. In -the second part some of the Prayers are named, “In the -Wilderness”; “On the Right Way”; “God afar off”; -“Doubt and Faith”; “<i><span lang="la" xml:lang="la">Fiat Lux</span></i>”; “<i><span lang="la" xml:lang="la">Fiat Pax</span></i>”; -“Thanksgiving for Religious Truth”; “For Pardon of a -Careless Life”; “For a Devoted Life”; “Joy in God”; -“Here and Hereafter.”</p> - -<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_411'>411</span>I never expected that more than a very few friends would -have cared for this book, and in fact printed it with the -intention of almost private circulation; but it has been continuously, -though slowly, called for during the 23 years which -have elapsed since it was compiled.</p> - -<p class='c007'>I wrote the essays included in the volume “<span class='sc'>Hopes of the -Human Race</span>,” in 1873–1874. This has run through several -editions. The long <cite>Introduction</cite> to this book was written -immediately after the publication of Mr. Mill’s <cite>Essay on -Religion</cite>; a most important work of which Miss Taylor had -kindly put the proof sheets in my hands, and to which I was -eagerly anxious to offer such rejoinder from the side of faith -as might be in my power. Whether I succeeded in making -an adequate reply in the fifty pages I devoted to the subject, I -cannot presume to say. The Pessimist side, taken by Mr. -Mill has been gaining ground ever since, but there are -symptoms that a reaction is taking place, beginning (of all -countries!) in France. I conclude this Preface thus—p. -53.</p> - -<p class='c008'>“But I quit the ungracious, and, in my case, most -ungrateful, task of offering my feeble protest against the -last words given to us by a man so good and great, that -even his mistakes and deficiencies (as I needs must deem -them) are more instructive to us than a million platitudes -and truisms of teachers whom his transcendent intellectual -honesty should put to the blush, and whose souls never -kindled with a spark of the generous ardour for the welfare -of his race which flamed in his noble heart and animated -his entire career.”</p> - -<p class='c006'>The book contains two long Essays on the <cite>Life after -Death</cite> contributed originally to the <cite>Theological Review</cite>. In -the first of these, after stating at length the reasons for -supposing that human existence ends at death, I ask: -“What have we to place against them in the scale of -<span class='pageno' id='Page_412'>412</span>Hope?” and I begin by observing that all the usual -arguments for immortality involve at the crucial point the -assumption that we possess some guarantee that mankind -will <em>not</em> be deceived, that Justice will eventually triumph -and that human affairs are the concern of a Power whose -purposes cannot fail. Were the faith which supplies such -warrant to fail, the whole structure raised upon it must fall -to the ground. Belief in Immortality is pre-eminently -a matter of Faith; a corollary from faith in God. To -imagine that we can reach it by any other road is vain. -Heaven will always be (as Dr. Martineau has said) “a part -of our Religion, not a Branch of our Geography.” But in -addressing men and women who believe in God’s Justice -and Love, I hope to show that, not by one only but by -many <em>convergent</em> lines, Faith uniformly points to a Life -after Death; and that if we follow her guidance in any -one direction implicitly, we are invariably conducted to the -same conclusion. Nay more; we cannot stop short of this -conclusion and retain entire faith in any thing beyond the -experience of the senses. Every idea of Justice, of Love -and of Duty is truncated if we deny to it the extension -of eternity; and as for our conception of God himself, I see -not how any one who has realised the dread darkness of “the -riddle of the painful earth,” can call him “Good” unless he -can look forward to the solution of that problem hereafter. -The following are channels through which Faith inevitably -flows towards Immortality:</p> - -<p class='c007'>1st. The human race longs for Justice. Even “if the -Heavens fall,” we feel Justice ought to be done. All literature, -from Æschylus and Job to our own time, has for its -highest theme the triumph of Justice, or the tragedy of the -disappointment of human hope thereof. But where did -we obtain this idea? The world has never seen a Reign of -Astræa. Injustice and Cruelty prevail largely, even now in -<span class='pageno' id='Page_413'>413</span>the world; and as we go back up the stream of time to ruder -ages where Might was more completely dominant over Right, -the case was worse and worse. Where then, did Man derive -his idea that the Power ruling the world,—Zeus, or Jehovah, -or Ormusd,—was Just? Not only could no ancestral -experience have caused the “set of our brains” towards the -expectation of Justice, but experience, under many conditions -of society, pointed quite the other way. It is assuredly (if -anything can be so reckoned) the Divine spirit in man -which causes him to love Justice, and to believe that his -Maker is just, for it is inconceivable how he could have -arrived at such faith otherwise. But if death be the end -of human existence this expectation of justice has been only -a miserable delusion. God has created us, poor children of -the dust, to love and hope for Justice, but He Himself has -disregarded it, on the scale of a disappointed world. After -referring to the thousands of cases where the bad have died -successful and peacefully, and the good,—like Christ,—have -perished in misery and agony, I say “boldly and so much -the more reverently: <em>Either Man is Immortal or God is -not Just</em>.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>2nd. The second line of thought leading us to belief in -Immortality is,—that if there be no future life, there are -millions of human beings whose existence has answered no -purpose which we can rationally attribute to a wise and -merciful God. He is a <em>baffled</em> God, if His creature be -extinguished before reaching <em>some</em> end which He may -possibly have designed.</p> - -<p class='c007'>3rd. The incompleteness of the noblest part of man offers -so strange a contrast to the perfection of the other work of -creation that we are drawn to conclude that the human soul -is only a <em>bud</em> to blossom out into full flower hereafter. No -man has ever in his life reached the plentitude of moral -strength and beauty of which his nature gives promise. A -<span class='pageno' id='Page_414'>414</span>garden wherein all the buds should perish before blooming, -would be more hideous than a desert, and such a garden is -God’s world if man dies for ever when we see him no more.</p> - -<p class='c007'>4th. Human love urges an appeal to Faith which has been -to millions of hearts the most conclusive of all.</p> - -<p class='c008'>“To think of the one whose innermost self is to us the -world’s chief treasure, the most beautiful and blessed thing -God ever made, and believe that at any moment that mind -and heart may cease to be, and become only a memory, -every noble gift and grace extinct, and all the fond love for -ourselves forgotten for ever,—this is such agony, that having -once known it we should never dare again to open our -hearts to affection, unless some ray of hope should dawn for -us beyond the grave. Love would be the curse of mortality -were it to bring always with it such unutterable pain of -anxiety, and the knowledge that every hour which knitted our -heart more closely to our friend also brought us nearer to an -eternal separation. Better never to have ascended to that -high Vita Nuova where self-love is lost in another’s weal, -better to have lived like the cattle which browse and sleep -while they wait the butcher’s knife, than to endure such -despair.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“But is there nothing in us which refuses to believe all -this nightmare of the final sundering of loving hearts? -Love itself seems to announce itself as an eternal thing. It -has such an element of infinity in its tenderness, that it -never fails to seek for itself an expression beyond the limits -of time, and we talk, even when we know not what we mean -of “undying affection,” “immortal love.” It is the only -passion which in the nature of things we can carry with us -into another world, and it is fit to be prolonged, intensified, -glorified for ever. It is not so much a joy we may take with -us, as the only joy which can make any world a heaven -when the affections of earth shall be perfected in the -supreme love of God. It is the sentiment which we share -with God, and by which we live in Him and He in us. All -its beautiful tenderness, its noble self-forgetfulness, its pure -<span class='pageno' id='Page_415'>415</span>and ineffable delight, are the rays of God’s Sun of Love -reflected in our souls.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“Is all this to end in two poor heaps of silent dust -decaying slowly in their coffins side by side in the vault? -If so, let us have done with prating of any Faith in Heaven -or Earth. We are mocked by a fiend.”—(<cite>Hopes</cite>, p. 52.)</p> - -<p class='c006'>5th. A remarkable argument is to be found in Prof. F. W. -Newman’s <cite>Theism</cite> (p. 75). It insists on the fact that many -men have certainly loved God and that God must love them -in return (else Man were better than God); and we must -reasonably infer that those whom God loves are deathless, else -would the Divine Blessedness be imperfect, nay, “a yawning -gulf of ever-increasing sorrow.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>6th. The extreme variability of the common human belief -that the “soul of man never dies” makes it difficult to discern -its proper evidential value, still it seems to have the <em>Note</em> of -a genuine instinct. It begins early, though (probably) not at -the earliest stage of human development. It attains its -maximum among the highest races of mankind (the Vedic-Aryan, -early Persian and Egyptian). It projects such varied -and even contrasted ideals of the other life (<em>e.g.</em>, Valhalla and -Nirvana) that it cannot well have been borrowed by one race -from another but must have sprung up in each indigenously. -Finally the instinct begins to falter in ages of self-consciousness -and criticism.</p> - -<p class='c007'>7th, lastly. The most perfect and direct faith in Immortality -belongs to saintly souls who personally feel that they have -entered into relations with the Divine Spirit which can -never end. “<em>Faith in God and in our eternal Union with -Him</em>,” said one such devout man to me, “<em>are not two dogmas -but one</em>.” “Thou wilt not leave my soul in Hades. Thou wilt -guide me by thy counsel and afterwards receive me to Glory.”</p> - -<p class='c008'>“Such, for a few blessed souls, seems to be the perfect -evidence of things not seen. But can their full faith -<span class='pageno' id='Page_416'>416</span>supply our lack? Can we see with their eyes and believe -on their report? It is only possible in a very inferior -measure. Yet if our own spiritual life have received even -some faint gleams of the ‘light which never came from -sun or star,’ then, once more, will our faith point the way -to Immortality; for we shall know in what manner such -truths come to the soul, and be able to trust that what is -dawn to us may be sunrise to those who have journeyed -nearer to the East than we; who have surmounted Duty -more perfectly, or passed through rivers of affliction into -which our feet have never dipped. God cannot have -deluded them in their sacred hope of His eternal Love. If -their experience be a dream all prayer and communion may -be dreams likewise.”</p> - -<p class='c006'>In conclusion, while commending to the reader’s -consideration what appears to me the true method of solving -the problem of a Life after Death, I point to the fact that on -the answer to that question must hang the alternative, not -only of the hope or despair of the Human Race, but of the -glory or the failure of the whole Kosmos, so far as our uttermost -vision can extend.</p> - -<p class='c008'>“Lions and eagles, oaks and roses, may be good after -their kind; but if the summit and crown of the whole work, -the being in whose consciousness it is all mirrored, be -worse than incomplete and imperfect, an undeveloped -embryo, an acorn mouldered in its shell, a bud blighted by -the frost, then must the entire world he deemed a failure -also. Now, Man can only be reckoned on any ground as a -<em>provisionally</em> successful work; successful, that is, provided -we regard him as <i><span lang="la" xml:lang="la">in transitu</span></i>, on his way to another and far -more perfect stage of development. We are content that -the egg, the larva, the bud, the half-painted canvas, the -rough scaffolding, should only faintly indicate what will be -the future bird and butterfly and flower and picture and -temple. And thus to look on man (as by some deep insight -he has almost universally regarded himself) as a ‘sojourner -<span class='pageno' id='Page_417'>417</span>upon earth,’ upon his way to ‘another country, even a -heavenly,’ destined to complete his pilgrimage and make -up for all his shortcomings elsewhere, is to leave a -margin for believing him to be even now a Divine work -in its embryonic stage. But if we close out this view -of the future, and assure ourselves that nothing more is -ever to be expected of him than what we knew him to be -during the last days of his mortal life; if we are to believe -we have seen the best development which his intellect and -heart, his powers of knowing, feeling, enjoying, loving, -blessing and being blessed, will ever obtain while the -heavens endure,—then, indeed, is the conclusion inevitable -and final. Man is a Failure, the consummate failure of -creation. Everything else,—star, ocean, mountain, forest, -bird, beast and insect—has a sort of completeness and -perfection. It is fitting in its own place, and it gives no hint -that it ought to be other than it is. ‘Every Lion,’ as -Parker has said, ‘is a type of all lionhood; but there is no -Man who is a type of all Manhood.’ Even the best and -greatest of men have only been imperfect types of a single -phase of manhood—of the saint, the hero, the sage, the -philanthropist, the poet, the friend,—never of the full-orbed -man who should be all these together. If each perish -at death, then,—as the seeds of all these varied forms of good -are in each,—every one is cut off prematurely, blighted, -spoiled. Nor is this criterion of success or failure -solely applicable to our small planet; a mere spark thrown -off the wheel whereon a million suns are turned into space. -It is easy to believe that much loftier beings, possessed of -far greater mental and moral powers than our own, inhabit -other realms of immensity. But Thought and Love are, -after all, the grandest things which any world can show; -and if a whole race endowed with them should prove such -a failure as death-extinguished Mankind would undoubtedly -be, there remains no reason why all the spheres of the -universe should not be similar scenes of disappointment -and frustration, and creation itself one huge blunder and -mishap. In vain may the President of the British Congress -<span class='pageno' id='Page_418'>418</span>of Science dazzle us with the splendid panorama of -the material universe unrolling itself ‘from out of the -primal nebula’s fiery cloud.’ Suns and planets swarming -through the abysses of space are but whirling sepulchres -after all, if, while no grain of dust is shaken from off -their rolling sides, the conscious souls of whom they -have been the palaces are all for ever lost. Spreading -continents and flowing seas, soaring Alps and fertile -plains are worse than failures, if we, even we, poor -feeble, sinful, dim-eyed creatures that we are, shall ever -‘vanish like the streak of morning cloud in the infinite -azure of the past.’”</p> - -<p class='c006'>The second part of this essay discusses the possible -<em>conditions</em> of the Life after Death. I cannot summarize it -here.</p> - -<p class='c007'>The rest of the volume consists of a sermon which I -read at Clerkenwell Unitarian Chapel, in 1873, entitled -“<cite>Doomed to be Saved</cite>.” I describe the disastrous moral -consequences to a man in old times who believed himself -to have sold his soul to the Evil One, and to have cast -himself off from God’s Goodness for ever; and I contrast -this with what we ought to feel when we recognize that -we are <cite>Doomed to be Saved</cite>—destined irretrievably to be -brought back, in this life or in far future lives, from -all our wanderings in remorse and penitence to the feet -of God.</p> - -<p class='c007'>The book concludes with an Essay on the <cite>Evolution of the -Social Sentiment</cite>, in which I maintain that the primary human -feeling in the savage which still lingers in the Aryan child, -is <em>not</em> Sympathy with suffering, but quite an opposite, angry -and even cruel sentiment, which I have named <em>Heteropathy</em>; -which inspires brutes and birds to kill their wounded or -diseased companions. Half-way after this, comes <em>Aversion</em>; -and last of all, <em>Sympathy</em>,—slowly extending from the -mother’s “pity for the son of her womb,” to the Family, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_419'>419</span>the Tribe, the Nation, and the Human Race; and, at last to -the Brutes. I conclude thus:</p> - -<p class='c008'>“Such is, I believe, the great Hope of the human race. -It does not lie in the progress of the intellect, or in the -conquest of fresh powers over the realms of nature; not -in the improvement of laws, or the more harmonious -adjustment of the relations of classes and states; not in -the glories of Art, or the triumphs of Science. All these -things may, and doubtless will, adorn the better and -happier ages of the future. But that which will truly -constitute the blessedness of Man will be the gradual dying -out of his tiger passions, his cruelty and his selfishness, and -the growth within him of the god-like faculty of love and -self-sacrifice; the development of that holiest Sympathy -wherein all souls shall blend at last, like the tints of the -rainbow which the Seer beheld around the great White -Throne on high.”</p> - -<p class='c006'>Beside these theological works I published more recently -two slight volumes on cognate subjects: <cite>A Faithless World</cite>, -and <cite>Health and Holiness</cite>. I wrote “<cite>A Faithless World</cite>” -(first published in the <cite>Contemporary Review</cite>) in reply to -Sir Fitzjames Stephen’s remark in the <cite>Nineteenth Century</cite>, -No. 88, that “We get on very well without religion” ... “Love, Friendship, Ambition, Science, literature, -art, politics, commerce, and a thousand other matters will go -equally well as far as I can see, whether there is or is not -a God and a future state.” I examine this view in detail -and conclude that instead of life remaining (in the event of -the fall of religion) to most people much what it is at present, -there would, on the contrary, be actually <em>nothing</em> which -would be left unchanged by such a catastrophe.</p> - -<p class='c007'>I sent a copy of this article when first published, (as I was -bound in courtesy to do), to Sir James, whom I had often -met, and whose brother and sister were my kind friends. -<span class='pageno' id='Page_420'>420</span>He replied in such a manly and generous spirit that I am -tempted to give his letter.</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c009'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line in4'>“December 2nd,</div> - <div class='line'>“32, De Vere Gardens, W.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='lg-container-l c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“My dear Miss Cobbe,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c010'>“I am much obliged by your note and by the article in -the <cite>Contemporary</cite>, which is perfectly fair in itself and full of -kind things about myself personally.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“The subject is too large to write about, and I am only -too glad to take both the letter and the article in the spirit -in which they were written and ask no further discussion.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“It seems to me very possible that there may be a good -deal of truth in what you suggest as to the nature of the -difference between the points of view from which we look at -these things, but it is not unnatural that <em>I</em> should think you -rather exaggerate the amount of suffering and sorrow which -is to be found in the world. I may do the opposite.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“However that may be, thank you heartily for both your -letter and your article.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“I am sure you will have been grieved to hear of poor -Henry Dicey’s death. His life had been practically -despaired of for a considerable time.</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“I am, ever sincerely yours,</div> - <div class='line in20'><span class='sc'>J. F. Stephen</span>.”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c006'>Several of these books of mine, dealing with religious -subjects, were translated into French and published by my -French and Swiss fellow-religionists, and also in Danish by -friends at Copenhagen. <cite><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Le Monde Sans Religion</span></cite>; <cite><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Coup d’œil -sur le Monde à Venir</span></cite>; <cite><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">L’Humanité destinée au Salut</span></cite>; <cite><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">La -Maison sur le Rivage</span></cite>; <cite><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Seul avec Dieu</span></cite> (Geneva Cherbuliez, -1881), <cite><span lang="da" xml:lang="da">En Verden uden Tro</span></cite>, &c., &c.</p> - -<p class='c007'>But all the time during the intervals of writing these -theological books, I employed myself in studying and writing -on various other subjects of temporary or durable interest. -<span class='pageno' id='Page_421'>421</span>I contributed a large number of articles to the following -periodicals:—</p> - -<p class='c007'><cite>The Quarterly Review</cite> (then edited by Sir William Smith).</p> - -<p class='c007'><cite>The Contemporary Review</cite> (edited by Mr. Bunting).</p> - -<p class='c007'><cite>Fraser’s Magazine</cite> (edited by Mr. Froude).</p> - -<p class='c007'><cite>Cornhill Magazine</cite> (edited by Mr. Leslie Stephen).</p> - -<p class='c007'><cite>The Fortnightly Review</cite> (edited by Mr. Morley).</p> - -<p class='c007'><cite>Macmillan’s Magazine</cite> (edited by Mr. Masson).</p> - -<p class='c007'><cite>The Theological Review</cite> (Unitarian Organ, edited by -Rev. C. Beard).</p> - -<p class='c007'><cite>The Modern Review</cite> (Unitarian, edited by Rev. R. Armstrong).</p> - -<p class='c007'><cite>The New Quarterly Magazine</cite> (edited by W. Oswald -Crawford).</p> - -<p class='c007'>One collection of these articles was published by Trübner -in 1865, entitled <cite>Studies New and Old on Ethical and Social -Subjects</cite>; (1 vol., crown 8vo., pp. 466). This volume begins -with an elaborate study of “<cite>Christian Ethics and the Ethics of -Christ</cite>” (<cite>Theological Review</cite>, September, 1869), which I have -often wished to reprint in a separate form. Also a very -long and careful study of the <cite>Sacred Books of the Zoroastrians</cite>, -which brought me the visits and friendships of a very -interesting Parsee gentleman, Nowrosjee Furdoonjee, President -of the Bombay Parsee Society, and of another Parsee -gentleman resident in London. Both expressed their entire -approval of my representation of their religion.</p> - -<p class='c007'>These <cite>Studies</cite> also contain a long paper on the <cite>Philosophy -of the Poor Laws</cite>, which, as I have narrated in a previous -chapter, fell into fertile soil on the mind of an Australian -gentleman and caused the introduction of some of the -reforms I advocated into the Poor Law system of New South -Wales.</p> - -<p class='c007'>There were also in this volume articles on “<cite>Hades</cite>”; -on the “<cite>Morals of Literature</cite>”; and on the “<cite>Hierarchy -of Art</cite>,” which perhaps have some value; but I have -<span class='pageno' id='Page_422'>422</span>not of late years cared to press the book, and have -not included it in Mr. Fisher Unwin’s Re-issue of 1893 -on account of the paper it contains on “<cite>The Rights of -Man and the Claims of Brutes</cite>.” This article, which -appeared first in <cite>Fraser’s Magazine</cite>, Nov., 1863, was my -earliest effort (so far as I know, the first effort of anybody) -to work out the very obscure and difficult ethical problem to -which it refers, in answer to the demands of Vivisectors. -I am not satisfied with the position I took up in this paper. -In the thirty years which have elapsed since I wrote it, my -thoughts have been greatly exercised on the subject, and I -think I see the “Claims of Brutes” more clearly, and find -them higher than I did. But, though I believe that I expressed -the most advanced opinion <em>of that time</em> on the duty of Man to -the lower animals, and of the offence of cruelty towards them, -I here enter my <i><span lang="la" xml:lang="la">caveat</span></i> against the quotation of this article -(as was lately done by a zealous Zoophilist) as if it still -represented exactly what I think on the subject after -pondering upon it for thirty years, and taking part in the -Anti-vivisection crusade for two entire decades.</p> - -<p class='c007'>I have mentioned this matter especially, because it is of -some importance to me, and also because I do not find that -there is any other opinion which I have ever published -in any book or article, on morals or religion, which I now -desire to withdraw, or even of which I care to modify the -expression. It is a great happiness to me at the end of a -long and busy literary life, to feel that I have never written -anything of which I repent, or which I wish to unsay.</p> - -<p class='c007'>A collection of minor articles, with several fresh papers -of a lighter sort,—an <cite>Allegory</cite>, <cite>The Spectral Rout</cite>, &c.—was -also published by Trübner in 1867, under the name of <cite>Hours -of Work and Play</cite>.</p> - -<p class='c007'>In 1872 Messrs. Williams & Norgate published a rather -large collection of my Essays, under the name of <cite>Darwinism -<span class='pageno' id='Page_423'>423</span>in Morals and other Essays</cite>. The first is a review of the -theory of ethics expounded in Darwin’s <cite>Descent of Man</cite>. I -argue that the moral history of mankind (so far as it is -known to us) gives no support whatever to Mr. Darwin’s -hypothesis that Conscience is the result of certain contingencies -in our development, and that it might, at an earlier stage, -have been moulded into quite another form, causing Good to -appear to us Evil, and Evil Good.</p> - -<p class='c008'>“I think we have a right to say that the suggestions -offered by the highest scientific intellects of our time to -account for its existence on principles which shall leave it -on the level of other instincts, have failed to approve -themselves as true to the facts of the case. And I think, -therefore, that we are called on to believe still in the validity -of our own moral consciousness, even as we believe in the -validity of our other faculties; and to rest in the faith -(well-nigh universal) of the human race, in a fixed and -supreme Law, of which the will of God is the embodiment -and Conscience the Divine transcript.”—<cite>Darwinism in -Morals</cite>, p. 32.</p> - -<p class='c006'>In this same volume (included in the re-issue) are essays -on <cite>Hereditary Piety</cite> (a review of Mr. Galton’s <cite>Hereditary -Genius</cite>); one on <cite>The Religion of Childhood</cite>, on Robertson’s <cite>Life</cite>; -on “A French Theist” (M. Pécaut); and a series of studies -on Eastern Religions; including reviews of Mr. Ferguson’s -<cite>Tree and Serpent Worship</cite> (with which Mr. F. was so pleased -that he made me a present, of his magnificent book); -Bunsen’s <cite>God in History</cite>, Max Muller’s <cite>Chips from a German -Workshop</cite>, and Mrs. Manning’s <cite>Ancient and Mediæval India</cite>. -Each of these is a careful essay on one or other of the -oriental faiths referring to many other books on each subject. -Beside these there are in the same volume two articles on -<cite>Unconscious Cerebration</cite> and <cite>Dreams</cite>, which excited some -interest in their day; and seem to me (if I be not misled by -<span class='pageno' id='Page_424'>424</span>vanity) to have forestalled a good deal which has been written -of late years about the “subliminal” or “subjective” -consciousness.</p> - -<p class='c007'>In 1875, Messrs. Ward, Lock & Tyler, for whose <cite>New -Quarterly Magazine</cite> I had written two long articles on -<cite>Animals in Fable and Art</cite> and the <cite>Fauna of Fancy</cite>, asked -my consent to re-publishing them in their <cite>Country House -Library</cite>. To this I gladly agreed, adding my article in the -<cite>Quarterly Review</cite> on the <cite>Consciousness of Dogs</cite>; and that in -<cite>the Cornhill</cite>: “<cite>Dogs whom I have met</cite>.” The volume was -prettily got up, and published under the name of “<cite>False -Beasts and True</cite>.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>From the close of 1874, when I undertook the Anti-vivisection -crusade, my literary activity dwindled down -rapidly to small proportions. In the course of eight years I -wrote enough magazine articles to fill one volume, published -in 1882, and containing essays on <cite>Magnanimous Atheism</cite>; -<cite>Pessimism and One of its Professors</cite>, and a few other papers, -of which the most important,—the <cite>Peak in Darien</cite>,—gives -its name to the book. It is an argument, (with many facts -cited in its support,) for believing that the dying, as they are -passing the threshold, not seldom become aware of the -presence of beloved ones waiting for them in the new state of -existence which they are actually entering.</p> - -<p class='c007'>After this book I wrote little for some years, but in 1888 I -was asked to contribute an article to the <cite>Universal Review</cite> -on the <cite>Scientific Spirit of the Age</cite>. I gladly acceded, but the -Editor desired to cut down my MS., so I published it as a -book with a few other older papers; notably one on the -<cite>Town Mouse and the Country Mouse</cite>; a half-humorous study -of the <em>pros</em> and <em>cons</em> of Life in London, and Life in a -Country house.</p> - -<p class='c007'>After this, again, I published two editions of a little -compilation, the “<cite>Friend of Man and His Friends the Poets</cite>;” -<span class='pageno' id='Page_425'>425</span>a collection (with running commentary) of Poems of all ages -and countries relating to Dogs, which were likely, I -thought, to aid my poor, four-footed friends’ claims to -sympathy and respect.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Of my remaining books, the <cite>Duties of Women</cite>, and <cite>The -Modern Rack</cite> I shall speak in the chapters which respectively -concern my work for Women, and the Anti-vivisection -movement.</p> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_427'>427</span> - <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER<br /> XVI.<br /> <span class='large'><em>MY LIFE IN LONDON IN THE SIXTIES AND SEVENTIES</em><br /> <em>JOURNALISM.</em></span></h2> -</div> - -<p class='c006'><span class='pageno' id='Page_429'>429</span>Journalism is, to my thinking, a delightful profession, -full of interest, and promise of ever-extending usefulness. -During the years in which I was a professional Journalist, -when I had occasion to go into a Bank or a lawyer’s office, -I always pitied the clerks for their dull, monotonous, ugly -work, as compared with mine. If not carried on too long or -continuously,—so that the brain begins to <em>churn</em> leaders -sleeping or waking (a dreadful state of things into which we -<em>may</em> fall),—it is pre-eminently healthy, being so full of variety -and calling for so many different mental faculties one after -another. Promptitude, clear and quick judgment as to what -is, and is not, expedient and decorous to say; a ready -memory well stored with illustrations and unworn quotations, -a bright and strong style; and, if it can be attained, a -playful (not saturnine) humour superadded,—all these -qualities and attainments are called for in writing for a daily -newspaper; and the practice of them cannot fail to sharpen -their edge. To be in touch with the most striking events of -the whole world, and enjoy the privilege of giving your -opinion on them to 50,000 or 100,000 readers within a few -hours, this struck me, when I first recognised that such was -my business as a leader-writer, as something for which -many prophets and preachers of old would have given a -house full of silver and gold. And I was to be <em>paid</em> for -accepting it! It is one thing to be a “Vox clamantis in -Deserto,” and quite another to speak in Fleet Street, and, -without lifting up one’s voice, to reach all at once, as many -men as formed the population of ancient Athens, not to say -<span class='pageno' id='Page_430'>430</span>that of Jerusalem! But I must not “magnify mine office” -too fondly!</p> - -<p class='c007'>From the time of my second journey to Italy I obtained -employment, as I have mentioned, as Correspondent to the -<cite>Daily News</cite>, with whose Italian politics I was in sympathy. -I also wrote all sorts of miscellaneous papers and descriptions -for the <cite>Spectator</cite>, the <cite>Reader</cite>, the <cite>Inquirer</cite>, the <cite>Academy</cite>, and -the <cite>Examiner</cite>. When in London I was engaged on the -staff of the short-lived <cite>Day</cite> (1867); and much lamented its -untimely eclipse, when my friend Mr. Haweis, unkindly -“chaffed” me by mourning over it:—</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c018'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“<em>Sweet</em> Day!</div> - <div class='line'>How <em>cool</em>! how bright!”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c007'>I was paid, however, handsomely for all I had written -for it, and a few months later I received an invitation from -Mr. Arthur Arnold (since M.P. for Salford) to join his staff -on the newly-founded <cite>Echo</cite>. It was a great experiment on -the part of the proprietors, Messrs. Petter & Galpin, to start -a half-penny paper. Such a thing did not then exist in -England, and the ridicule it encountered, and boycotting from -the news-agents who could not make enough profit on it to -satisfy themselves, were very serious obstacles to success. -Nevertheless Mr. Arnold’s great tact and ability cleared the -way, and before many months our circulation, I believe, was -very large indeed. My share in the undertaking was soon -arranged after a few interviews and experiments. It was -agreed that I should go on three mornings every week at ten -o’clock, to the office in Catherine Street, Strand, and there in -a private room for my own use only, write a leading article -on some social subject after arranging with the editor what -it should be. I am proud to say that for seven years from -that time till I retired, I never once failed to keep my engagement. -Of course I took a few weeks’ holiday every year; -<span class='pageno' id='Page_431'>431</span>but Mr. Arnold never expected his contributor in vain. -Sometimes it was hard work for me; I had a cold, or was -otherwise ill, or the snow lay thick and cabs from South -Kensington were not to be had. Nevertheless I made my -way to my destination punctually; and, when there, I wrote -my leader, and as many “Notes” as were allotted to me, -and thus proved, I hope, once for all, that a woman may be -relied on as a journalist no less than a man. I do not think -indeed, that very many masculine journalists could make the -same boast of regularity as I have done. My first article -appeared in the third number of the <cite>Echo</cite>, December 10th, -1868, and the last on, or about, March, 1875. Of course at -first I found it a little difficult to write exactly what, and how -much was wanted, neither more nor less; but practice made -this easier. I wrote, of course, on all manner of subjects, -politics excepted; but chose in preference those which offered -some ethical interest,—or (on the other hand) an opening for -a little fun! The reader may see specimens of both, <em>e.g.</em>, the -papers on the great <cite>Divorce Case</cite>; <cite>Lent in Belgravia</cite>; and on -<cite>Fat People</cite>; <cite>Sweeping under the Mats</cite>, &c., in <cite>Re-echoes</cite>, a little -book compiled from a selection of my <cite>Echo</cite> articles which -Tauchnitz reproduced in his library. A few incidents in my -experience in Catherine Street recur to me, and may be worth -recording.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Terrible stories of misery and death were continuously -cropping up in the reports of Coroners’ Inquests, and I found -that if I took these reports as they were published and wrote -leading articles on them, we were almost sure next day to -receive several letters begging the Editor to forward money -(enclosed) to the surviving relations. It became a duty for me -to satisfy myself of the veracity of these stories before setting -them forth with claims for public sympathy; and in this way -I came to see some of the sadder sides of poverty in London. -There was one case I distinctly recall, of a poor lady, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_432'>432</span>daughter of a country rector, who was found (after having -been missed for several days, but not sought for) lying dead, -scarcely clothed, on the bare floor of a room in a miserable -lodging-house in Drury Lane. I went to the house and found -it a filthy coffee-house, frequented by unwashed customers. -The mistress, though likewise unwashed, was obviously what -is termed “respectable.” She told me that her unhappy -lodger was a woman of 40 or 50, perfectly sober and well -conducted in every way. She had been a governess in very -good families, but had remained unemployed till her clothes -grew shabby. She walked all day long over London for -many weeks, seeking any kind of work or means of support, -and selling by degrees everything she possessed for food. -At last she returned to her wretched room in that house into -which it was a pain for any lady to enter,—and having begged -a last cup of tea from her landlady, telling her she could not -pay for it, she locked her door, and was heard of no more. -Many days afterwards the busy landlady noticed that she had -not seen her going in or out, and finding her door locked, -called the police to open it. There was hardly an atom of -flesh on the poor worn frame, scarcely clothes for decency, -no food, no coals in the grate. “<em>Death from Starvation</em>” -was the only possible verdict. When the case had been -made public, relatives, obviously belonging to a very good -class of society, came hastily and took away the corpse for -burial in some family vault. The sight, the sounds, the -fetid smells of that sordid lodging-house as endured by that -lonely, dying, starving lady, will haunt me while I live.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Another incident (in January, 1869) had a happier -conclusion. There was a case in the law Reports one -day of a woman named Susannah Palmer, who was sent -to Newgate for stabbing her husband. The story was -a piteous one as I verified it. Her husband was a -savage who had continually beaten her; had turned her -<span class='pageno' id='Page_433'>433</span>out of the house at night; brought in a bad woman in her -place; and then had deserted her for months, leaving her to -support herself and their children. After a time he would -suddenly return, take the money she had earned out of her -pocket (as he had then a legal right to do), sell up any furniture -she possessed; kick and beat her again; and then -again desert her. One day she was cutting bread for the -children when he struck her, and the knife in her hand cut -him; whereupon he gave her in charge for “feloniously -wounding”; and she was sent to jail. The Common Sergeant -humanely observed as he passed sentence that “Newgate -would be ten times better for her than the hell in which she -was compelled to live.” It was the old epitaph exemplified:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c018'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Here lies the wife of Matthew Ford,</div> - <div class='line'>Whose soul we hope is with the Lord;</div> - <div class='line'>But if for Hell she’s changed this life</div> - <div class='line'>‘’Tis better than being Mat. Ford’s wife!’”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c007'>Having obtained through John Locke (the well-known -Member for Southwark, who had married my cousin) a special -permit from the Lord Mayor, I saw the poor, pale creature in -Newgate and heard her long tale of wrong and misery. The -good Ordinary of the jail felt deeply with me for her; and -when I had seen the people who employed her as charwoman -(barbers and shoemakers in Cowcross Street) and -received the best character of her, I felt justified in appealing, -in the <cite>Echo</cite>, for help for her, and also in circulating a little -pamphlet on her behalf. Eventually, when Mrs. Palmer left -Newgate a few weeks later, it was to take possession, as -<em>caretaker for the chaplain</em>, of nice, tidy rooms where she and -her children could live in peace, and where her brutal -husband could not follow her, since the place belonged legally -to the chaplain.</p> - -<p class='c007'>When there was a dearth of interesting news on the -mornings of my leader-writing, it was my custom to send for -<span class='pageno' id='Page_434'>434</span>a certain newspaper, the organ of the extreme Ritualistic -party, and out of this I seldom failed to extract <cite>Pabulum</cite> for -a cheerful article! One day, just after the 29th of September, -I found such a record of folly,—vestments, processions, -thuribles, and what not, that I proceeded with glee to write -a leader on <cite>Michaelmas Geese</cite>. Next day, to my intense -amusement, there was a letter at the office addressed to the -author of the article, in which one of the “Geese,” whom I -had particularly attacked and who naturally supposed me -to be a man, invited me to come and dine with him, and -“talk of these matters over a good glass of sherry and a -cigar!” The worldly wisdom which induced the excellent -clergyman to try and thus “silence my guns” by inducing -me to share his salt; and his idea of the irresistible attractions -of sherry and cigars to a “poor devil” (as he obviously -supposed) of a contributor to a half-penny paper, made a -delightful joke. I had the greatest mind in the world to -accept the invitation without betraying my sex till I should -arrive at his door in the fullest of my feminine finery, and -claim his dinner; but I was prudent, and he never knew who -was the midge who had assailed him.</p> - -<p class='c007'>The incident reminds me of another journalistic experience -not connected with the <cite>Echo</cite>, which throws some light on -certain charges recently discussed about “commissions” -given to newspaper writers who puff the goods of tradesmen -under the guise of instructing the public in the latest -fashions in dress, furniture and <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">bric-à-brac</span></i>. It was the -only case in which any bribe of the kind ever came to my -door. Some <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">grandes dames</span></i> anxious for the health of -work-girls, had opened a millinery establishment in -Clifford Street on purely philanthropic lines, and begged -me to write an appeal in the <cite>Times</cite> for support for it. -After visiting the beautiful, airy workrooms and dormitories, -I did this with a clear conscience (of course gratuitously) to -<span class='pageno' id='Page_435'>435</span>oblige my friends on the Committee. Next day a smart -brougham drove to my door in Hereford Square, and an -exquisitely dressed lady got out of it, and sent in her card, -“Madame D——.” I was so grossly ignorant of fashionable -millinery, that I did not know that my visitor was then at -the very apex of that lofty commerce. She remonstrated -on my injustice in praising the Clifford Street establishment, -when <em>her</em> girls were exactly as well lodged and fed. “Would -I not come and see for myself, and then write and say so -equally publicly?” I agreed that this would be only fair, -and fixed an hour for my inspection; on which she gracefully -thanked me and departed, murmuring as she disappeared -that she would be happy to present me with “<i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Une jolie -toilette!</span></i>” Poor woman! She had come to the only gentlewoman -perhaps in London to whom a “toilette” by Madame -D—— offered no attractions at all, and to whom (even if I -would have accepted one) it would have been useless, seeing -that I never wore anything but the simply-made skirts and -jackets of my maid’s manufacture. Of course I visited and -justly praised her establishment, as I had promised; and I -suppose she long expected me to come and claim her “<i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">jolie -toilette!</span></i>”</p> - -<p class='c007'>There was another story of which the memory is in my -mind closely associated with a dear young friend,—Miss -Letitia Probyn, who helped me ardently in my efforts, -very shortly before her untimely death, while bathing, at -Hendaye near Arcachon. The case of a woman named -Isabel Grant moved us deeply. The poor creature, in a -drunken struggle with her husband at supper, had cut him -with the bread knife in such manner that he died next day. -Her remorse was most genuine and extreme. She was -sentenced to be hanged; and just at the same time an Irishman -who had murdered his wife under circumstances of -exceptional brutality and who had from first to last gloried -<span class='pageno' id='Page_436'>436</span>in his crime, was set free after a week’s imprisonment! -We got up a Memorial for Isabel Grant, Miss Probyn’s -family interest enabling her to obtain many influential -signatures; and we contrived that both the cases of -exceptional severity to the repentant woman and that of -lenity to the unrepentant man, should be set forth in juxtaposition -in a score of newspapers. In the end Isabel Grant -obtained a commutation of her sentence.</p> - -<p class='c007'>In 1875 the proprietors of the <cite>Echo</cite> sold the paper to -Baron Grant; and Mr. Arnold and I at once resigned our -positions as Editor and Contributor. He had created the -paper,—I may say even more,—had created first-class, half-penny -journalism altogether; and it was deeply regretted -that his able and judicious guidance was lost to the <cite>Echo</cite>. -After an interval, the paper was redeemed from the first -purchaser’s hands by that generous gentleman, Mr. Passmore -Edwards, than whom it could have no better Proprietor.</p> - -<p class='c007'>I wrote on the whole more than 1,000 leading articles, and -a vast number of Notes, for the <cite>Echo</cite> during the seven years -in which I worked upon its staff. The contributors who -successively occupied the same columns of second leaders on -my off-days were willing, (as I believe Mr. Arnold desired), -to adopt on the whole the general line of sentiment and -principle which my articles maintained; and thus I had the -comfort of thinking that, as regarded social ethics, my work -had given in some measure the tone to the paper. It was <em>my -pulpit</em>, with permission to make in it (what other pulpits lack -so sadly!) such jokes as pleased me; and to put forward on -hundreds of matters my views of what was right and -honourable. We did not profess to be “written by gentlemen -for gentlemen.” The saturnine jests, the snarls and the -pessimisms of the clubs were not in our way; and we did -not affect to be <em>blasés</em>, or to think the whole world was going -to the dogs. There were of course subjects on which a -<span class='pageno' id='Page_437'>437</span>Liberal like Mr. Arnold and a Tory like myself differed -widely; and then I left them untouched, for (I need scarcely -say) I never wrote a line in that or any other paper not in -fullest accordance with my own opinions and convictions, on -any subject small or great. The work, I think, was at all -events wholesome and harmless. I hope that it also did, -now and then, a little good.</p> - -<p class='c007'>After the sudden and unexpected termination of my -connection with the <cite>Echo</cite> I accepted gladly an engagement, -not requiring personal attendance, on the staff of the -<cite>Standard</cite>, and wrote two or three leaders a week for that -newspaper, for a considerable time. At last the Vivisection -controversy came in the way, when I resigned my post in -consequence of the appearance of a pro-vivisecting paragraph. -The editor assured me generally of his approval of my -crusade, and I wrote a few articles more, but the engagement -finally dropped. My time had indeed become too much -absorbed by the other work to carry on regular Journalism -with the needful vigour.</p> - -<p class='c007'>It may interest women who are entering the profession in -which I found such pleasure and profit, to know that as -regards “filthy lucre,” I found it more remunerative than -writing for the best monthly or quarterly periodicals. I did -both at the same period; often sitting down to spend some -hours of the afternoon over a “Study of Eastern Religion” -or some such subject, when I had gone to the Strand and -written my leader and notes in the forenoon. Putting all -together and the profits of my books, (which were small -enough,) I made by my literary and journalistic work at one -time a fair income. This golden epoch ended, however, -when I threw myself into the Anti-vivisection movement, after -which date I do not think I have ever earned more than £100 -a year, and for the last 12 years not £20. I suppose in -my whole life I have earned nearly £5,000, rather more -<span class='pageno' id='Page_438'>438</span>than my whole patrimony. What my poor father -would have felt had he known that his daughter eked -out her subsistence by going down in all weathers -to write articles for a half-penny newspaper in the -Strand, I cannot guess. My brothers happily had no -objection to my industry, and the eldest—who drew, -as usual with elder sons in our class, more money every -year from the family property than I received for life,—kindly -paid off my charges on the estate and added £100 a -year to the proceeds, so that I was thenceforth, for my -moderate wants, fairly well off, especially since I had a -friend who shared all expenses of housekeeping with me.</p> - -<p class='c007'>In reviewing my whole literary and journalistic life as I -have done in these two chapters, I perceive that I have been -from first to last <em>an Essayist</em>; almost <em>pur et simple</em>. I have -done very little in any other way than to try to put forward—either -at large in a book or in a magazine article, or, lastly, in -a newspaper-leader—which was always a miniature essay,—an -appeal for some object, an argument for some truth, a -vindication of some principle, an exposure of what I conceived -to be an absurdity, a wrong, a falsehood, or a -cruelty. At first I had exaggerated hopes of success in -these endeavours. Books had been a great deal to me in -my own solitary life, and I far over-estimated their practical -power. When editors and publishers readily accepted my -articles and books, and reviewers praised them, I fancied, -(though they never sold very freely,) that I was really given -the great privilege of moving many hearts. But by degrees -as years went on I felt the sorrowful limitation of literary -influence. Sometimes I was wild with disappointment and -indignation when critics lauded the “style” of my books -while they never so much as noticed the <em>purpose</em> for sake of -which I had laboured to make them good and strong -literature.</p> - -<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_439'>439</span>For my own part I have shunned Review-writing; partly -(as regarded newspaper criticism) for the rather sordid reason -that it involves the double labour of reading and writing for -the same pay per column, but generally, and in all cases, -because I cannot say,—as dear Fanny Kemble used to remark -in a sepulchral voice (quite falsely), “<em>I am nothing if not -critical</em>.” On the contrary, I am several other things, and -very little critical; and the pain and deadly injury I have -seen inflicted by a severe review is a form of cruelty for -which I have no predilection. It is necessary, no doubt, -in the literary community that there should be warders -and executioners at the public command to birch juvenile -offenders, and flog garrotters, and hang anarchists; but I never -felt any vocation for those disagreeable offices. The few reviews -I have ever written have been properly Essays on given -subjects, taking some book which I could honestly praise for a -peg. As in the old Egyptian <cite>Book of the Dead</cite> the soul of the -deceased protests, among his forty-two abjurations,—“I have -not been the cause of others’ tears,”—so, I hope, I may say, I -have given no brother or sister of the pen the wound (and often -the ruinous loss) of a damaging critique of his or her books. -If my writings have given pain to any persons, it can only -have been to men whose dead consciences it would be an act -of mercy to awaken, and towards whom I feel not the smallest -compunction. Briefly I conclude in this book, (doubtless -my last), a long and moderately successful literary life, with -no serious regrets, but with much thankfulness and rejoicing -for all the interest, the pleasure and the warm and precious -friendships which the profession of letters has brought to me -ever since I entered it,—just forty years ago,—when -William Longman accepted my <cite>Intuitive Morals</cite>.</p> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_441'>441</span> - <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER<br /> XVII.<br /> <span class='large'><em>MY LIFE IN LONDON IN THE SIXTIES AND SEVENTIES.</em><br /> <em>SOCIAL.</em></span></h2> -</div> - -<p class='c006'><span class='pageno' id='Page_443'>443</span>When we had settled down, as we did rapidly, into our -pretty little house in South Kensington, we began soon to -enjoy many social pleasures of a quiet kind. Into Society -(with a big <em>S</em>!), we had no pretensions to enter, but we had -many friends, very genuine and delightful ones, ere long; and -a great many interesting acquaintances. Happily death has -spared not a few of these until now, and, of course, of them I -shall not write here; but of some of those who have “gone over -to the majority” I shall venture to record my recollections, -interspersed in some cases with their letters. I may premise -that we were much given to dining out, but not to attending -late evening parties; and that in our small way we gave -little dinners now and then, and occasionally afternoon and -evening parties,—the former held sometimes in summer -under the lime trees behind our house. I attribute my -long retention of good health to my persistence in going -to bed before eleven o’clock, and never accepting late -invitations.</p> - -<p class='c007'>I hope I shall be acquitted of the presumption of pretending -to offer in the scrappy <em>souvenirs</em> I shall now put -together any important contribution to the memoirs of the -future. At best, a woman’s knowledge of the eminent men -whom she only meets at dinner parties, and perhaps in -occasional quiet afternoon visits, is not to be compared to -that of their associates in their clubs, in Parliament and in -all the work of the world. Nevertheless as all of us, human -beings, resemble diamonds in having several distinct facets -to our characters, and as we always turn one of these to one -<span class='pageno' id='Page_444'>444</span>person and another to another, there is generally some fresh -side to be seen in a particularly brilliant gem. The relation -too, which a good and kindly man (and such I am happy to -say were most of my acquaintances) bears to a woman who -is neither his mother, sister, daughter, wife or potential wife, -but merely a reasonably intelligent listener and companion -of restful hours, is so different from that which he holds -to his masculine fellow-workers,—rivals, allies or enemies -as they may be,—that it can rarely happen but that -she sees him in quite a different light from theirs. -Englishmen are not eaten up with <i><span lang="la" xml:lang="la">Invidia</span></i>, like -Italians and Frenchmen, such as made D’ Azeglio say to -me that it was a positive danger to a statesman to win a -battle, or gain a diplomatic triumph, so much envy did it -excite among his own party. In our country, men, and still -more emphatically, women, glory enthusiastically in the -successes of their friends, if not of others. But the masculine -mind, so far as I have got to the bottom of it, (as George -Eliot says, “it is always so superior—<em>what there is of it</em>!”), -is not so quick in gathering impressions of character as -ours of the softer (and therefore, I suppose, more waxlike) -sex; and when fifty men have said their say on a great -man I should always wish to hear <em>also</em> what the women who -knew him socially had to add to their testimony. In short, -dear Fanny Kemble’s “<cite>Old Woman’s Gossip</cite>” seems to me -admissible on the subject of the character and “little ways” -of everybody worthy of record.</p> - -<p class='c007'>It was certainly an advantage to us in London to be, as -we were, without any kind of ulterior aim or object in -meeting our friends and acquaintances, beyond the pleasure -of the hour. We never had anything in view in the way of -social ambition; not even daughters to bring out! It was not -“<i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">de l’Art pour l’Art</span></i>,” but <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">la Société pour la Société</span></i>, and -nothing beyond the amusement of the particular day and -<span class='pageno' id='Page_445'>445</span>the interest of the acquaintanceships we had the good fortune -to make. We had no rank or dignity of any kind to keep -up. I think hardly any of our friends and <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">habitués</span></i> even -knew who we were, from Burke’s point of view! I was -really pleased once, after I had been living for years in -London, to find at a large dinner-party, where at least half -the company were my acquaintances, that not one present -suspected that I had any connection with Ireland at all. -Our host (a very prominent M.P. at the time) having by -chance elicited from me some information on Irish affairs, -asked me, “What do you know about Ireland?” “Simply -that the first 36 years of my life were spent there,” was my -reply; which drew forth a general expression of surprise. -The few who had troubled themselves to think who I was, -had taken it for granted that I belonged to a family of -the same name, <em>minus</em> the final letter, in Oxfordshire. In -a country neighbourhood the one prominent fact about me, -known and repeated to everyone, would have been that -I was the daughter of Charles Cobbe of Newbridge. -I was proud to be accepted and, I hope, liked, on the -strength of my own talk and books, not on that of my -father’s acres.</p> - -<p class='c007'>We did not (of course) live in London all the year round, -but came every summer to Wales to enable my friend to look -after her estate; and I went every two or three years to -Ireland, and more frequently to the houses of my two brothers -in England,—Maulden Rectory, in Bedfordshire, and Easton -Lyss, near Petersfield,—where they respectively lived, and -where both they and their wives were always ready to welcome -me affectionately. I also paid occasional visits at two or -three country houses, notably Broadlands and Aston -Clinton, where I was most kindly invited by the beloved -owners; and twice or three times we let our house for a -term, and went to live on one occasion in Cheyne Walk, and -<span class='pageno' id='Page_446'>446</span>another time at Byfleet. We always fell back, however, on -our dear little house in Hereford Square, till we let it finally -to our old friend Mrs. Kemble, and left London for good in -the spring of 1884.</p> - -<p class='c007'>I think the first real acquaintances we made in London -(whether through Mrs. Somerville or otherwise I cannot -recall) were Sir Charles and Lady Lyell, and their brother -and sister, Col. and Mrs. Lyell. The house, No. 73, Harley -Street—in after years noticeable by its bright blue door, (so -painted to catch Sir Charles’ fading eyesight on his return -from his daily walks), became very dear to us, and I confess -to a pang when it was taken by Mr. and Mrs. Gladstone after -the death of our dear old friends. Like Lord Shaftesbury’s -house in Grosvenor Square, pulled down after his death and -replaced by a brand new mansion in the latest Londonesque -architecture, there was a “bad-dreaminess” about both -transformation scenes. The Lyells regularly attended Mr. -Martineau’s chapel in Little Portland Street, as we did; and -ere long it became a habit for us to adjourn after the service -to Harley Street and spend some of the afternoon with our -friends, discussing the large supply of mental food which our -pastor never failed to lay before us. Those were never-to-be-forgotten -Sundays.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Sir Charles Lyell realised to my mind the Man of Science -as he was of old; devout, and yet entirely free-thinking in -the true sense; filled with admiring, almost adoring love for -Nature, and also (all the more for that enthusiasm), simple -and fresh-hearted as a child. When a good story had tickled -him he would come and tell it to us with infinite relish. I -recollect especially his delight in an American boy (I think -somehow connected with our friend Mr. Herman Merivale), -who, being directed to say his prayers night and morning, -replied that he had no objection to do so at <em>night</em>, but -thought that “a boy who is worth anything can take care of -<span class='pageno' id='Page_447'>447</span>himself <em>by day</em>.”<a id='r21' /><a href='#f21' class='c013'><sup>[21]</sup></a> Another time we had been discussing -Evolution, and some of us had betrayed the impression that -the doctrine, (which he had then recently adopted), involved -always the survival of the <em>best</em>, as well as of the “fittest.” -Sir Charles left the room and went downstairs, but suddenly -rushed back into the drawing-room, and said to me all in a -breath, standing on the rug: “I’ll explain it to you in one -minute! Suppose <em>you</em> had been living in Spain three -hundred years ago, and had had a sister who was a perfectly -common-place person, and believed everything she was told. -Well! your sister would have been happily married and had -a numerous progeny, and that would have been the survival -of the fittest; but <em>you</em> would have been burnt at an <i><span lang="pt" xml:lang="pt">auto-da-fè</span></i>, -and there would have been an end of you. You -would have been unsuited to your environment. There! -that’s Evolution! Good-bye!” On went his hat, and we -heard the hall door close after him before we had done -laughing.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Sir Charles’ interest in his own particular science was -eager as that of a boy. One day I had a long conversation -with him at his brother, Colonel Lyell’s hospitable house, on -the subject of the Glacial period. He told me that he was -employing regular calculators at Greenwich to make out the -results of the ice-cap and how it would affect land and sea; -whether it would cause double tides, &c. He said he had -pointed out (what no one else had noticed) that the water to -form this ice-cap did not come from another planet, but -must have been deducted from the rest of the water on -<span class='pageno' id='Page_448'>448</span>the globe. Another day I met him at a very imposing -private concert in Regent’s Park. The following is my -description of our conversation in a letter to my friend, -Miss Elliot:—</p> - -<p class='c008'>“Sir Charles sat beside me yesterday at a great musical -party at the D.’s, and I asked him, ‘Did he like music?’ -He said, ‘Yes! <em>for it allowed him to go on thinking his own -thoughts.</em>’ And so he evidently did, while they were singing -Mendelssohn and Handel! At every interval he turned to -me. ‘Agassiz has made a discovery. I can’t sleep for -thinking of it. He finds traces of the Glaciers in tropical -America.’ (Here intervened a sacred song.) ‘Well, as -I was saying, you know 230,000 years ago the eccentricity -of the earth’s orbit was at one of its maximum periods; -and we were 11,000,000 miles further from the sun in -winter, and the cold of those winters must have been -intense; because heat varies, not according to direct ratio, -but the squares of the distances.’ ‘Well,’ said I, ‘but -then the summers were as much hotter?’ (Sacred song.) -‘No, the summers wern’t! They could not have conquered -the cold.’ ‘Then you think that the astronomical -230,000 years corresponded with the glacial period? Is -that time enough for all the strata since?’ (Handel.) ‘I -don’t know. Perhaps we must go back to the still greater -period of the eccentricity of the orbit three million years -ago. Then we were 14 millions of miles out of the circular -path.’ (Mendelssohn.) ‘Good-bye, dear Sir Charles—I -must be off.’</p> - -<p class='c010'>“Another day last week, he came and sat with me for -two hours. I would not light candles, and we got very -deep into talk. I was greatly comforted and instructed by -all he said. I asked him how the modern attacks on the -argument from Design in Nature, and Darwin’s views, -touched him religiously? He replied, ‘Not at all.’ He -thought the proofs in Nature of the Divine Goodness quite -triumphant; and that he watched with secret pleasure -even sceptical men of science whenever they forget their -<span class='pageno' id='Page_449'>449</span>theories, instinctively using phrases, all <em>implying</em> designing -wisdom.”</p> - -<p class='c006'>I remember on another occasion Sir Charles telling me -with much glee of two eminent Agnostic friends of ours who -had been discussing some question for a long time, when -one said to the other, “You are getting very <em>teleological</em>!” -To which the friend responded, “I can’t help it!”</p> - -<p class='c007'>At another of his much prized visits to me (April 19th, -1866) he spoke earnestly of the future life, and made this -memorable remark of which I took a note: “The further I -advance in science, the less the mere physical difficulties in -believing in immortality disturb me. I have learned to think -nothing too amazing to be within the order of Nature.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>The great inequalities in the conditions of men and the -sufferings of many seemed to be his strongest reasons for -believing in another life. He added: “Aristotle says that -every creature has its instincts given by its Creator, and each -instinct leads to its good. Now the belief in immortality is -an instinct tending to good.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>After the death of his beloved wife—the truest “helpmeet” -ever man possessed—he became even more absorbed in the -problem of a future existence, and very frequently came and -talked with me on the subject. The last time I had a real -conversation with him was not long before his death, when -we met one sweet autumn day by chance in Regent’s Park, -not far from the Zoological Gardens. We sat down under a -tree and had a long discussion of the validity of religious -faith. I think his argument culminated in this position:—</p> - -<p class='c008'>“The presumption is enormous that all our faculties, -though liable to err, are true in the main, and point to real -objects. The religious faculty in man is one of the strongest -of all. It existed in the earliest ages, and instead of -wearing out before advancing civilization, it grows stronger -and stronger; and is, to-day, more developed among the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_450'>450</span>highest races than ever it was before. I think we may -safely trust that it points to a great truth.”</p> - -<p class='c006'>Here is another glimpse of him from a letter:—</p> - -<p class='c008'>“After service I went to Harley Street, Sir Charles, I -thought, looking better than for a long time. He thinks the -caves of Aurignac can never be used as evidence; the -witnesses were all tampered with from the first. He saw a -skeleton found at Mentone 15 feet deep, which he thinks of -the same age as the Gibraltar caves. The legs were -distinctly platycnemic, and there was also a curious process -on the front of the shoulder—like the breast of a chicken. -The skull was full-sized and good. I asked him how he -accounted for the fact that with the best will in the world -we could not find the <em>least</em> difference between the most -ancient skulls and our own? He said the theory had been -suggested that all the first growth went to brain, so that -very early men acquired large brains, as was necessary. -This is not very Darwinian, is it?”</p> - -<p class='c006'>It is the destiny of all books of Science to be soon -superseded and superannuated, while those of Literature may -live for all time. I suppose Sir Charles Lyell’s <cite>Principles -of Geology</cite> has undergone, or will undergo, this fate ere -long; but the magnanimity and candour which made him, in -issuing the 10th edition of that book, abjure all his previous -arguments against Evolution and candidly own himself -Darwin’s convert, was an evidence of genuine loyalty to truth -which I trust can never be quite forgotten. He was, as -Prof. Huxley called him, the “greatest Geologist of his day,”—the -man “who found Geology an infant science feebly -contending for a few scattered truths, and left it a giant, -grasping all the ages of the past.” But to my memory -he will always be something more than <em>an</em> eminent man of -Science. He was the type of what <em>such men ought to be</em>; -with the simplicity, humility and gentleness which should be -<span class='pageno' id='Page_451'>451</span>characteristic of the true student of Nature. Of the priestlike -arrogance of some representatives of the modern scientific -spirit he had not a taint. In one of his last letters to me, -he said:</p> - -<p class='c008'>“I am told that the same philosophy which is opposed -to a belief in a future state undertakes to prove that every -one of our acts and thoughts are the necessary result of -antecedent events, and conditions and that there can be no -such thing as Free-will in man. I am quite content that -both doctrines should stand on the same foundation; for -as I cannot help being convinced that I have the power of -exerting Free-will, however great a mystery the possibility -of this may be, so the continuance of a spiritual life may -be true, however inexplicable or incapable of proof.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“I am told by some that if any of our traditionary -beliefs make us happier and lead us to estimate humanity -more highly, we ought to be careful not to endeavour to -establish any scientific truths which would lessen and lower -our estimate of Man’s place in Nature; in short, we should -do nothing to disturb any man’s faith, if it be a delusion -which increases his happiness.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“But I hope and believe that the discovery and -propagation of every truth, and the dispelling of every -error tends to improve and better the condition of man, -though the act of reforming old opinions causes so much -pain and misery.”</p> - -<p class='c006'>It will give me pleasure if these few reminiscences of my -honoured friend send fresh readers to his excellent and spirited -biography by his sister-in-law Mrs. Lyell, Lady Lyell’s -sister, who was also his brother, Colonel Lyell’s wife; the -mother of Sir Leonard Lyell, M.P.</p> - -<p class='c007'>I saw a great deal of Dr. Colenso during the years he -spent in England; I think about 1864–5. He lived near us -in a small house in Sussex Place, Glo’ster Road (not Sussex -Place, Onslow Square), where his large family of sons and -<span class='pageno' id='Page_452'>452</span>daughters practised the piano below stairs and produced -detonations with chemicals above, while visitors called -incessantly, interrupting his arduous and anxious studies! -He was in all senses an iron-grey man. Iron-grey hair, -pale, strong face, fine but somewhat rigid figure, a powerful, -strong-willed, resolute man, if ever there were one, and an -honest one also, if such there have been on earth. His -friend, Sir George W. Cox, who I may venture to call mine -also, has, in his admirable biography, printed the three most -important letters which the Bishop of Natal wrote to me, and -I can add nothing to Sir George’s just estimate of the -character of this modern <em>Confessor</em>. I will give here, however, -another letter I received from him at the very beginning -of our intercourse, when I had only met him once (at Dr. -Carpenter’s table); and also a record in a letter to a friend of -a <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">tête-à-tête</span></i> conversation with him, further on. I have -always thought that he made a mistake in returning to -Natal, and that his true place would have been at the head -of a Christian-Theistic Church in London:—</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c009'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“23, Sussex Place, Kensington,</div> - <div class='line in12'>“Feb. 6th, 1863.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='lg-container-l c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“My Dear Miss Cobbe,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c010'>“I thank you sincerely for your letter, and for the volume -which you have sent me. I have read the preface with the -deepest interest—and heartily respond to <em>every</em> word which -you have written in it. A friend at the Cape had lent me -a German edition of De Wette, which I had consulted -carefully. But, about a fortnight ago, a lady, till then a -stranger to me, sent me a copy of Parker’s Edition. I value -it most highly for the sake both of the Author’s and Editor’s -share in it. But the criticism of the present day goes, if I -am not mistaken, considerably beyond even De Wette’s, in -clearing up the question of the Age and Authorship of the -different parts of the Pentateuch. I shall carefully consider -the Tables of Elohistic and Jehovistic portions, as given in -<span class='pageno' id='Page_453'>453</span>De Wette; but, in many important respects, my conclusions -will be found to differ from his, and, as I think, upon certain -grounds. De W. leant too much to the judgment of Stäbelin.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“The above, however, is the only one of Th. Parker’s -works, which has yet come into my hands, till the arrival -of your book this morning. When I repeat that every word -of your Preface went to my very heart—and that many of -them drew the tears from my eyes and the prayer from my -heart that God would grant me grace to be in any degree a -follower of the noble brother whose life you have sketched, -and whose feet have already trodden the path, which now -lies open before me—you will believe that I shall not leave -long the rest of the volume unread. But, whatever I may -find there, your Preface will give comfort and support to -thousands, if only they can be brought to read it. Would -it not be possible to have it printed separate, as a <em>cheap -Tract</em>? It would have the effect of recommending the book -itself, and Parker’s works, generally, to multitudes, who -might otherwise not have them brought under their notice -effectively? I think if largely circulated it might help -materially the progress of the great work, in which I am -now engaged.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“You will allow me, I hope, to have the pleasure of -renewing my acquaintance with you, by making a call upon -you before long—and may I bring with me Mrs. Colenso, -who will be very glad to see you?</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Very truly yours,</div> - <div class='line in12'>“<span class='sc'>Jo. Natal</span>.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c010'>“Please accept a copy of my ‘Romans,’ which Macmillan -will send you. The <em>spirit</em> of it will remain, I trust, -abiding, though much of the <em>letter</em> must now be changed.”</p> - -<p class='c006'>Writing of Dr. Colenso to a friend in February, 1865, I -said:—</p> - -<p class='c008'>“I never felt for him so much as last night. We came -to talk on what we felt at standing so much alone; and he -<span class='pageno' id='Page_454'>454</span>said that when the extent of his discoveries burst on him -he felt as if he had received a paralyzing electric shock. A -London clergyman wrote to him the other day to give -him solemn warning that he had led one of his parishioners -to destruction and drunkenness. Colenso answered him, -that ‘it was not <em>he</em> who led men to doubt of God and duty, -but those teachers who made them rest their faith on God -and Duty on a foundation of falsehood which every new -wave of thought was sweeping away.’ The clergyman -seems to have been immensely dumbfounded by this -reply.”</p> - -<p class='c006'>Another most interesting man whom I met at Dr. -Carpenter’s table was Charles Kingsley.</p> - -<p class='c007'>One day, while I was still a miserable cripple, I went to -dine in Regent’s Park and came rather late into a drawing-room full of company, supported by what my maid called -my “<em>best</em> crutches!” The servant did not know me, and -announced “Miss Cobble.” I corrected her loudly enough -for the guests to hear, in that moment of pause: “No! -Miss Hobble!” There was of course a laugh, and from the -little crowd rushed forward to greet me with both hands -extended, a tall, slender, stooping figure with that well-known -face so full of feeling and tenderness—Charles -Kingsley. “At <em>last</em>, Miss Cobbe, at <em>last</em> we meet,” he said, -and a moment later gave me his arm to dinner. This -greeting touched me, for we had exchanged, as theological -opponents, some tolerably sharp blows for years before, but -his large, noble nature harboured no spark of resentment. -We talked all dinner-time and a good deal in the evening, -and then he offered to escort me home to South Kensington—a -proposal which I greedily accepted, but, somehow, when -he found that I had a brougham, and was not going in -miscellaneous vehicles (in my best evening toggery!) from -one end of London to the other at night, he retracted, and -<span class='pageno' id='Page_455'>455</span>could not be induced to come with me. We met, however, -not unfrequently afterwards, and I always felt much attracted -to him; as did, I may mention, my friend’s little fox -terrier, who, travelling one day with her mistress in the -Underground, spied Kingsley entering the carriage, and -incontinently leaving her usual safe retreat under the seat -made straight to him, and without invitation, leaped on his -knee and began gently kissing his face! The dog never did the -same or anything like it to any one else in her life before or -afterwards. Of course, my friend apologised to Mr. Kingsley, -but he only said in his deep voice, “Dogs always do that to -me,”—and coaxed the little beast kindly, till they left the -train.</p> - -<p class='c007'>The last time I saw Canon Kingsley was one day late -in the autumn some months before he died. Somebody -who, I thought, he would like to meet was coming to -dine with me at short notice, and I went to Westminster -in the hope of catching him and persuading him to come -without losing time by sending notes. The evening was -closing, and it was growing very dark in the cloisters, -where I was seeking his door, when I saw a tall man, -strangely bent, coming towards me, evidently seeing -neither me nor anything else, and absorbed in some -most painful thought. His whole attitude and countenance -expressed grief amounting to despair. So terrible was it -that I felt it an intrusion on a sacred privacy to have -seen it; and would fain have hidden myself, but this was -impossible where we were standing at the moment. When -he saw me he woke out of his reverie with a start, pulled -himself together, shook hands, and begged me to come into -his house; which of course I did not do. He had an -engagement which prevented him from meeting my guest (I -think it must have been Keshub Chunder Sen), and I took -myself off as quickly as possible. I have often wondered -<span class='pageno' id='Page_456'>456</span>what dreadful thought was occupying his mind when I caught -sight of him that day in the gloomy old cloisters of -Westminster in the autumn twilight.</p> - -<p class='c007'>The quotation made a few pages back of Sir Charles Lyell’s -observations on belief in Immortality reminds me that I -repeated them soon after he had made them, to another great -man whom it was my privilege to know—John Stuart Mill. -We were spending an afternoon with him and Miss Helen -Taylor at Blackheath; and a quiet conversation between Mr. -Mill and myself having reached this subject, I told him of -what Sir C. Lyell had said. In a moment the quick blood -suffused his cheeks and something very like tears were in his -eyes. The question, it was plain, touched his very heart. -This wonderful sensitiveness of a man generally supposed to -be “dry” and devoted to the driest studies, struck me, I -think, more than anything about him. His special characteristic -was extreme delicacy of feeling; and this showed -itself, singularly enough, for a man advanced in life, in -transparency of skin, and changes of colour and expression -as rapid as those in a mountain lake when the clouds shift -over it. When Watts painted his fine portrait of him, he -failed to notice this peculiarity of his thin and delicate skin, -and gave him the common thick, muddy complexion of -elderly Englishmen. The result is that the <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">èthos</span></i> of the face -is missing—just as in the case of the portrait of Dr. Martineau -he is represented with weak, sloping shoulders and narrow -chest. The look of power which essentially belongs to him -is not to be seen. I remarked when I saw this picture first -exhibited: “I should never have ‘sat under’ <em>that</em> Dr. -Martineau!” Mill and I, of course, met in deep sympathy -on the Woman question; and he did me the honour to present -me with a copy of his “<cite>Subjection of Women</cite>” on its publication. -He tried to make me write and speak more on the -subject of Women’s Claims, and used jestingly to say that -<span class='pageno' id='Page_457'>457</span>my laugh was worth—I forget how much!—to the cause. -I insert a letter from him showing the minute care he took -about matters hardly worthy of his attention.</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c009'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Avignon, Feb. 23rd, 1869.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='lg-container-l c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Dear Miss Cobbe,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c010'>“I have lately received communication from the -American publisher Putnam, requesting me to write for -their Magazine, and I understand that they would be very -glad if you would write anything for them, more especially -on the Women question, on which the Magazine (a new -one) has shown liberal tendencies from the first. The -communications I have received have been through Mrs. -Hooker, sister of Mrs. Stowe and Dr. Ward Beecher, and -herself the author of two excellent articles in the Magazine -on the suffrage question, by which we had been much struck -before we knew the authorship. I enclose Mrs. Hooker’s -last letter to me, and I send by post copies of Mrs. Hooker’s -articles and some old numbers of the Magazine, the only -ones we have here; and I shall be very happy if I should -be the medium of inducing you to write on this question -for the American public.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“My daughter desires to be kindly remembered, -and I am,</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Dear Miss Cobbe,</div> - <div class='line in12'>“Very truly yours,</div> - <div class='line in24'>“<span class='sc'>J. S. Mill</span>.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c010'>“P.S.—May I ask you to be so kind as to forward Mrs. -Hooker’s letter to Mrs. P. A. Taylor, as she will see by it -that Mrs. Hooker has no objection to put her name to a -reprint of her articles.”</p> - -<p class='c006'>There never was a more unassuming philosopher than Mr. -Mill, just as there never was a more unassuming poet than -Mr. Browning. All the world knows how Mr. Mill strove to -give to his wife the chief credit of his works; and, after her -death, his attitude towards her daughter, who was indeed a -<span class='pageno' id='Page_458'>458</span>daughter also to him, was beautiful to witness, and a fine -exemplification of his own theories of the rightful position -of women. He was, however, equally unpretentious as -regarded men. Talking one day about the difficulty of doing -mental work when disturbed by street music, and of poor -Mr. Babbage’s frenzy on the subject, Mr. Mill said it did -not much interfere with him. I told him how intensely -Mr. Spencer objected to disturbance. “Ah yes; of course! -writing <em>Spencer’s</em> works one must want quiet!” As if -nothing of the kind were needed for such trivial books -as his own <cite>System of Logic</cite>, or <cite>Political Economy</cite>! He -really was quite unconscious of the irony of his remark. I -have been told that he would allow his cat to interfere sadly -with his literary occupation when she preferred to lie on his -table, or sometimes on his neck,—a trait like that of Newton -and his “Diamond.” This extreme gentleness is ever, surely -a note of the highest order of men.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Here are extracts from letters concerning Mr. Mill, which -I wrote to Miss Elliot in August, 1869. I believe I had -been to Brighton and met Mr. Mill there.</p> - -<p class='c008'>“We talked of many grave things, and in everything his -love of right and his immense underlying faith impressed me -more than I can describe. I asked him what he thought of -coming changes, and he entirely agreed with me about their -danger, but thought that the mischief they will entail must -be but temporary. He thought the loss of Reverence -unspeakably deplorable, but an inevitable feature of an age -of such rapid transition that the son does actually outrun -the father. He added that he thought even the most -sceptical of men generally had an <em>inner altar to the Unseen -Perfection</em> while waiting for the true one to be revealed to -them. In a word the ‘dry old philosopher’ showed -himself to me as an enthusiast in faith and love. The way -in which he seemed to have thought out every great question -and to express his own so modestly and simply, and yet in -<span class='pageno' id='Page_459'>459</span>such clear-cut outlines, was most impressive. I felt (what -one so seldom does!) the delightful sense of being in -communication with a mind deeper than one would reach the -end of, even after a lifetime of intercourse. I never felt the -same, so strongly, except towards Mr. Martineau; and -though the forms of <em>his</em> creed and philosophy are, I think, -infinitely truer than those of Mill (not to speak of the feelings -one has for the man whose prayers one follows), I think it -is more in form than in spirit that the two men are -distinguished. The one has only an ‘inner,’ the other has -an outward ‘altar;’ but both <em>kneel</em> at them.”</p> - -<p class='c006'>A month or two earlier in the same year I wrote to the -same friend:—</p> - -<p class='c008'>“Last night I sat beside Mr. Mill at dinner and enjoyed -myself exceedingly. He is looking old and worn, and the -nervous twitchings of his face are painful to see, but he is -so thoroughly genial and gentlemanly, and laughs so -heartily at one’s little jokes, and keeps up an argument -with so much play and good humour, that I never enjoyed my -dinner-neighbourhood more. Mr. Fawcett was objurgating -some M.P. for taking office, and said: ‘When I see <em>Tories</em> -rejoice, I know it must be an injury to the Liberal Cause.’ -‘Do you never, then, feel a qualm,’ I said, ‘all you Liberal -gentlemen, when you see the <em>priests</em> rejoice at what you -have just done in Ireland? Do you reflect whether <em>that</em> is -likely to be an injury to the Liberal Cause?’ The observation -somehow fell like a bomb; (the entire company, as I -remember, were Radicals, our host being Mr. P. A. Taylor). -For two minutes there was a dead silence. Then Mrs. Taylor -said: ‘Ah, Miss Cobbe is a bitter Conservative!’ ‘Not a -<em>bitter</em> one,’ said Mr. Mill. ‘Miss Cobbe is a Conservative. -I am sorry for it; but Miss Cobbe is never bitter.’”</p> - -<p class='c006'>It has been a constant subject of regret to me that -Mr. Mill’s intention (communicated to me by Miss Taylor) of -spending the ensuing summer holiday in Wales, on purpose -<span class='pageno' id='Page_460'>460</span>to be near us, was frustrated by his illness and death. How -much pleasure and instruction I should have derived from his -near neighbourhood there is no need to say.</p> - -<p class='c007'>A friend of Mr. Mill for whom I had great regard was -Prof. Cairnes. He underwent treatment at Aix-les-Bains at -the same time as I; and we used to while away our long -hours by interminable discussions, principally concerning -ethics, a subject on which Mr. Cairnes took the Utilitarian -side, and I, of course, that of the school of Independent -Morality (<em>i.e.</em>, of Morality based on other grounds than -Utility). He was an ardent disciple of Mill, but his extreme -candour caused him to admit frankly that the “mystic -extension” of the idea of <em>Usefulness</em> into <em>Right</em>, was unaccountable, -or at least unaccounted for; and that when we had -proved an act to be pre-eminently useful and likely to promote -“the greatest happiness of the greatest number,” there yet -remained the question for each of us, “Why should <em>I</em> perform -that useful action, if it cost <em>me</em> a moment’s pain?” To find -the answer (he admitted) we must fall back on an inward -“Categoric imperative,” “<em>ought</em>;” and having done so, (I -argued,) we must thenceforth admit that the basis of Morality -rests on something beside Utility. All these controversies -are rather bygone now, since we have been confronted with -“hereditary sets of the brain.” I think it was in these -discussions with Prof. Cairnes that I struck out what several -friends (among others Lord Arthur Russell) considered an -“unanswerable” argument against the Utilitarian philosophy; -it ran thus:</p> - -<p class='c008'>“Mr. Mill has nobly said, that,—if an Almighty Tyrant -were to order him to worship him and threaten to send him -to hell if he refused, then, sooner than worship that unjust -God, ‘<em>to Hell would I go!</em>’ Mr. Mill, of course, desired -every man to do what he himself thought right; therefore -it is conceivable that, in the given contingency, we might -<span class='pageno' id='Page_461'>461</span>behold the apostle of the Utilitarian philosophy <em>conducting -the whole human race to eternal perdition</em>, for the sake of,—shall -we say the ‘<em>Greatest Happiness of the Greatest number</em>?’”</p> - -<p class='c006'>Prof. Cairnes did great public service both to England -and America at the time of the war of Secession by his -wise and able writing on the subject. In a small way I -tried to help the same cause by joining Mrs. P. A. Taylor’s -Committee formed to promote and express English sympathy -with the North; and wrote several little pamphlets, “<cite>The -Red Flag in John Bull’s Eyes</cite>”; “<cite>Rejoinder to Mrs. Stowe</cite>,” &c. -This common interest increased, of course, my regard for -Mr. Cairnes, and it was with real sorrow I saw him slowly -sink under the terrible disease, (a sort of general ossification -of the joints) of which he died. I have said he <em>sank</em> under -it, but assuredly it was only his piteously stiffened <em>body</em> -which did so, for I never saw a grander triumph of mind -over matter than was shown by the courage and cheerfulness -wherewith he bore as dreadful a fate as that of any old -martyr. I shall never forget the impression of <em>the nobility of -the human Soul</em> rising over its tenement of clay, which he -made upon me, on the occasion of my last visit to him at -Blackheath.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Another man, much of the character and calibre of -Prof. Cairnes, whom I likewise had the privilege to know -well, was Prof. Sheldon Amos. He also, alas! died in the -prime of life; to the loss and grief of the friends of every -generous movement.</p> - -<p class='c007'>The following is a memorandum of the first occasion on -which I met Mr. John Bright:—</p> - -<p class='c008'>“February 28th, 1866. Dined at Mr. S.’s, M.P. Sat -between Bright and Mr. Buxton. Bright so exquisitely -<em>clean</em> and with such a sweet voice! His hands alone are -coarse. Great discussion, in which Mr. B. completely took -the lead; the other gentlemen present seeming to hang on -<span class='pageno' id='Page_462'>462</span>his words as I never saw Englishmen do on those of one -another. Talking of Ireland he said he would, if he ever -had the power, force all the English Companies and great -English landlords to sell their estates there; the land to be -cut up into small farms. I asked, did he believe in small -farming in 1866, and in Celtic capitalists ready to purchase -farms? He then told us how he picked up much information -travelling through Ireland <em>on cars</em>, from the drivers, (as if -every Irish car-driver did not recognise him in a moment -from Punch’s caricatures!) and how, especially, he visited -the only small farm he had heard of where the occupier was -a freeholder; and how it was exceedingly prosperous. I -asked where this was? He said ‘in a place called the -Barony of Forth.’ Of course I explained that Forth and -Bargy in Wexford have been for four hundred years isolated -English, (or rather Welsh) colonies, and afford no sort of -sample of <em>Irish</em> farming. Bright’s way of speaking was -dogmatic, but full of genial fun and quiet little bits of wit. -He spoke with great feeling of the wrongs and miseries of -the poor, but seemed to enjoy in full the delusion that it -only depended on rich people being ready to sacrifice -themselves, to remove them all to-morrow.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“I ventured to ask him why he laboured so hard to get -votes for working carpenters and bricklayers, and never -stirred a finger to ask them for women, who possessed -already the property qualification? He said: ‘Much was -to be said for women,’ but then went on maundering about -our proper sphere, and ‘would they go into Parliament?’”</p> - -<p class='c006'>Again another time I sat beside him (I know not at -whose hospitable table), and he told me a most affecting -story of a poor crippled woman in a miserable cottage near -Llandudno, where he usually spent his holidays. He had -got into the habit of visiting this poor creature, who could -not stir from her bed, but lay there all day long alone, her -husband being out at work as a labourer. Sometimes a -neighbour would look in and give her food, but unless one -<span class='pageno' id='Page_463'>463</span>did so, she was entirely helpless. Her only comforter was -her dog, a fine collie, who lay beside her on the floor, ran in -and out, licked her poor useless hands, and showed his -affection in a hundred ways. Bright grew fond of the dog, -and the dog always welcomed him each year with gambols -and joy. One summer he came to the cottage, and the -hapless cripple lay on her pallet still, but the dog did not -come out to him as usual, and his first question to the -woman was: “Where is your collie?” The answer was -that <em>her husband had drowned the dog</em> to save the expense of -feeding it.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Bright’s voice broke when he came to the end of this story, -and we said very little more to each other during that -dinner.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Another day I was speaking to Mr. Bright of the -extraordinary <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">canard</span></i> which had appeared in the <cite>Times</cite> the -day before announcing (quite falsely) that Lord Russell, then -Premier, had resigned. “What on earth,” I asked, “can -have induced the <cite>Times</cite> to publish such intelligence?” (As -it happened, it inconvenienced Lord Russell very much.) “I -will tell you,” said Bright; “I am sure it is because Delane -is angry that Lady Russell has not asked him to dinner. -He expected to go to the Russells’ as he did to the -Palmerstons’, and get his news at first hand!” A day or -two later I met Lord Russell, and told him what Mr. Bright -had said was the reason of the mischievous trick Mr. Delane -had played him. Lord Russell chuckled a great deal and -said, rubbing his hands in his characteristic way: “I believe -it is! I do believe it is!”</p> - -<p class='c007'>My beautiful cousin, Laura, one of my father’s wards, had -married (from Newbridge in old days) Mr. John Locke, Q.C., -who was for a long time M.P. for Southwark. Their house, -63, Eaton Place, was always most cordially opened to me, -and beside Mr. Locke, who was generally brimful of political -<span class='pageno' id='Page_464'>464</span>news, I met at their table many clever barristers and M.P.’s. -Among the latter was Mr. Ayrton, against whom a virulent -set was made by the scientific <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">clique</span></i>, in consequence of his -endeavours, on behalf of the public, to open Kew Gardens -earlier in the day. He was rather saturnine, but an -incorruptible, unbending sort of man, for whom I felt respect. -Another <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">habitué</span></i> was Mr. Warren, author of <em>Ten Thousand a -Year</em>. He was a little ugly fellow, but full of fire and fun, -retorting right and left against the Liberals present. -Sergeant Gazelee, a worn-looking man, with keen eyes, one -day answered him fairly. There was an amusing discussion -whether the Tories could match in ability the men of the -opposite party? Warren brought up an array of clever -Conservatives, but then pretended to throw up the sponge, -exclaiming in a dolorous voice, “but then you Liberals have -got—Whalley!”</p> - -<p class='c007'>Beside my cousin Mrs. Locke and her good and able -husband, I had the pleasure for many years of constantly -seeing in London her two younger sisters, Sophia and Eliza -Cobbe, who were my father’s favourite wards and have -been from their childhood, when they were always under my -charge in their holidays, till now in our old age, almost like -younger sisters to me. They were of course rarely absent -from the Eaton Place festivities.</p> - -<p class='c007'>There was a considerable difference between dinner parties -in the Sixties and those of thirty years later. They lasted -longer at the earlier date; a greater number of dishes were -served at each course, and much more wine was taken. I -cannot but think that there must be a certain declension in -the general vitality of our race of late years for, I think, few -of us, young or old, would be inclined to share equally now -in those banquets of long ago which always lasted two hours -and sometimes three. There were scarcely any teetotalers, -men or women, at the time I speak of, in the circles to which -<span class='pageno' id='Page_465'>465</span>I belonged; and the butlers, who went round incessantly -with half-a-dozen kinds of wine, and (after dinner) liqueurs, -were not, as now, continually interrupted in their courses by -“No wine, thank you! Have you Appolinaris or Seltzer?” -I never saw anyone the worse for the sherry and the milkpunch -and the hock or chablis, and champagne and claret; -but certainly there was generally a little more gaiety of a -well-bred sort towards the end of the long meals. My cousins -kept a particularly good cook and good cellar, and their -guests—especially some who hailed from the City—certainly -enjoyed at their table other “feasts” beside those of reason. -And so I must confess did <em>I</em>, in those days of good appetite -after a long day’s literary work; and I sincerely pitied Dean -Stanley, who had no sense of taste, and scarcely knew the -flavour of anything which he put in his mouth. When the -company was not quite up to his mark, the tedium of the -dinners which he attended must have been dreadful to him; -whereas, in my case, I could always,—provided the <em>menu</em> was -good,—entertain myself satisfactorily with my plate and knife -and fork. The same great surgeon who had treated my -sprained ankle so unsuccessfully, told me with solemn -warning when we were taking our house in Hereford Square, -that, if I lived in South Kensington and went to dinner -parties, I should be a regular victim to gout. As it happened -I lived in South Kensington for just twenty years, and -went out, I should think to some two thousand dinners, -great and small, and I never had the gout at all, but, on the -contrary, by my own guidance, got rid of the tendency -before I left London. There has certainly been a perceptible -diminution in the <em>animal spirits</em> of men and women in the -last thirty years, if not of their vital powers. Of course -there was always, among well-bred people a certain average -of spirits in society, neither boisterous nor yet depressed; -and the better the company the softer the general “<i><span lang="la" xml:lang="la">susurro</span></i>” -<span class='pageno' id='Page_466'>466</span>of the conversation. I could have recognized blindfold certain -drawing-rooms wherein a mixed congregation assembled, by -the strident, high note which pervaded the crowded room. -But the ripple of gentle laughter in good company has -decidedly fallen some notes since the Sixties.</p> - -<p class='c007'>I am led to these reflections by remembering among my -cousin’s guests that admirable man—Mr. Fawcett. He -was always, not merely fairly cheerful, but more gay and -apparently light-hearted than those around him who were -possessed of their eyesight. The last time I met him was -at the house of Madame Bodichon in Blandford Square, -and we three were all the company. One would have -thought a blind statesman alone with two elderly women, -would not have been much exhilarated; but he seemed -actually bursting with boyish spirits; pouring out fun, -and laughing with all his heart. Certainly his devoted -wife (in my humble opinion the ablest woman of -this day), succeeded in cheering his darkened lot quite -perfectly.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Mr. and Mrs. Fawcett were the third couple who in this -century have afforded a study for Mr. Francis Galton of -“Hereditary Genius.” The first were Shelley and his Mary -(who again was the daughter of Godwin and Mary Wollstoncraft). -Their son, the late Sir Percy Shelley, was a very -kindly and pleasant gentleman, with good taste for private -theatricals, but not a genius. The second were Robert and -Elizabeth Barrett Browning. They also have left a son, of -whose gifts as a painter I do not presume to judge. The -third were Mr. Fawcett and Millicent Garrett, who, though -not claiming the brilliant genius of the others, were each, as -all the world knows, very highly endowed persons. <em>Their</em> -daughter, Miss Philippa Garrett Fawcett,—the Senior -Wrangler, <i><span lang="la" xml:lang="la">de jure</span></i>,—has at all events vindicated Mr. Galton’s -theories.</p> - -<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_467'>467</span>Many of us, in those days of the Sixties, were deeply -interested in the efforts of women to enter the medical profession -in spite of the bitter opposition which they encountered. -Miss Elizabeth Garrett, Mrs. Fawcett’s sister, occupied a -particularly prominent place in our eyes, succeeding as she -did in obtaining her medical degree in Paris, and afterwards a -seat on the London School Board, which last was quite a new -kind of elevation for women. While still occupying the -foreground of our ambition for our sex, Miss Garrett -resolved to make (what has proved, I believe, to be) a happy -and well assorted marriage, which put an end, necessarily, to -her further projects of public work. I sent her, with my -cordial good wishes, the following verses:—</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c018'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>The Woman’s cause was rising fast</div> - <div class='line'>When to the Surgeons’ College past</div> - <div class='line'>A maid who bore in fingers nice</div> - <div class='line'>A banner with the new device</div> - <div class='line in32'>Excelsior!</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Try not to pass”! the Dons exclaim,</div> - <div class='line'>“M.D. shall grace no woman’s name”—</div> - <div class='line'>“Bosh!” cried the maid, in accents free,</div> - <div class='line'>“To France I’ll go for my degree.”</div> - <div class='line in32'>Excelsior!</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>The School-Board seat came next in sight,</div> - <div class='line'>“Beware the foes of woman’s right!”</div> - <div class='line'>“Beware the awful husting’s fight!”</div> - <div class='line'>Such was the moan of many a soul—</div> - <div class='line'>A voice replied from top of poll—</div> - <div class='line in32'>Excelsior!</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>In patients’ homes she saw the light</div> - <div class='line'>Of household fires beam warm and bright</div> - <div class='line'>Lectures on Bones grew wondrous dry,</div> - <div class='line'>But still she murmured with a sigh</div> - <div class='line in32'>Excelsior!</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'><span class='pageno' id='Page_468'>468</span>“Oh, stay!”—a lover cried,—“Oh, rest</div> - <div class='line'>Thy much-learned head upon this breast;</div> - <div class='line'>Give up ambition! Be my bride!”</div> - <div class='line'>—Alas! <em>no</em> clarion voice replied</div> - <div class='line in32'>Excelsior!</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>At end of day, when all is done,</div> - <div class='line'>And woman’s battle fought and won,</div> - <div class='line'>Honour will aye be paid to one</div> - <div class='line'>Who erst called foremost in the van</div> - <div class='line in32'>Excelsior!</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>But not for her that crown so bright,</div> - <div class='line'>Which hers had been, of surest right,</div> - <div class='line'>Had she still cried,—serene and blest—</div> - <div class='line'>“The Virgin throned by the West,”<a id='r22' /><a href='#f22' class='c013'><sup>[22]</sup></a></div> - <div class='line in32'>Excelsior!</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c007'>Some years after this I brought from Rome as a present for -my much valued friend and lady-Doctor, Mrs. Hoggan, M.D. -(widow of Dr. George Hoggan), a large photograph of the -statue in the Vatican of <em>Minerva Medica</em>. Under it I wrote -these lines:—</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c018'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“<em>Minerva Medica!</em> Shocking profanity!</div> - <div class='line in2'>How could these heathens their doctors vex,</div> - <div class='line'>Putting the cure of the ills of humanity</div> - <div class='line in2'>Into the hands of the ‘weaker sex?’</div> - <div class='line'>O Pallas sublime! Would you come back revealing</div> - <div class='line in2'>Your glory immortal, our doctors should see,—</div> - <div class='line'>Instead of proclaiming you Goddess of Healing,</div> - <div class='line in2'>They’d prohibit your practice, refuse your degree!”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c006'>The first dinner-party I ever attended in London, before I -went to live in town, was at Mr. Bagehot’s house. I sat beside -<span class='pageno' id='Page_469'>469</span>Mr. Richard Hutton, who has been ever since my good friend, -and opposite us there sat a gentleman who at once attracted -my attention. He had a strong dark face, a low forehead -and hair parted in the middle, the large loose mouth of an -orator and a manner quite unique; as if he were gently -looking down on the follies of mortality from the superior -altitudes of Olympos, or perhaps of Parnassus. “Do you -know who that is sitting opposite to us?” said Mr. Hutton. -I looked at him again, and replied: “I never saw him before, -and I have never seen his picture, but I feel in my inner -consciousness that it can only be Mr. Matthew Arnold;” -and Mr. Arnold, of course, it was,—with an air which made -me think him (what he was not) an intellectual coxcomb. -He wrote, about that time or soon afterwards, some dreadfully -derisive things of my Theism; not on account, apparently, -of its intrinsic demerits, but because of what he conceived to -be its <em>upstart</em> character. We are all familiar with a certain -tone of lofty superiority common to Roman Catholics and -Anglicans in dealing with Dissenters of all classes; the tone, -no doubt, in which the priests of On talked of Moses when -he led the Israelitish schism in the wilderness. It comes -naturally to everybody who stands serenely on “the old -paths,” and watches those who walk below, or strive to fray -new ways through the jungle of poor human thoughts. But -when Mr. Arnold had himself slipped off the old road so far -as to have liquefied the Articles of the Apostles’ Creed into -a “<em>Stream of Tendency</em>;” and compared the doctrine of the -Trinity to a story of “<em>Three Lord Shaftesburys</em>;” and reduced -the Object of Worship to the lowest possible denomination -as “<em>a Power not ourselves which makes for righteousness</em>;” -he must, I think, have come to feel that it was scarcely -his affair to treat other people’s heresies as new-fangled, -and lacking in the sanctities of tradition. As one -after another of his brilliant essays appeared, and it became -<span class='pageno' id='Page_470'>470</span>manifest that his own creed grew continually thinner, more -exiguous, and less and less substantial, I was reminded of an -old sporting story which my father told of a town-bred -gentleman, the “Mr. Briggs” of those days, who for the first -time shot a cock-pheasant, and after greatly admiring it -laid it down on the grass. A keeper took up the bird and -stroked it, pretending to wonder at its size, and presently -shifted it aside and substituted a partridge, which he likewise -stroked and admired, till he had an opportunity of again -changing it for a snipe. At this crisis “Mr. Briggs” broke -in furiously, bidding the keeper to stop stroking his bird: -“Be hanged to you! If you go on like that, you’ll rub it -down to a wren!” The creed of many persons in these days -seems to be undergoing the process of being patted and -praised, while all the time it is being rubbed down to a wren!</p> - -<p class='c007'>But whatever hard things Mr. Arnold said of me, I liked -and admired him, and he was always personally most kind to -me. He had of all men I have ever known the truest insight,—the -true <em>Poet’s</em> insight,—into the feelings and characters of -animals, especially of dogs. His poem, <cite>Geist’s Grave</cite>, is to -me the most affecting description of the death of an animal in -the range of literature. Indeed, the subject of Death itself, -whether of beasts or of men, viewed from the same standpoint -of hopelessness, has never, I think, been more tenderly -touched. How deeply true to every heart is the thought -expressed in the stanzas, which remind us that in all the -vastness of the universe and of endless time there is not, and -never will be, another being like the one who is dead! <em>That</em> -being (some of us believe) may revive and live for ever, but -<em>another</em> who will “restore its little self” will never be.</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c018'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“... Not the course</div> - <div class='line in2'>Of all the centuries to come,</div> - <div class='line'>And not the infinite resource</div> - <div class='line in2'>Of Nature, with her countless sum</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'><span class='pageno' id='Page_471'>471</span>“Of figures, with her fulness vast</div> - <div class='line in2'>Of new creation evermore,</div> - <div class='line'>Can ever quite repeat the past,</div> - <div class='line in2'>Or just thy little self restore.</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Stern law of every mortal lot!</div> - <div class='line in2'>Which man, proud man, finds hard to bear</div> - <div class='line'>And builds himself, I know not what</div> - <div class='line in2'>Of second life, I know not where.”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c007'>We knew dear <em>Geist</em>, I am glad to say. When Miss Lloyd -and I came to live at Byfleet Mr. Arnold and his most -charming wife,—then living three miles off at Cobham,—kindly -permitted us to see a good deal of them, and we were -deeply interested in poor Geist’s last illness. He was a black -dachshund, not a handsome dog, but possessed of something -which in certain dogs and (those dogs only) seems to be the -canine analogue of a human soul. As to Mr. Arnold’s poem -on his other dog, <em>Kaiser</em>, who is there that enjoys a gleam of -humour and dog-love can fail to be enchanted with such a -perfect picture of a dog,—not a dog of the sentimental kind, -but one—</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c018'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Teeming with plans, alert and glad</div> - <div class='line in2'>In work or play,</div> - <div class='line'>Like sunshine went and came, and bade</div> - <div class='line in2'>Live out the day!”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c007'>Does not every one feel how true is the likeness of a happy -loving dog to sunshine in a house?</p> - -<p class='c007'>I met Mr. Arnold one day in William and Norgate’s bookshop, -and he inquired after my dog, and when I told him the -poor beast had “gone where the good dogs go,” he said, -with real feeling, “And you have not replaced her? No! -of course you could not.” I asked his leave to give a copy -of “Geist’s Grave” for a collection of poems on animals -made for the purpose of humane propaganda, and he gave it -very cordially. I was, however, deeply disappointed when -<span class='pageno' id='Page_472'>472</span>he returned the following reply to my application for his -signature to our first Memorial inviting the R.S.P.C.A. to -undertake legislation for the restriction of vivisection. I do -not clearly understand what he meant by disliking “the -English way of employing for public ends private Societies -and Memorials to them.” The R.S.P.C.A. is scarcely a -“private society;” and, if it were so, I see no harm in -“employing it for public ends,” instead of leaving everything -to Government to do; or to <em>leave undone</em>.</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c009'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Cobham, Surrey,</div> - <div class='line in4'>“January 8th, 1875.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='lg-container-l c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Dear Miss Cobbe,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c010'>“Your letter was directed to Oxford, a place with which -I have now no connection, and it reaches me too late for -signing your Memorial, but I should in any case have -declined signing it, strongly as your cause speaks to my -feelings; because, first, I greatly dislike the English way of -employing, for public ends, private societies and Memorials -to them; secondly, the signatures you will profit by, in this -case, are not those of literary people, who will at once be -disposed of as a set of unpractical sentimentalists. To -yourself this objection does not apply, because you are -distinguished not in letters only, but also as a lover and -student of animals. I hope if you read my paper in the -<cite>Contemporary</cite>, you observe how I apologise for calling them -the <em>lower</em> animals, and how thoroughly I admit that they -<em>think and love</em>.</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Sincerely yours,</div> - <div class='line in16'>“<span class='sc'>Matthew Arnold</span>.”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c006'>In my first journey to Italy on my way to Palestine I -made acquaintance with R. W. Mackay, the author of that -enormously learned, but, perhaps, not very well digested -book, the <cite>Progress of the Intellect</cite>. I afterwards renewed -acquaintance with him and his nice wife in their house in -Hamilton Terrace. Mr. Mackay was somewhat of an invalid -and a nervous man, much absorbed in his studies. I have -<span class='pageno' id='Page_473'>473</span>heard it said that he was the original of George Elliot’s -<em>Mr. Casaubon</em>. At all events Mrs. Lewes had met him, and -taken a strong prejudice against him. That prejudice I -think was unjust. He was a very honest and <em>real</em> student, -and a modest one, not a pretender like Mr. Casaubon. His -books contain an amazing mass of knowledge, (presented, -perhaps, in rather a crude state) respecting all the great -religious doctrines of the world. I had once felt that both -his books and talk were hard and steel-cold, and that his -religion, though dogmatically the same as mine, was all -lodged in his intellect. One day, however, when he called -on me and we took a drive and walk in the Park together, -I learned to my surprise that he entirely felt with me that -the one <em>direct</em> way of reaching truth about religion was Prayer, -and all the rest mere corroboration of what may so be learned. -To have <em>come round</em> to this seemed to me a great evidence of -intellectual sincerity.</p> - -<p class='c007'>I forget now what particular point we had been discussing -when he wrote me the following curious bit of erudition:—</p> - -<div class='lg-container-l c009'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Dear Miss Cobbe,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c010'>“Dixit Rabbi Simeon Ben Lakis,—Nomina angelorum et -mensium ascenderunt in domum Israelis ex Babylone.”</p> - -<p class='c010'>“This occurs in the treatise <cite><span lang="co" xml:lang="co">Rosh Haschanah</span></cite>, which is -part of the Mischna.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“The Mischna (the earliest part of the Talmud) is said -to have been completed in the 3rd century, under the -auspices of Rabbi Judah the Holy, and his disciples.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“I send the above as promised, The professed aversion -of the Jews for foreign customs seems strangely at variance -with their practice, as seen, <em>e.g.</em>, in their names for the -divisions of the heavenly hosts; the words ‘Legion and -Sistra (castra) are evidently taken from the Roman army. -Four Chief Spirits or Archangels are occasionally -mentioned, as in <cite>Pirke Eliezer</cite> and <cite>Henoch</cite>, cf. 48, 1. Others -make their number seven, as Tobit 12, 5; Revel. 2, 4–3, -1–4, 5. The angelic doings are partly copied from the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_474'>474</span>usages of the Jewish Temple, hence the Jerusalem Targum -renders Exod. 14, 24. ‘It happened in the morning watch, -the hour when the heavenly host sing praises before God’—comp.: -Luke 2, 13,—and the same reason is applied by the -Targumist for the sudden exit of the angel in Genes. 32, -26. One may perhaps, however, be induced to ask whether -(as in the case of Euthyphron in the Platonic dialogue) a -better cause for departure might not be found in the -inconvenience of remaining!</p> - -<p class='c010'>“Though I have Haug’s version of the Gathas, I am -far from able to decipher the grounds of difference -between him and Spiegel. <i><span lang="la" xml:lang="la">Non nostrum est tantas componere -lites</span></i>, a volume entitled <cite>Erân</cite> by Dr. Spiegel contains, -among other Essays, one entitled <cite>Avesta and Veda</cite>, or the -relation of Iran and India, and another <cite>Avesta and Genesis</cite>, -or the relation of Iran to the Semites. Weber’s <cite><span lang="de" xml:lang="de">Morische -Skizzen</span></cite> also contains interesting matter on similar subjects. -We were speaking about the magical significance of names. -See as to this Origen against Celsus, 1–24; Diod. Sicul, 1–22; -Iamblicus de Myst, 2, 4, 5.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“Socrates himself appears superstitiously apprehensive -about the use of divine names in the Philebus 1, 2 and the -Cratylus 400e. The suppression of it among the Jews, -(for instance in the Septuagint, where Κυριος is substituted -for Jehovah, and Sirach, Ch. 23, 9) express the same feeling.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“We were talking of the original religion of Persia. -You, of course, recollect the passage on this subject in the -first book of Herodotus, Ch. 131, and Strabo 15, see 13, -p. 732 Casaub. The practice of prohibiting selfish prayer -mentioned in the next following chapter in Herodotus, is -remarkable.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“I hope that in the above rigmarole a grain of useful -matter may be found. Mrs. Mackay is, I am glad to say, -better to-day.</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“I remain, sincerely yours,</div> - <div class='line in16'>“<span class='sc'>R. W. Mackay</span>.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='lg-container-l c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“20th February, 1865,</div> - <div class='line in4'>“41, Hamilton Terrace, N.W.”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c006'><span class='pageno' id='Page_475'>475</span>Another early acquaintance of mine in London was Lady -Byron, the widow of the poet. I called on her one day, -having received from her a kind note begging me to do so as -she was unable to leave her house to come to me. She had -been exceedingly kind in procuring for me valuable letters of -introduction from Sir Moses Montefiore and others, which -had been very useful to me in my long wanderings.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Lady Byron was short in stature and, when I saw her, -deadly pale; but with a dignity which some of our friends -called “royal,” albeit without the smallest affectation or -assumption. She talked to me eagerly about all manner of -good works wherein she was interested; notably concerning -Miss Carpenter’s Reformatory, to which she had practically -subscribed £1,000 by buying Red Lodge and making it over -for such use. During the larger part of the time of my -visit she stood on the rug with her back to the fire and the -power and will revealed in her attitude and conversation were -very impressive. I bore in mind all the odious things Byron -had said of her:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c018'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“There was Miss Mill-pond, smooth as summer sea</div> - <div class='line in2'>That usual paragon, an only daughter,</div> - <div class='line'>Who seemed the cream of equanimity</div> - <div class='line in2'>Till skimmed, and then there was some milk and water.”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c019'>Also the sneers at her (very genuine) humour:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c018'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Her wit, for she had wit, was Attic-all</div> - <div class='line'>Her favourite science was the mathematical” &c., &c.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c019'>I thought that for a man to hold up such a woman as -<em>this</em>, and that woman his wife, on the prongs of ridicule for -public laughter was enough to make him detestable.</p> - -<p class='c007'>A lady whom I met long afterwards told me, (I made a note -of it Nov. 13th, 1869) that she had been stopping, at the time -of Lady Byron’s separation, at a very small seaside place in -Norfolk. Lady Byron came there on a visit to Mrs. Francis -<span class='pageno' id='Page_476'>476</span>Cunningham, <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">née</span></i> Gurney, as more retired than Kirkby -Mallory. She had then been separated about six weeks or -two months. She was (Mrs. B. said) singularly pleasing and -healthful looking, rather than pretty. She was grave and -reticent rather than depressed in spirits; and gave her friends -to understand that there was something she could not explain -to them about her separation. Mrs. B. <em>heard her say</em> that -Lord Byron always slept with pistols under his pillow, and -on one occasion had threatened to shoot her in the middle of -the night. There was much singing of duets going on in the -two families, but Lady Byron refused to take any part in it.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Miss Carpenter, who was entirely captivated by her, received -from her some charge amounting to literary executorship; -but after one or two furtive delvings into the trunks full of -papers (since, I believe, stored in Hoare’s bank), she gave up -in despair. She told me that the papers were in the most -extraordinary confusion; letters both of the most trivial and -of the most serious and compromising kind, household accounts, -poems, and tradesmen’s bills, were all mixed together in -hopeless disorder and dust. As is well known, Byron’s -famous verses:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c018'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Fare thee well! and if for ever!”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c019'>were written on the back of a butcher’s bill—<em>unpaid</em> like most -of the rest. Miss Carpenter vouched for this fact.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Lady Byron was at one time greatly attracted by Fanny -Kemble. Among Mrs. Kemble’s papers in my possession are -seven letters from Lady Byron to her. Here is one of them -worth presenting:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-l c009'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Dear Mrs. Kemble,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c010'>“The note you wrote to me before you left Brighton -made me revert to a train of thought which had been for -some time in my mind. I alluded once to “your Future.” -I submit to be considered a Visionary, yet some of my -<span class='pageno' id='Page_477'>477</span>decided visions have come to pass in the course of years -let me tell you my Vision about <em>you</em>—That you are to be -something <em>to the People</em>; that your strong sympathy with -them (though you will not let them touch the hem of your -garment) will bring your talents to bear upon their welfare; -that the way is open to you, after your personal objects are -fulfilled. My mind is so full of this, that though the time -has not arrived for putting it in practice, I cannot help -telling you of it. I am neither Democratic nor Aristocratic. -I do not <em>see</em> those distinctions in looking at Humanity, but -I feel most strongly that for every advantage we have -received we are bound to offer something to those who do -not possess it. Happy they who have gifts to place at the -feet of their less favoured fellow-Christians!</p> - -<p class='c010'>“I cannot believe that a relation so truthful as yours and -mine will be merely casual. Time will show. I might not -have an opportunity of saying this in a visit.</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Yours most truly,</div> - <div class='line in12'><span class='sc'>A. Noel Byron</span>.”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='lg-container-l c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“March 19th.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c006'>It is an unsolved mystery to me why such a woman did -not definitely adopt one of either of two courses. The first -(and far the best) would, of course, have been to bury her -husband’s misdeeds in absolute silence and oblivion, carefully -destroying all papers relating to the tragedy of their joint -lives. Or, if she had not strength for this, to write exactly -what she thought ought to be known by posterity concerning -him, and put her account in safe hands with all the needful -<i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">pièces justificatives</span></i> before she died. That she did not adopt -either one course or the other must be a source of permanent -regret to all who recognized her great merits and honoured -them as they deserved.</p> - -<p class='c006'>Among our neighbours in South Kensington, whom we -were privileged to know were many delightful people, who -<span class='pageno' id='Page_478'>478</span>are still, I am happy to say, living and taking active part in -the world. Among them were Mr. Froude, Mr. and Mrs. -W. E. H. Lecky, Mr. Leslie Stephen, Mrs. Brookfield, -Mrs. Simpson, and Mrs. Richmond Ritchie. But of several -others, alas! “the place that knew them knows them no -more.” Of these last were Mr. and Mrs. Herman Merivale, -Sir Henry Maine, Mrs. Dicey, Lady Monteagle (who had -written some of Wordsworth’s poems to his dictation as his -amanuensis), and my dear old friend Mrs. de Morgan.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Sir Henry Maine’s interest in the claims of women and -his strong statements on the subject, made me regard him -with much gratitude. I asked him once a question about -St. Paul’s citizenship, to which he was good enough to write -so full and interesting a reply that I quote it here <em>in extenso</em>:—</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c009'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Athenæum Club, Pall Mall, S.W.,</div> - <div class='line in8'>“April 6th, 1874.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='lg-container-l c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“My dear Miss Cobbe,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c010'>“There is no question that for a considerable time before -the concession of the Roman citizenship to the whole -empire, quite at all events, <span class='fss'>B.C.</span> 89 or 90,—it could be -obtained in various ways by individuals who possessed a -lower franchise in virtue of their place of birth or who were -even foreigners. The legal writer, Ulpian, mentions several -of these modes of acquiring it; and Pliny, more than once -solicits the citizenship for protégés of his own. There is -no authority for supposing that it could be directly purchased -(at least <em>legally</em>), but it could be obtained by various -processes which came to the same thing as paying directly, -<em>e.g.</em>, building a ship of a certain burden to carry corn to Rome.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“I suspect that St. Paul’s ancestor obtained the citizenship -by serving in some petty magistracy. The coins of -Tarsus are said to show that its citizens in the reign of -Augustus, enjoyed one or other of the lower Roman -franchises; and this would facilitate the acquisition by -individuals of the full Roman citizenship.</p> - -<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_479'>479</span>“The Roman citizenship was necessarily hereditary. -The children of the person who became a Roman citizen -came at once under his <i><span lang="la" xml:lang="la">Patria Potestas</span></i>, and each of them -acquired the capacity for becoming some day a Roman -<i><span lang="la" xml:lang="la">Paterfamilias</span></i>.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“St. Paul, as a Roman citizen, lived under the Roman -Law of <em>Persons</em>, but he remained under the local Law of -<em>Property</em>. His allusions to the <i><span lang="la" xml:lang="la">Patria Potestas</span></i> and to the -Roman Law of Wills and guardianship (which was like -the <i><span lang="la" xml:lang="la">Patria Potestas</span></i>), are quite unmistakeable, and more -numerous than is commonly supposed. In the obscure -passage, for example, about women having power over the -head, “Power” and “Head” are technical terms from the -Roman Law.</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Believe me, very sincerely yours,</div> - <div class='line in20'>“<span class='sc'>H. S. Maine</span>.”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c006'>George Borrow who, if he were not a gipsy by blood <em>ought</em> -to have been one, was, for some years, our near neighbour in -Hereford Square. My friend was amused by his quaint -stories and his (real or sham) enthusiasm for Wales, and -cultivated his acquaintance. I never liked him, thinking him -more or less of a hypocrite. His missions, recorded in the -“<cite>Bible in Spain</cite>,” and his translations of the scriptures into -the out-of-the-way tongues, for which he had a gift, were by no -means consonant with his real opinions concerning the veracity -of the said Bible. Dr. Martineau once told me that he and -Borrow had been schoolfellows at Norwich some sixty years -before. Borrow had persuaded several of his other companions -to rob their fathers’ tills, and then the party set forth -to join some smugglers on the coast. By degrees the truants -all fell out of line and were picked up, tired and hungry along -the road, and brought back to Norwich school where condign -chastisement awaited them. George Borrow it seems received -his large share <em>horsed</em> on James Martineau’s back! The early -connection between the two old men as I knew them, was -<span class='pageno' id='Page_480'>480</span>irresistibly comic to my mind. Somehow when I asked Mr. -Borrow once to come and meet some friends at our house he -accepted our invitation as usual, but, on finding that Dr. -Martineau was to be of the party, hastily withdrew his -acceptance on a transparent excuse; nor did he ever after -attend our little assemblies without first ascertaining that -Dr. Martineau would not be present!</p> - -<p class='c007'>I take the following from some old letters to my friend -referring to him:</p> - -<p class='c008'>“Mr. Borrow says his wife is very ill and anxious to keep -the peace with C. (a litigious neighbour). Poor old B. was -very sad at first, but I cheered him and sent him off quite -brisk last night. He talked all about the Fathers again, -arguing that their quotations went to prove that it was <em>not</em> -our gospels they had in their hands. I knew most of it -before, but it was admirably done. I talked a little theology -to him in a serious way (finding him talk of his ‘horrors’) -and he abounded in my sense of the non-existence of Hell, -and of the presence and action on the soul of <em>a</em> Spirit, -rewarding and punishing. He would not say ‘God;’ but -repeated over and over that he spoke not from books -but from his own personal experience.”</p> - -<p class='c006'>Some time later—after his wife’s death:</p> - -<p class='c008'>“Poor old Borrow is in a sad state. I hope he is starting in -a day or two for Scotland. I sent C. with a note begging him -to come and eat the Welsh mutton you sent me to-day, and he -sent back word, ‘Yes.’ Then, an hour afterwards, he arrived, -and in a most agitated manner said he had come to say ‘he -would rather not. He would not trouble anyone with his -sorrows.’ I made him sit down, and talked as gently to him -as possible, saying: ‘It won’t be a trouble Mr. Borrow, it -will be a pleasure to me’. But it was all of no use. He was -so cross, so <em>rude</em>, I had the greatest difficulty in talking to -him. I asked about his servant, and he said I could not help -him. I asked him about Bowring, and he said: ‘Don’t speak -of it.’ [It was some dispute with Sir John Bowring, who -<span class='pageno' id='Page_481'>481</span>was an acquaintance of mine, and with whom I offered to -mediate.] ‘I asked him would he look at the photos of the -Siamese,’ and he said: ‘Don’t show them to me!’ So, in -despair, as he sat silent, I told him I had been at a pleasant -dinner-party the night before, and had met Mr. L——, who -told me of certain curious books of mediæval history. ‘Did -he know them?’ ‘No, and he <em>dare said</em> Mr. L—— did -not, either! Who was Mr. L——?’ I described that -<em>obscure</em> individual, [one of the foremost writers of -the day], and added that he was immensely liked by -everybody. Whereupon Borrow repeated at least 12 times, -‘Immensely liked! As if a man could be immensely liked!’ -quite insultingly. To make a diversion (I was very patient -with him as he was in trouble) ‘I said I had just come home -from the Lyell’s and had heard—.’... But there -was no time to say what I had heard! Mr. Borrow asked: -‘Is that old Lyle I met here once, the man who stands at -the door (of some den or other) and <em>bets</em>?’ I explained who -Sir Charles was, (of course he knew very well), but he went -on and on, till I said gravely: ‘I don’t think you will meet -those sort of people here, Mr. Borrow. We don’t associate -with blacklegs, exactly.’”</p> - -<p class='c006'>Here is an extract from another letter:</p> - -<p class='c008'>“Borrow also came, and I said something about the -imperfect education of women, and he said it was <em>right</em> they -should be ignorant, and that no man could endure a clever -wife. I laughed at him openly, and told him some men -knew better. What did he think of the Brownings? ‘Oh, -he had heard the name; he did not know anything of -them. Since Scott, he read no modern writer; Scott <em>was -greater than Homer</em>! What he liked were curious, old, erudite -books about mediæval and northern things.’ I said I knew -little of such literature, and preferred the writers of our own -age, but indeed I was no great student at all. Thereupon he -evidently wanted to astonish me; and, talking of Ireland, -said, ‘Ah, yes; a most curious, mixed race. First there -<span class='pageno' id='Page_482'>482</span>were the Firbolgs,—the old enchanters, who raised mists.’... -‘Don’t you think, Mr. Borrow,’ I asked, ‘it was -the Tuatha-de-Danaan who did that? Keatinge expressly -says that they conquered the Firbolgs by that means.’ -(Mr. B., somewhat out of countenance), ‘Oh! Aye! -Keatinge is <em>the</em> authority; a most extraordinary writer.’ -‘Well, I should call him the Geoffrey of Monmouth of -Ireland.’ (Mr. B., changing the <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">venue</span></i>), ‘I delight in -Norse-stories; they are far grander than the Greek. There -is the story of Olaf the Saint of Norway. Can anything be -grander? What a noble character!’ ‘But,’ I said, -‘what do you think of his putting all those poor Druids on -the Skerry of Shrieks and leaving them to be drowned by -the tide?’ (Thereupon Mr. B. looked at me askant out of -his gipsy eyes, as if he thought me an example of the evils -of female education!) ‘Well! well! I forgot about the -Skerry of Shrieks. Then there is the story of Beowulf the -Saxon going out to sea in his burning ship to die.’ ‘Oh, -Mr. Borrow! that isn’t a Saxon story at all. It is in the -Heimskringla! It is told of Hakon of Norway.’ Then, I asked -him about the gipsies and their language, and if they were -certainly Aryans? He didn’t know (or pretended not to know) -what Aryans were; and altogether displayed a miraculous -mixture of odd knowledge and more odd ignorance. -Whether the latter were real or assumed, I know not!”</p> - -<p class='c006'>With the leading men of Science in the Sixties we had the -honour of a good deal of intercourse. Through Dr. W. B. -Carpenter (who, as Miss Carpenter’s brother, I had met often) -and the two ever hospitable families of Lyell, we came to -know many of them. Sir William Grove was also a -particular friend of my friend Mrs. Grey. He and Lady -Grove and their daughter, Mrs. Hall, (Imogen), were all -charming people, and we had many pleasant dinners with -them. Professor Tyndall was, of course, one of the principal -members of that scientific coterie, and in those days -we saw a good deal of him. He was very friendly -<span class='pageno' id='Page_483'>483</span>as were also Mr. and Mrs. Francis Galton. Mr. Galton’s -speculations seemed always to me exceedingly original -and interesting, and I delighted in reviewing them. The -beginning of the Anti-vivisection controversy, however, put -an end to all these relations, so that since 1876, I have -seen few of the circle. It is curious to recall how nearly -we joined hands on some theological questions before this -gulf of a great ethical difference opened before us. Some -readers may recall a curious controversy raised by Prof. -Tyndall on the subject of the efficacy of prayer for <em>physical</em> -benefits. Having read what he wrote on it, I sent him my own -little book, <cite>Dawning Lights</cite>, which vindicates the efficacy of -prayer, for spiritual benefits only. The following was his -reply, to which I will append another kindly note referring -to a request I had proffered on behalf of Mrs. Somerville.</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c009'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Professor Tyndall to F. P. C.</div> - <div class='line in4'>“Royal Institution of Great Britain,</div> - <div class='line in28'>“7th Nov., 1865.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='lg-container-l c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“My dear Miss Cobbe,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c010'>“Our minds—that is yours and mine—sound the same -note as regards the economy of nature. With clearness -and precision you have stated the question. In fact, had I -known that you had written upon the subject I might have -copied your words and put my name to them.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“I intend to <em>keep</em> your book, but I have desired my -publisher to send you a book of mine in exchange—this is -fair, is it not?</p> - -<p class='c010'>“Your book so far as I have read it is full of strength. -Of course I could not have written it all. Your images -are too concrete and your personification of the mystery of -mysteries too intense for me. But as long as you are -tolerant of others—which you are—the shape into which -you mould the power of your soul must be determined by -yourself alone.</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Believe me, yours most truly,</div> - <div class='line in20'>“<span class='sc'>John Tyndall</span>.”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='lg-container-r c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'><span class='pageno' id='Page_484'>484</span>“Royal Institution of Great Britain,</div> - <div class='line in28'>“21st June.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='lg-container-l c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“My dear Miss Cobbe,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c010'>“I would do anything I could for <em>your</em> sake and irrespectively -of the interest of your subject.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“Had I Faraday’s own letter, I could decipher at once -what he meant, for I was intimately acquainted with his -course of thought during the later years of his life. It would -however be running a great risk to attempt to supply this -hiatus without seeing his letter.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“I should think it refers to the influence of <em>time</em> on -magnetic action. About the date referred to he was speculating -and trying to prove experimentally whether magnetism -required time to pass through space.</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Always yours faithfully,</div> - <div class='line in12'>“<span class='sc'>John Tyndall</span>.”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c006'>In a letter of mine to a friend written after meeting Prof. -Tyndall at dinner at Edgbaston during the Congress of the -British Association in Birmingham, after mentioning M. -Vambéry and some others, I said; “The one I liked best was -Prof. Tyndall, with whom I had quite an ‘awful’ talk alone -about the bearing of Science on Religion. He said in words -like a fine poem, that Knowledge seemed to him ‘like an -instrument on which we went up, note after note, and octave -after octave; but at last there came a note which our ears -could not hear, and which was silent for us. And at the -other end of the scale there was another silent note.’”</p> - -<p class='c007'>Many years after this, there appeared an article in the -<cite>Pall Mall Gazette</cite> which I felt sure was by Prof. Tyndall, in -which it was calmly stated that the scientific intellect had -settled the controversy between Pantheism and Theism, and -that the said Scientific Intellect “permitted us to believe in -an order of Development,” and would “allow the religious -instincts and the language of Religion to gather round that -<span class='pageno' id='Page_485'>485</span>idea;” but that the notion of a “Great Director” can by -no means be suffered by the same Scientific Intellect.</p> - -<p class='c007'>I wrote a reply, begging to be informed <em>when</em> and <em>where</em> the -controversy between Pantheism and Theism had been settled, -as the statement, dropped so coolly in a single paragraph, -was, to say the least, startling; and I concluded by saying, -“We may be <em>driven</em> into the howling wilderness of a Godless -world by the fiery swords of these new Cherubim of Knowledge; -but at least we will not shrink away into it before -their innuendoes!”</p> - -<p class='c007'>I have also lost in quitting this circle, the privilege of often -meeting Mr. Herbert Spencer; though he has never (to his -honour be it remembered!) pronounced a word in favour of -painful experiments on animals.</p> - -<p class='c007'>With the great naturalist who has revolutionized modern -science I had rather frequent intercourse till the same sad -barrier of a great difference of moral opinion arose between -us. Mr. Charles Darwin’s brother-in-law, Mr. Hensleigh -Wedgwood, was, for a time tenant here at Hengwrt; and afterwards -took a house named Caer-Deon in this neighbourhood, -where Mr. and Mrs. Charles Darwin and their boys also spent -part of the summer. As it chanced, we also took a cottage that -summer close by Caer-deon and naturally saw our neighbours -daily. I had known Mr. Darwin previously, in London, and -had also met his most amiable brother, Mr. Erasmus Darwin, -at the house of my kind old friend Mrs. Reid, the foundress of -Bedford Square College. The first thing we heard concerning -the illustrious arrivals was the report, that one of the sons -had had “<em>a fall off a Philosopher</em>;” word substituted by -the ingenious Welsh mind for “velocipede” (as bicycles were -then called) under an easily understood confusion between -the rider and the machine he rode!</p> - -<p class='c007'>Next,—the Welsh parson of the little church close -by, having fondly calculated that Mr. Darwin would -<span class='pageno' id='Page_486'>486</span>certainly hasten to attend his services, prepared for -him a sermon which should slay this scientific Goliath -and spread dismay through the ranks of the sceptical -host. He told his congregation that there were in these -days persons, puffed up by science, falsely so called, and -deluded by the pride of reason, who had actually been so -audacious as to question the story of the six days Creation -as detailed in Sacred Scripture. But let them note how -idle were these sceptical questionings! Did they not see -that the events recorded happened before there was any man -existing to record them, and that, therefore, Moses <em>must</em> have -learned them from God himself, since there was no one else -to tell him?</p> - -<p class='c007'>Alas! the philosopher, I fear, never went to be converted -(as he surely must have been) by this ingenious Welsh -parson, and we were for a long time merry over his logic. -Mr. Darwin was never in good health, I believe, after his -Beagle experience of sea sickness, and he was glad to use a -peaceful and beautiful old pony of my friend’s, yclept -Geraint, which she placed at his disposal. His gentleness -to this beast and incessant efforts to keep off the flies from -his head, and his fondness for his dog Polly (concerning -whose cleverness and breeding he indulged in delusions -which Matthew Arnold’s better dog-lore would have swiftly -dissipated), were very pleasing traits in his character.</p> - -<p class='c007'>In writing at this time to a friend I said:—</p> - -<p class='c008'>“I am glad you like Mill’s book. Mr. Charles Darwin, -with whom I am enchanted, is greatly excited about it, but -says that Mill could learn some things from physical -science; and that it is in the struggle for existence and -(especially) for the possession of women that men acquire -their vigour and courage. Also he intensely agrees with -what I say in my review of Mill about <em>inherited</em> qualities -being more important than <em>education</em>, on which alone Mill -<span class='pageno' id='Page_487'>487</span>insists. All this the philosopher told me yesterday, -standing on a path 60 feet above me and carrying on an -animated dialogue from our respective standpoints!”</p> - -<p class='c006'>Mr. Darwin was walking on the footpath down from -Caer-Deon among the purple heather which clothes our -mountains so royally; and impenetrable brambles lay between -him above and me on the road below; so we exchanged our -remarks at the top of our voices, being too eager to think of -the absurdity of the situation, till my friend coming along the -road heard with amazement words flying in the air which -assuredly those “valleys and rocks never heard” before, -or since! When we drive past that spot, as we often do -now, we sigh as we look at the “Philosopher’s Path,” and -wish (O, <em>how</em> one wishes!) that he could come back and tell -us what he has learned <em>since</em>!</p> - -<p class='c007'>At this time Mr. Darwin was writing his <cite>Descent of Man</cite>, -and he told me that he was going to introduce some new -view of the nature of the Moral Sense. I said: “Of course -you have studied Kant’s <cite><span lang="de" xml:lang="de">Grundlegung der Sitten</span></cite>?” No; -he had not read Kant, and did not care to do so. I ventured -to urge him to study him, and observed that one could -hardly see one’s way in ethical speculation without some -understanding of his philosophy. My own knowledge of it -was too imperfect to talk of it to him, but I could lend him -a very good translation. He declined my book, but I -nevertheless packed it up with the next parcel I sent him.</p> - -<p class='c007'>On returning the volume he wrote to me:—</p> - -<p class='c008'>“It was very good of you to send me <i><span lang="la" xml:lang="la">nolens volens</span></i> Kant, -together with the other book. I have been extremely glad -to look through the former. It has interested me much to -see how differently two men may look at the same points. -Though I fully feel how presumptuous it sounds to put -myself even for a moment in the same bracket with Kant—the -one man a great philosopher looking exclusively into -<span class='pageno' id='Page_488'>488</span>his own mind, the other a degraded wretch looking from -the outside through apes and savages at the moral sense of -mankind.”</p> - -<p class='c006'>There was irony, and perhaps not a little pride in his -reference to himself as a “degraded wretch looking through -apes and savages at the moral sense of mankind”! Between -the two great Schools of thinkers,—those who study from the -Inside (of human consciousness), and those who study from -the Outside,—there has always existed mutual animosity and -contempt. For my own part, while fully admitting that the -former needed to have their conclusions enlarged and tested -by outside experience, I must always hold that they were on -a truer line than the (exclusively) physico-scientific philosophers. -Man’s consciousness is not only <em>a</em> fact in the -world but the <em>greatest</em> of facts; and to overlook it and take -our lessons from beasts and insects is to repeat the old jest -of Hamlet with Hamlet omitted. A philosophy founded -solely on the consciousness of man, <em>may</em>; and, very likely, -will, be imperfect; and certainly it will be incomplete. But -a philosophy which begins with inorganic matter and the -lower animals, and only includes the outward facts of -anthropology, regardless of human consciousness,—<em>must</em> be -worse than imperfect and incomplete. It resembles a treatise -on the Solar System which should omit to notice the Sun.</p> - -<p class='c007'>I mentioned to him in a letter, that we had found some -seeds of Tropæolum, very carefully gathered from brilliant -and multicoloured varieties, all revert in a single year to -plain scarlet. He replied:—“You and Miss Lloyd need not -have your faith in inheritance shaken with respect to -Tropæolum until you have prevented for six or seven generations -any crossing between the varieties in the same garden. -I have lately found the very shade of colour is transmitted of -a most fluctuating garden variety if the flowers are carefully -self-fertilized during six or seven generations.”</p> - -<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_489'>489</span>The <cite>Descent of Man</cite> of which Mr. Darwin was kind enough -to give me a copy before publication, inspired me with the -deadliest alarm. His new theory therein set forth, respecting -the nature and origin of conscience, seemed to me then, and -still seems to me, of absolutely fatal import. I wrote the -strongest answer to it in my power at once, and published -in the <cite>Theological Review</cite>, April, 1871 (reprinted in my -<cite>Darwinism in Morals</cite>, 1872). Of course I sent my review -to Down House. Here is a generous message which I -received in reply:—</p> - -<p class='c008'>“Mr. Darwin is reading the <cite>Review</cite> with the greatest interest -and attention and feels so much the kind way you speak of -him and the praise you give him, that it will make him bear -your severity, when he reaches that part of the review.”</p> - -<p class='c006'>Referring to an article of mine in the <cite>Quarterly Review</cite> -(Oct., 1872) on the <cite>Consciousness of Dogs</cite>, Mr. Darwin wrote -to me, Nov. 28th, 1872:—</p> - -<p class='c008'>“I have been greatly interested by your article in the -<cite>Quarterly</cite>. It seems to me the best analysis of the mind of -an animal which I have ever read, and I agree with you on -most points. I have been particularly glad to read what -you say about the reasoning power of dogs, and about that -rather vague matter, their self-consciousness. I dare say -however that you would prefer criticism to admiration.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“I regret that you quote J. so often: I made enquiries -about one case (which quite broke down) from a man who -certainly ought to know Mr. J. well; and I was cautioned -that he had not written in a scientific spirit. I regret also -that you quote old writers. It may be very illiberal, but their -statements go for nothing with me and I suspect with many -others. It passes my powers of belief that dogs ever commit -suicide. Assuming the statements to be true, I should think -it more probable that they were distraught, and did not know -what they were doing; nor am I able to credit about fetishes.</p> - -<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_490'>490</span>“One of the most interesting subjects in your article seems -to me to be about the moral sense. Since publishing the -<cite>Descent of Man</cite> I have got to believe rather more than I -did in dogs having what may be called a conscience. When -an honourable dog has committed an undiscovered offence -he certainly seems <em>ashamed</em> (and this is the term naturally -and often used) rather than <em>afraid</em> to meet his master. -My dog, the beloved and beautiful Polly, is at such -times extremely affectionate towards me; and this leads -me to mention a little anecdote. When I was a very -little boy, I had committed some offence, so that my -conscience troubled me, and when I met my father, I -lavished so much affection on him, that he at once asked -me what I had done, and told me to confess. I was so -utterly confounded at his suspecting anything, that I -remember the scene clearly to the present day, and it -seems to me that Polly’s frame of mind on such occasions is -much the same as was mine, for I was not then at all -afraid of my father.”</p> - -<p class='c006'>In a letter to a friend (Nov., 1869) I say:—</p> - -<p class='c008'>“We lunched with Mr. Charles Darwin at Mr. Erasmus -D——’s house on Sunday. He told us that a German man -of science, (I think Carl Vogt), the other day gave a lecture, -in which he treated the Mass as the last relic of that -<em>Cannibalism</em> which gradually took to eating only the heart, -or eyes of a man to acquire his courage. Whereupon the -whole audience rose and cheered the lecturer enthusiastically! -Mr. Darwin remarked how much more <em>decency</em> -there was in speaking on such subjects in England.”</p> - -<p class='c006'>This pleasant intercourse with an illustrious man was, -like many other pleasant things, brought to a close for me in -1875 by the beginning of the Anti-vivisection crusade. Mr. -Darwin eventually became the centre of an adoring <em>clique</em> of -vivisectors who (as his Biography shows) plied him -incessantly with encouragement to uphold their practice, till -<span class='pageno' id='Page_491'>491</span>the deplorable spectacle was exhibited of a man who would -not allow a fly to bite a pony’s neck, standing forth before -all Europe (in his celebrated letter to Prof. Holmgren of -Sweden) as the advocate of Vivisection.</p> - -<p class='c006'>We had many interesting foreign visitors in Hereford -Square. I have mentioned the two Parsee gentlemen who -came to thank me for having made (as they considered) a just -estimate of their religion in my article “<cite>The Sacred Books -of the Zoroastrians</cite>.” The elder of them, Mr. Nowrozjee -Furdoonjee, was President of the Parsee Society of Bombay; -but resided much in England, and had an astonishing knowledge -of English and American theological and philosophic -literature. He asked me one day to recommend him the best -modern books on ethics. My small library contained a good -many, but he not only knew every one I possessed, but -almost all others which I named as worthy of his attention. -We talked very freely on religious matters and with a good -deal of sympathy. I pressed him one day with the question, -“Do you really believe in Ahriman?” “Of course I do!” -“What! In a real personal Evil Being, who is as much a -<em>person</em> as Ormusd?” “O no! I did not mean that! I -believe in Evil existing in the world;”—and obviously in -nothing more!</p> - -<p class='c007'>My chief Eastern visitors, however (and they were so -numerous that my artist-minded friend was wont to call them -my “Bronzes”), were the Brahmos of Bengal, and one or two -of the same faith from Bombay. There were very remarkable -young men at that date, members of the “Church of the One -God;” nearly all of them having risen from the gross -idolatry in which they had been educated into a purer -Theistic faith, not without encountering considerable family -and social persecution. Their leader, Keshub Chunder Sen -<span class='pageno' id='Page_492'>492</span>at any other age of the world, would have taken his place -with such prophets as Nanuk (the founder of the Sikh -religion) and Gautama; or with the mediæval Saints like St. -Augustine and St. Patrick, who converted nations. He was, -I think, the most <em>devout</em> man with whose mind I ever came -in contact. When he left my drawing-room after long conversations -on the highest themes,—sometimes held alone -together, sometimes with the company of my dear friend -William Henry Channing—the impression left on me was -one never-to-be-forgotten. I wrote of one such interview at -the time to my friend as follows (April 28, 1870):</p> - -<p class='c008'>“Keshub came and sat with me the other evening, and -I was profoundly impressed, not by his intellect but by -his goodness. He seems really to <em>live in God</em>, and the -single-mindedness of the man seemed to me utterly un-English; -much more like Christ! He said some very -profound things, and seemed to feel that the joy of prayer -was quite the greatest thing in life. He said, ‘I don’t -know anything about the future, but I only know that -when I pray I feel that my union with God is eternal. In -our faith the belief in God and in Immortality are not two -doctrines but one.’ He also said that we must believe in -intercessory prayer, else <em>the more we lived in Prayer the more -selfish we should grow</em>. He told me much of the <em>beginning</em> -of his own religious life, and, wonderful to say, his words -would have described that of my own! He said, indeed, -that he had often laid down my books when reading them -in India, and said to himself: ‘How can this English -woman have felt all this just as I?’”</p> - -<p class='c006'>In his outward man Keshub Chunder Sen was the ideal of -a great teacher. He had a tall, manly figure, always -clothed in a long black robe of some light cloth like a French -<i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">soutane</span></i>, a very handsome square face with powerful jaw; -the complexion and eyes of a southern Italian; and all the -Eastern gentle dignity of manner. He and his friend -<span class='pageno' id='Page_493'>493</span>Mozoomdar and several others of his party spoke English -quite perfectly; making long addresses and delivering -extempore sermons in our language without error of any -kind, or a single betrayal of foreign accent. Keshub in -particular, was decidedly eloquent in English. I gathered -many influential men to meet him and they were impressed -by him as much as I was.</p> - -<p class='c007'>The career of this very remarkable man was cut short a -few years after his return from England by an early death. -I believe he had taken to ascetic practices, fasting and -watching; against which I had most urgently warned him, -seeing his tendency towards them. I had argued with him -that, not only were they totally foreign to the spirit of -simple Theism, but dangerous to a man who, living habitually -in the highest realms of human emotion, needed <em>all the more -for that reason</em> that the physical basis of his life should be -absolutely sound and strong, and not subject to the variabilities -and possible hallucinations attendant on abstinence. My -friendly counsels were of no avail. Keshub became, I believe, -somewhat too near a “Yogi” (if I rightly understand that -word) and was almost worshipped by his congregation of -Brahmos. The marriage of his daughter—who has since -visited England—to the Maharajah of Coosh Behar, involved -very painful discussions about the legal age of the bride and -the ceremonies of a Hindoo marriage, which were insisted on -by the bridegroom’s mother; and the last year or two of -Keshub’s life were, I fear, darkened by the secessions from -his church which followed an event otherwise gratifying.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Oddly enough this Indian <em>Saint</em> was the only Eastern it -has ever been my chance to meet who could enjoy a joke -thoroughly, like one of ourselves. He came to me in -Hereford Square one day bursting with uncontrollable -laughter at his own adventures. Lord Lawrence, when -Governor-General of India, had been particularly friendly to -<span class='pageno' id='Page_494'>494</span>him and had bidden him come and see him when he should -arrive in England. Keshub’s friends had found a lodging for -him in Regent’s Park, and having resolved to go and pay his -respects to Lord Lawrence at once, he sent for a four-wheeled -cab, and simply told the cabman to drive to that nobleman’s -house; fondly imagining that all London must know -it, as Calcutta knew Government House. The cabman set -off without the remotest idea where to go; and after driving -hither and thither about town for three hours, set his fare -down again at the door of his lodgings; told him he could not -find Lord Lawrence; and charged him fourteen shillings! -Poor Keshub paid the scandalous charge, and then referred -to an old letter to find Lord Lawrence’s address, “<cite>Queen’s -Gate</cite>.” Oh, that was quite right! No doubt the late -Governor-General naturally lived close to the Queen! -“Drive to Queen’s Gate.” The new cabman drove straight -enough to “Queen’s Gate”; but about 185 houses appeared -in a row, and there was nothing to indicate which of them -belonged to Lord Lawrence; not even a solitary sentinel -walking before the door! After knocking at many doors in -vain, the cabman had an inspiration! “We will try if the -nearest butcher knows which house it is;” and so they turned -into Gloucester Road, and the excellent butcher there did -know which number in Queen’s Gate belonged to Lord -Lawrence, and Keshub was received and warmly welcomed. -But that he should have to seek out a <em>butcher’s shop</em> (in his -Eastern eyes the most degraded of shops) to learn where he -could find a man whom he had last seen as Viceroy of India, -was, to his thinking, exquisitely ridiculous.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Ex-Governors-General and their wives must certainly -find some difficulty in descending all at once so many steps -from the altitude of the viceregal thrones of our great -dependencies to the level of private citizens, scarcely to be -noticed more than others in society, and dwelling in ordinary -<span class='pageno' id='Page_495'>495</span>London houses unmarked by the “guard of honour” of -even a single policeman!</p> - -<p class='c006'>At a later date I had other Oriental visitors, one a gentleman -who had made a translation of the Bhagvat-Gita, and -who brought his wife and children to England, and to my -tea-table. The wife wore a lovely, delicate lilac robe wrapped -about her in the most graceful folds, but the effect was somewhat -marred by the vulgar English side-spring boots, (very -short in the leg), which the poor soul had found needful for -use in London! The children sat opposite me at the tea-table, -silently devouring my cakes and bon-bons; staring at me -with their large black eyes, veritable <em>wells</em> of mistrust and -hatred, such as only Eastern eyes can speak! I like dark -<em>men</em> and <em>women</em> very well, but when the little ones are in -question, I must confess that a child is scarcely a child to -me unless it be a little Saxon, with golden hair and those -innocent blue eyes which make one think of forget-me-nots -in a brook. Where is the heart which can help growing -soft at sight of one of these little creatures toddling in the -spring grass picking daisies and cowslips, or laughing with -sheer ecstacy in the joy of existence? A dark child may be -ten times as handsome, but it has no pretension, to my -mind, to pull one’s heart-strings in the same way as a blonde -babykins.</p> - -<p class='c007'>A Hindoo lady, Ramabai, for whom I have deep respect, -came to me before I left London and impressed me most -favourably. She, and a few other Hindoo women who are -striving to secure education and freedom for their sisters, -will be honoured hereafter more than John Howard, for he -strove only to mitigate the too severe punishment of <em>criminals</em> -and delinquents; <em>they</em> are labouring to relieve the quite -equally dreadful lot of millions of <em>innocent</em> women. An -<span class='pageno' id='Page_496'>496</span>American Missionary, Mr. Dall, long resident in India, told -me that thousands of these unhappy beings <em>never put their -feet to the earth</em> or go a step from the house of their husbands -(to which they are carried from their father’s Zenana at -9 or 10 years old) till they were borne away as corpses! -All life for them has been one long imprisonment; its sole -interest and concern the passions of the baser sort of love -and jealousy! While writing these pages I have come -across the following frightful testimony by the great -traveller Mrs. Bishop (<i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">née</span></i> Isabella Bird) to the truth of the -above observation concerning the dreadful condition of the -women of India:—</p> - -<p class='c008'>“I have lived in Zenanas and harems, and have seen the -daily life of the secluded women, and I can speak from -bitter experience of what their lives are; the intellect -dwarfed, so that the woman of twenty or thirty years of -age is more like a child of eight intellectually, while all the -worst passions of human nature are stimulated and -developed in a fearful degree; jealousy, envy, murderous -hate, intrigue, running to such an extent that in some -countries I have hardly ever been in a woman’s house or -near a woman’s tent without being asked for drugs with -which to disfigure the favourite wife, to take away her life, -or to take away the life of the favourite wife’s infant son. -This request has been made of me nearly two hundred -times.”</p> - -<p class='c006'>(<cite>Quoted by Lady Henry Somerset in the Woman’s Signal</cite>, -April 12th, 1894).</p> - -<p class='c007'>I had the pleasure also of visits from several French and -Belgian gentlemen who were good enough to call on me. -Several were Protestant pastors of the <cite><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">École Moderne</span></cite>; -M. Fontanés, M. Th. Bost, and M. Leblois being among -them. I had long kept up a correspondence with M. Felix -Pécaut, author of a beautiful book “<cite><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Le Christ et la Conscience</span></cite>,” -of whom Dean Stanley told me that he (who knew -<span class='pageno' id='Page_497'>497</span>him well) believed him to be “the most pious of living men.” -I never had the happiness to meet him, but seeing, some -twenty years later, in a Report by Mr. Matthew Arnold on -French Training Schools, enthusiastic praise of M. Pécaut’s -school for female teachers, at Fontenaye-aux-Roses, near -Paris, I sent it to my old friend, and we exchanged a mental -handshake across time and space.</p> - -<p class='c007'>An illustrious neighbour of ours, in South Kensington -sometimes came to see me. Here is a lively complimentary -letter from him:—</p> - -<p class='c008'>“From M. le Sénateur Victor Schœlcher to Miss Cobbe.</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Paris, 12, 1883.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='lg-container-l c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Dear, honoured Miss Power Cobbe,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c010'>“<span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Je ne vous ai pas oubliée, on ne vous oublie pas quand -on a eu l’honneur et le plaisir de vous connaître. Moi je suis -accablé d’ouvrage et je ne fais pas la moitié de ce que je -voudrais faire. Je ne manque pas toutefois de lire votre -<cite>Zoophile</cite> Français qui aidera puissamment notre Ligue à -combattre les abus de la Vivisection. Tous ceux qui ont -quelque sentiment d’humanité écouteront votre voix en -faveur des pauvres animaux et vous aideront de toutes leur -forces à les protéger contre un genre d’étude veritablement -barbare. Quand à moi, l’activité, la persévérance et le -talent que vous montrez dans votre œuvre de charité -m’inspirent le plus vif et le plus respectueux intérêt.</span></p> - -<p class='c010'>“<span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Ne croyez pas ceux qui tentent de vous décourager en -prétendant que votre journal est une substance trop aride -pour attacher le lecteur Français. Je le sais; il est convenu -en Angleterre que les Français sont un peuple léger. Mais -c’est là un vieux préjugé que ne gardent pas les Anglais -instruits. Soyez bien assuré que vos efforts ne seront pas -plus peine perdue dans mon noble pays que dans le votre. -Notre Société Protectrice des Animaux a quarante ans -d’existence.</span></p> - -<p class='c010'>“<span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">À mon prochain voyage à Londres je m’empresserai -d’aller vous faire visite pour retrouver le plaisir que j’ai -<span class='pageno' id='Page_498'>498</span>gouté dans votre conversation et pour vous répéter</span>, Dear -Miss Power Cobbe, that I am your’s most respectfully and -faithfully,</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“<span class='sc'>V. Schœlcher</span>.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c010'>“Permettez moi de vous prier de me rappeler au souvenir -de Madame la Doctoresse, et de M. le Dr. Hoggan.”</p> - -<p class='c006'>It was M. Schœlcher who effected in 1848 the abolition of -Negro Slavery in the French Colonies. He was a charming -companion and a most excellent man. I interceded once -with him to make interest with the proper authorities in -France for the relaxation of the extremely severe penalties -which Louise Michel had incurred by one of her extravagances. -To my surprise, I learned from him that I had gone to head-quarters, -since the matter would mainly rest in his hands. He -was Vice-President,—practically President—of the Department -of Prisons in France. He repeated with indulgence, “Mais, -Madame, elle est folle! elle est parfaitement folle, et très dangereuse.” -I quite agreed, but still thought she was well-meaning, and that her sentence was excessive. He promised that -when the first year of her imprisonment was over (with which, he -said, they made it a rule never to interfere so as not to insult the -judges,) he would see what could be done to let her off by -degrees. He observed, with more earnestness than I should -have expected from one of his political school, how wrong, -dangerous and <em>wicked</em> it was to go about with a black flag at -the head of a mob. Still he agreed with my view that the -length of Louise Michel’s sentence was unjustly great. -Eventually the penalty was actually commuted; I conclude -through the intervention of M. Schœlcher.</p> - -<p class='c007'>M. Schœlcher was the most attractive Frenchman I ever -met. At the time I knew him, he was old and feeble and had -a miserable cough; but he was most emphatically a gentleman, -a tender, even soft-hearted man; and a brilliantly agreeable -<span class='pageno' id='Page_499'>499</span>talker. He had made a magnificent collection of 9,000 -engravings, and told me he was going to present it to the -<i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Beaux Arts</span></i> in Paris. While sitting talking in my drawing-room -his eye constantly turned to a particularly fine cast -which I possess of the Psyche of Praxiteles, made expressly -for Harriet Hosmer and given by her to me in Rome. When -he rose to leave me, he stood under the lovely creature and -<em>worshipped</em> her as she deserves!</p> - -<p class='c007'>We had also many delightful American visitors, whose -visits gave me so much pleasure and profit that I easily -forgave one or two others who provoked Fanny Kemble’s -remark that “if the engineers would <em>lay on</em> Miss P. or Mr. H. -the Alps would be bored through without any trouble!” -Most of my American friendly visitors are, I rejoice to say, -still living, so I will only name them with an expression of -my great esteem for all and affection for several of them. -Among them were Col. Higginson, Mr. George Curtis, Mrs. -Howe, Mrs. Livermore, Mr. and Mrs. Loring-Brace, Rev. J. -Freeman Clarke, Rev. W. Alger, Dr. O. W. Holmes, Mr. -Peabody, Miss Harriet Hosmer, Mr. Hazard, Mrs. Lockwood, -and my dearly beloved friends, W. H. Channing, Mrs. Apthorp, -Mrs. Wister, Miss Schuyler and Miss Georgina Schuyler. Sometimes -American ladies would come to me as perfect strangers -with a letter from some mutual friend, and would take me by -storm and after a couple of hours’ conversation we parted as -if we had known and loved each other for years. There is -something to my mind unique in the attractiveness of -American women, when they are, as usual, attractive; but -they are like the famous little girl with the “curl in the -middle of her forehead,”—</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c018'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“When she was good, she was very, very good;</div> - <div class='line'>When she was bad, she was horrid”!</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c007'>The wholesome horror felt by us, Londoners, of outstaying -our welcome when visiting acquaintances, and of trespassing -<span class='pageno' id='Page_500'>500</span>too long at any hour, seems to be an unknown sentiment to -some Americans, and also to some Australian ladies; and for -my own part I fear that being bored is a kind of martyrdom -which I can never endure in a Christian spirit, or without -beginning to regard the man or woman who bores me with -most uncharitable sentiments. My young Hindoo visitors -drove me distracted till I discovered that they imagined a -visit to me to be <em>an audience</em>, and that it was for me to -<em>dismiss</em> them!</p> - -<p class='c007'>I met Longfellow during his last visit to England at the -house of Mr. Wynne-Finch. His large, leonine head, -surmounted at that date by a <em>nimbus</em> of white hair, was very -striking indeed. I saw him standing a few moments alone, -and ventured to introduce myself as a friend of his friends, -the Apthorps, of Boston, and when I gave my name he took -both my hands and pressed them with delightful cordiality. -We talked for a good while, but I cannot recall any particular -remark he may have made.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Mr. Wynne-Finch was stepfather of Alice L’Estrange, -who, before her marriage with Laurence Oliphant was for a -long time our most assiduous and affectionate visitor, having -taken a young girl’s <em>engouement</em> for us two elderly women. -Never was there a more bewitching young creature, so -sweetly affectionate, so clever and brilliant in every way. It -was quite dazzling to see such youth and brightness flitting -about us. An old letter of hers to my friend which I chance -to have fallen on is alive still with her playfulness and tenderness. -It begins thus:—</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c009'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“4, Upper Brook Street,</div> - <div class='line in4'>“London, Oct. 3rd, 1871.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c010'>“O yes! I know! It isn’t so very long since I heard last, -and <em>I am</em> in London, which I am enjoying, and am busy in -a thousand little messy things which amuse me, and I was -with Miss Cobbe on Tuesday which was bliss absolute, and -above all I heard about you from her (beside all the talk on -<span class='pageno' id='Page_501'>501</span>that forbidden subject,—it is <em>so</em> disagreeable of us, isn’t it?). -I felt that ingratitude for mercies received which characterises -our race so strong in me that I want a sight of -your writing, as that is all I can get just now,” &c., &c.</p> - -<p class='c006'>Alice was of an extremely sceptical turn of mind (which -made her subsequent fanaticism the more inexplicable), and -for months before she fell in with Mr. Oliphant in Paris I -had been labouring with all my strength to lead her simply -<em>to believe in God</em>. She did not see her way to such faith at -all, though she was docile enough to read the many books -I gave her, and to come with us and her stepfather to hear -Dr. Martineau’s sermons. She incessantly discussed theological -questions, but always from the point of view of the evil in -creation, and, as she used to say pathetically, of “the -insufferableness of the suffering of others.” She argued -that the misery of the world was so great that a good God if -He could not relieve it, ought to hurl it to destruction. In -vain I argued that there is a higher end of creation than -Happiness, to be wrought out through trial and pain. She -would never admit the loftier conception of God’s purposes -as they appeared to me, and was to all intents and purposes -an Atheist when she said good-bye to me, before a short trip -to Paris. She came back in a month or six weeks, not -merely a believer in the ordinary orthodox creed, but inspired -with the zeal of an <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">energumène</span></i> for the doctrines, very much -over and above orthodoxy, of Mr. Harris! Our gentle, -caressing, modest young friend was entirely transformed. -She stood upright and walked up and down our rooms, -talking with vehemence about Mr. Harris’ doctrines, and -the necessity for adopting his views, obeying his guidance, -and going immediately to live on the shores of Lake -Erie! The transfiguration was, I suppose, <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">au fond</span></i>, one -of the many miracles of the little god with the bow and -arrows and Mr. Oliphant was certainly not unconcerned -<span class='pageno' id='Page_502'>502</span>therein. But still there was no adequate explanation of this -change, or of the boasting (difficult to hear with patience from -a clever and sceptical woman) of the famous “method” of -obtaining fresh supplies of Divine spirit, by the process of -holding one’s breath for some minutes—according to Mr. -Harris’ pneumatology! The whole thing was infinitely -distressing, even revolting to us; and we sympathised much -with her stepfather (my friend’s old friend) who had loved -her like a father, and was driven wild by the insolent pretentions -of Mr. Harris to stop the marriage, of which all London -had heard, unless his monstrous demands were previously -obeyed! At last Alice walked by herself one morning to her -Bank, and ordered her whole fortune to be transferred to -Mr. Harris; and this without the simplest settlement or -security for her future support! After this heroic proceeding, -the Prophet of Lake Erie graciously consented, (in a way,) to -her marriage; and England saw her and Mr. Oliphant no more -for many years. What that very helpless and self-indulgent -young creature must have gone through in her solitary -cottage on Lake Erie, and subsequently in her poor little -school in California, can scarcely be guessed. When she -returned to England she wrote to us from Hunstanton -Hall, (her brother’s house), offering to come and see us, -but we felt that it would cause us more pain than pleasure -to meet her again, and, in a kindly way, we declined the -proposal. Since her sad death, and that of Mr. Oliphant, -an American friend of mine, Dr. Leffingwell, travelling in -Syria, wrote me a letter from her house at Haifa. He found -her books still on the shelves where she had left them; and -the first he took down was Parker’s <cite>Discourse of Religion</cite> -inscribed “From Frances Power Cobbe to Alice L’Estrange.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>A less tragic <em>souvenir</em> of poor Alice occurs to me as I -write. It is so good an illustration of the difference between -English and French politeness that I must record it.</p> - -<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_503'>503</span>Alice was going over to Paris alone, and as I happened to -know that a distinguished and very agreeable old French -gentleman of my acquaintance was crossing by the same -train, I wrote and begged him to look after her on the way. -He replied in the kindest and most graceful manner as -follows:—</p> - -<div class='lg-container-l c009'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Chère Mademoiselle,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c010'>“Vraiment vous me comblez de toutes les manières. -Après l’aimable accueil que vous avez bien voulu me faire, -vous songez encore à mes ennuis de voyage seul, et vous -voulez bien me procurer la société la plus agréable. Agréez -en tous mes remercîments, quoique je ne puisse m’empêcher -de songer que s’il avait moins neigé sur la montagne (comme -disent les Orientaux) vous seriez moins confiante. Je serai -trop heureux de me mettre au service de votre amie.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“Agréez, chère Mademoiselle, les hommages respectueux -de votre,</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Dévoué serviteur,</div> - <div class='line in8'><span class='sc'>Baron de T.</span>”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='lg-container-l c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“1 Déc., 1871.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c006'>They met at Charing Cross, and no man could be more -charming than M. le Baron de T. made himself in the train -and on the boat. But on arrival at Boulogne it appeared that -Alice’s luggage had either gone astray or been stopped by the -custom-house people; and she was in a difficulty, the train -for Paris being ready to start, and the French officials -paying no attention to her entreaty that her trunks should -be delivered and put into the van to take with her. Of -course the appearance by her side of a French gentleman with -the <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Legion d’Honneur</span></i> in his buttonhole would have probably -decided the case in her favour at once. But M. de T. had -not the least idea of losing his train and getting into an -imbroglio for sake of a damsel in distress,—so, with many -assurances that he was quite <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">désolé</span></i> to lose the enchanting -pleasure of her society up to Paris, he got into his -<span class='pageno' id='Page_504'>504</span>carriage and was quickly carried out of sight. Meanwhile -a rather ordinary-looking Englishman who had noted -Miss L’Estrange’s awkward situation, went up to her -and asked in a gruff fashion; what was the matter? -When he was informed, he let his train go off and ran hither -and thither about the station, till at last the luggage was -found and restored to its owner. Then, when Alice strove -naturally, to thank him, he simply raised his hat,—said, it -was of “no consequence,” and disappeared to trouble her -no more.</p> - -<p class='c007'>“Which, therefore, was neighbour to him that fell among -thieves?”</p> - -<h3 class='c029'>POSTSCRIPT, 1898.</h3> - -<p class='c030'>So many recollections of Mr. Gladstone have been -published since his death that it seems hardly worth while -to record mine. I saw him only at intervals and never had -the honour of any intimate acquaintance with him; but one -or two glimpses of him may perhaps amuse my readers as -exhibiting his astonishing versatility.</p> - -<p class='c007'>I first met him, some time in the Sixties, in North Wales -when he came from Hawarden to visit at a house where I -was spending a few days, and joined me in walking to the -summit of Penmaen-bach. He talked, I need not say, -delightfully all the way as we sauntered up, but I remember -only his sympathetic rejoinder to my dislike of mules for -such mountain expeditions,—that he had felt quite remorseful -on concluding some tour (I think in the Pyrenees), for hating -so much a beast to which he had often owed his life!</p> - -<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_505'>505</span>Some years after this pleasant climb, I was surprised and, -of course, much flattered to receive from him the following -note. I know not who was the friend who sent him my -pamphlet. It had not occurred to me to do so.</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c009'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“4, Carlton Gardens,</div> - <div class='line in12'>“March 1st, 1876.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='lg-container-l c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Dear Miss Cobbe,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c010'>“I do not know whom I have to thank for sending -me your” (word illegible) “article on Vivisection, but the -obligation is great, for I seldom read a paper possessed -with such a spirit of nobleness from first to last.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“It is long since we met on the slopes of Penmaen-bach. -Do you ever go out to breakfast, and could we persuade you -to be so kind as to come to us on Thursday, March 9, -at ten?</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Believe me, faithfully yours,</div> - <div class='line in12'>“<span class='sc'>W. E. Gladstone</span>.”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c006'>The breakfast in Carlton Gardens was a very interesting -one. Before it began Mr. Gladstone took me into his -library, and we talked for a considerable time on the subject -of Vivisection. At the close of our conversation, finding him -apparently agreeing very cordially with me, I asked, if he -would not join the Victoria Street Society which I had then -recently founded? He replied that he would rather not do -so; but that if ever he returned to office, he would help me -to the best of his power. This promise, I may here say, was -given very seriously after making the observation that he was -no longer (at that time) in the position of influence he had -occupied in previous years; but he obviously anticipated his -return to power,—which actually followed not long afterwards. -He repeated this promise of help to me four times in conversation -and once on one of his famous post-cards; and again -in writing to Lord Shaftesbury in reply to a Memorial which -the latter presented to him, signed by 100 of the foremost -names, as regarded intellect and character, in England. -<span class='pageno' id='Page_506'>506</span>Always Mr. Gladstone repeated the same assurance: “All -his sympathies were” with us. Here is the letter on the -card, dated April 1st, 1877, in reply to my request that he -would write a few words to be read by Lord Shaftesbury -at one of our Meetings. It ran as follows:—</p> - -<div class='lg-container-l c009'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Dear Miss Cobbe,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c010'>“You are already aware that my sympathies and -prepossessions are greatly with you, nor do I wish this to be -a secret, but I am overwhelmed with occupations, and I -cannot overtake my arrears, and my letters have been so -constantly put before the world (often, of course, without -warrant) that I cannot, I am afraid, appear in the form of -an epistle <i><span lang="la" xml:lang="la">ad hoc</span></i>, more than I can in person.</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Faithfully yours,</div> - <div class='line in12'>“<span class='sc'>W. E. Gladstone</span>.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='lg-container-l c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“April 1, 1877.”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c006'>(Half the words in his apology for <em>not</em> writing would -of course have more than sufficed for the letter desired.)</p> - -<p class='c007'>Naturally, after all this, I looked to Mr. Gladstone as a -most powerful friend of the Anti-vivisection cause; and though -I had no sympathy with his religious views, and thought -his policy very dangerous, I counted on him as a man who, -<em>since his suffrage had been obtained in a great moral question</em>, -was sure to give it his support in fitting time and place. The -sequel showed how delusive was my trust.</p> - -<p class='c007'>To return to the breakfast in Carlton Gardens. There sat -down with us, to my amusement, a gentleman with whom I had -already made acquaintance, an ex-priest of some distinction, -Rev. Rudolph Suffield, who had recently quitted the Church -of Rome but retained enough of priestly looks and manners -to be rather antipathetic to me. Mr. Gladstone ingeniously -picked Mr. Suffield’s brains for half-an-hour, eliciting all -manner of information on Romish doctrines and practice, till -the conversation drifted to Pascal’s <cite><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Provinciales</span></cite>, I expressed -<span class='pageno' id='Page_507'>507</span>my admiration for the book, and recalled Gibbon’s droll -confession that he, whom Byron styled “The Lord of irony, -that master spell,” had learned the <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">sanglant</span></i> sarcasm of his -XV. and XVI. chapters from the pious author of the <cite><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Pensées</span></cite>. -Mr. Gladstone eagerly interposed with some fine criticisms, -and ended with the amazing remark: “I have read all the -Jesuit answers to Pascal (!) to ascertain whether he had -misquoted Suarez and Escobar and the rest, and I found -that he had <em>not</em> done so. You may take my word for it.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>From this theological discussion there was a diversion -when a gentleman on the other side of the breakfast table -handed across to Mr. Gladstone certain drawings of the legs of -horses. They proved to be sketches of several pairs in the -Panathenaic frieze and were produced to settle the highly -interesting question (to Mr. Gladstone) whether Greek horses -ever trotted, or only walked, cantered, and ambled. I forget -how the drawings were supposed finally to settle the controversy, -but I made him laugh by telling him that a party -of the servants of one of my Irish friends having paid a -visit to the Elgin Gallery, the lady’s maid told her mistress -next morning that they had been puzzled to understand why -all those men without legs or arms had been stuck up on the -wall? At last the butler had suggested that they were -“intended to commemorate the railway accidents.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>From that time I met Mr. Gladstone occasionally at the -houses of friends, and was, of course, like all the world, -charmed with his winning manners and brilliant talk, though -never, that I can recall, struck by any thought expressed by -him which could be called a “great” one, or which lifted up -one’s spirit. It seemed more as if half a dozen splendidly -cultivated and brilliant intellects—but all of medium height—had -been incarnated in one vivacious body, than a single -Mind of colossal altitude. The religious element in him was in -almost feverish activity, but it always appeared to me that it -<span class='pageno' id='Page_508'>508</span>was not on the greatest things of Religion that his attention -fastened. It was on its fringe, rather than on its robe.</p> - -<p class='c007'>That Mr. Gladstone was a sincerely pious man I do not -question. But his piety was of the Sacerdotal rather -than of the Puritan type. The “single eye” was never his. -If it had been, he would not have employed the tortuous and -ambiguous oratory which so often left his friends and foes to -interpret his utterances in opposite senses. Neither did he -appear—at all events to his more distant observers—to feel -adequately the tremendous responsibility to God and man -which rested on the well-nigh omnipotent Prime Minister of -England, during the years when it was rare to open a newspaper -without reading of some military disaster like the -death of Gordon, or of some Agrarian murder like the -assassination of Lord Frederick Cavendish and of a score of -hapless Irish landlords—calamities which his policy had -<em>failed to prevent</em> if it had not directly occasioned. The gaiety -of spirits and the animation of interest respecting a hundred -trivial topics which Mr. Gladstone exhibited unfailingly -through that fearfully anxious period, approached perhaps -sometimes too nearly to levity to accord with our older ideal -of a devout mind loaded with the weight “almost not to be -borne” of world-wide cares.</p> - -<p class='c007'>The differences between Church and dissent occupied Mr. -Gladstone, I fancy, very much at all times. One day he -remarked to me—as if it were a valuable new light on the -subject—that an eminent Nonconformist had just told him -that the Dissenters generally “did not object either to the -<em>Doctrine</em> or the <em>Discipline</em> of the Church of England, but that -they found no warrant in Scripture for the existence of a -State Church.” Mr. Gladstone looked as if he were seeking -an answer to this objection to conformity. I replied that I -wondered they did not see that the whole Old Testament -might be taken as the history of a Divinely appointed State -<span class='pageno' id='Page_509'>509</span>Church. Mr. Gladstone lifted his marvellous, eagle-like eyes -with a quick glance which might be held to signify “That’s -an idea!” When the little incident was told soon after to -Dean Stanley he rubbed his hands and laughingly said, -“This may put off disestablishment yet awhile!”</p> - -<p class='c007'>As a member of society Mr. Gladstone, as everybody knows, -was inexhaustibly interesting. I once heard him after a -small dinner party criticise and describe with astonishing -vividness and minuteness the sermons of at least twenty -popular preachers. At last I ventured to interpose with -some impatience and say: “But, Mr. Gladstone, you -have not mentioned the greatest of them all, <em>my</em> pastor, -Dr. Martineau?” He paused, and then said, weighing his -words, carefully: “Dr. Martineau is unquestionably the -greatest of living thinkers.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>Speaking of the Jews, he once afforded the company at a -dinner table a lively and interesting sketch of the ubiquity of -the race all over the globe, <em>except in Scotland</em>. The Scotch, -he said, knew as well as they the value of bawbees! There -was a general laugh, and some one remarked: “Why, then, -are there so few in Ireland?” Mr. Gladstone answered that -he supposed the Irish were too poor to afford them fair -pasture. I said: “Perhaps so, now, but when <em>you</em>, Mr. -Gladstone, have given the Irish farmers fixity of tenure, so -that they can give security for loans, we shall see the Jews -flocking over to Ireland.” This observation was made in -1879; and in the intervening twenty years I am informed -that the Jews have settled down in Ireland like sea-gulls on -the land after a storm. The old “Gombeen man” has been -ousted all over the country, and a whole Jew quarter, -(near the Circular Road) and a new synagogue in Dublin, -have verified my prophecy.</p> - -<p class='c007'>At last the day came when the sympathy of which -Mr. Gladstone had so often assured Lord Shaftesbury and -<span class='pageno' id='Page_510'>510</span>myself, was to be put to the simplest test. Mr. Reid (now -Sir Robert Reid) was to introduce our Bill for the Prohibition -of Vivisection into Parliament (April 4th, 1883). I wrote -to Mr. Gladstone a short note imploring him to lift his -hand to help us; and if it were impossible for him to speak -in the House in our favour, at least to let his friends know -that he wished well to our Bill. I do not remember the -words of that note. I know that it was a cry from my very -heart to the man who held it in his power to save the poor -brutes from their tortures for ever; to do what I was -spending my life’s last years in vainly trying to accomplish.</p> - -<p class='c007'>He <em>received</em> the note; I had a formal acknowledgment of -it. But Mr. Gladstone <em>did nothing</em>. He left us to the -tender mercies of Sir William Harcourt, whose audacious (and -mendacious) contradiction of Mr. George Russell, our -seconder, I have detailed elsewhere.<a id='r23' /><a href='#f23' class='c013'><sup>[23]</sup></a> From that day I -never met, nor ever desired to meet, Mr. Gladstone again.</p> - -<hr class='c022' /> - -<p class='c007'>A friend whom I greatly admired and valued, and whose -intercourse I enjoyed during all my residence in London, -from first to last, was Mr. Froude. He died just after the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_511'>511</span>first edition of this book (of which I had of course sent him -a copy) was published; and I was told it supplied welcome -amusement to him in his last days.</p> - -<p class='c007'>The world, I think, has never done quite justice to Mr. -Froude; albeit, when he was gone the newspapers spoke of -him as “the last of the giants.” He always seemed to me -to belong to the loftier race, of whom there were then not a -few living; and though his unhappy <cite>Nemesis of Faith</cite> (for -which I make no defence whatever) and his <cite>Carlyle</cite> drew on -him endless blame, and his splendid <cite>History</cite> equally endless -cavil and criticism, his greatness was to my apprehension -something apart from his books. His Essays,—especially the -magnificent one on Job—give, I think, a better idea of the -man than was derivable from any other source, except -personal intimacy. “He touched nothing which he did not” -enlarge, if not “adorn.” Subjects expanded when talked -of easily, and even lightly, with him. There was a -background of <em>space</em> always above and behind him. -Though he had no little cause for it, he was not bitter. I -never saw him angry or heard him express resentment, -except once when his benevolent efforts had failed to obtain -from Mr. Gladstone’s Government a pension for a poverty-stricken, -meritorious woman of letters, while far less deserving -persons received the bounty. But when he let the Marah -waters of Mr. Carlyle’s private reflexions loose on the world -their bitterness seemed to communicate itself to all the -readers of the book. Even the silver pen of Mrs. Oliphant -for once was dipped in gall; and it was she, if I mistake -not, who in her wrath devised the ferocious adjective -“<em>Froudacious</em>” to convey her rage and scorn. As for -myself, when that book appeared I frankly told Mr. Froude -that I rejoiced, because I had always deprecated Mr. -Carlyle’s influence, and I thought this revelation of him -would do much to destroy it. Mr. Froude laughed good-humouredly, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_512'>512</span>but naturally showed a little consternation. -His sentiment about the Saturday Reviewers, who at -that time buzzed round his writings and stung him -every week, was much that of a St. Bernard or a Newfoundland -towards a pack of snarling terriers. One day a clergyman -very well known in London, wrote to me after one of our -little parties to beg that I would do him the favour, when next -Mr. Froude was coming to me, to invite him also, and permit -him to bring his particular friend Mr. X, who greatly desired -to meet his brother historian. I was very willing to oblige -the clergyman in question, and before long we had a -gathering at our house of forty or fifty people, among whom -were Mr. Froude and Mr. X. I knew that the moment for -the introduction had arrived, but of course I was not going -to take the liberty of presenting any stranger to Mr. Froude -without asking his consent. That consent was not so -readily granted as I had anticipated. “Who? Mr. X? -Let me look at him first.” “There he is,” I said, pointing -to a small figure half hidden in a group of ladies and -gentlemen. “That is he, is it?” said Mr. Froude. “Oh, -No! No! Don’t introduce him to me. <em>He has the Saturday -Review written all over his face!</em>” There was nothing to do -but to laugh, and presently, when my clerical friend came up -and urged me to fulfil my promise and make the introduction, -to hurry down on some excuse into the tea room and never -reappear till the disappointed Mr. X had departed.</p> - -<p class='c007'>I have kept 34 letters received from Mr. Froude during -the years in which I had the good fortune to contribute -to <cite>Fraser’s Magazine</cite> when he was the Editor, and later, -when, as friends and neighbours in South Kensington, we had -the usual little interchange of message and invitations. -Among these, to me precious, letters there are some passages -which I shall venture to copy, assured that his representatives -cannot possibly object to my doing so. I may first as an -<span class='pageno' id='Page_513'>513</span>introduction of myself, quote one in a letter to my eldest -brother, who had invited him to stay at Newbridge during -one of his visits to Ireland. Mr. Froude wrote to him:—</p> - -<p class='c008'>“I knew your brother Henry intimately 30 years ago, -and your sister is one of the most valued friends of my later -life.”</p> - -<p class='c006'>His affection for Carlyle spoke in this eager refutation of -some idle story in the newspapers:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c009'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“February 16th.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c010'>“There is hardly a single word in it which is not untrue. -Ruskin is as much attached to Mr. Carlyle as ever. There -is not one of his friends to whom he is not growing dearer -as he approaches the end of his time, nor has the -wonderful beauty and noble tenderness of his character -been ever more conspicuous. The only difference visible in -him from what he was in past years is that his wife’s -death has broken his heart. He is gentler and more -forbearing to human weakness. He feels that his own -work is finished, and he is waiting hopefully till it please -God to take him away.”</p> - -<p class='c006'>Here is evidence of his deep enjoyment of Nature. He -writes, October 31st, from Dereen, Kenmare:—</p> - -<p class='c008'>“I return to London most reluctantly at the end of the -week. The summer refuses to leave us, and while you are -shivering in the North wind we retain here the still blue -cloudlessness of August. This morning is the loveliest I ever -saw here. The woods swarm with blackbirds and thrushes, -the ‘autumn note not all unlike to that of spring.’ I am so -bewitched with the place that (having finished my History) I -mean to spend the winter here and try to throw the story of -the last Desmond into a novel.”</p> - -<p class='c006'>In reply to a request that he would attend an Anti-vivisection -meeting at Lord Shaftesbury’s house, he wrote:—</p> - -<p class='c008'>“Vivisection is a hateful illustration of the consequences -of the silent supersession of Morality by Utilitarianism. -<span class='pageno' id='Page_514'>514</span>Until men can be brought back to the old lines, neither this -nor any other evil tendency can be really stemmed. <em>Till -the world learns again to hate what is in itself evil, in spite of -alleged advantages to be derived from it</em>, it will never consent -to violent legal restrictions.”</p> - -<p class='c006'>His last letter from Oxford is pleasant to recall:—</p> - -<p class='c008'>“I am strangely placed here. The Dons were shy of -me when I first came, but all is well now, and the undergraduates -seem really interested in what I have to tell -them. I am quite free, and tell them precisely what I -think.”</p> - -<p class='c006'>I do not think that Mr. Froude was otherwise than a happy -man. He was particularly so as regarded his feminine -surroundings, and a most genial and indulgent husband and -father. He had also intense enjoyment both of Nature -and of the great field of Literature into which he delved so -zealously. He once told me that he had visited every spot, -<em>except the Tower of London</em> (!) where the great scenes of -his History took place, and had ransacked every library in -Europe likely to contain materials for his work; not -omitting the record chambers of the Inquisition at Simancas, -where he spent many shuddering days which he vividly -described to me. He also greatly enjoyed his long voyages -and visits to the West Indies and to New Zealand; and -especially the one he made to America. He admired almost -everything, I think, in America; and more than once -remarked to me (in reference particularly to the subject of -mixed education in which I was interested): “The young -men are so nice! What might be difficult here, is easy -there. You have no idea what nice fellows they are.” There -was, however, certainly something in Mr. Froude’s handsome -and noble physiognomy which conveyed the idea of mournfulness. -His eyes were wells of darkness on which, by -some singularity, the light never seemed to fall either in life -<span class='pageno' id='Page_515'>515</span>or when represented in a photograph; and his laugh, which -was not infrequent, was mirthless. I never heard a laugh -which it was so hard to echo, so little contagious.</p> - -<p class='c007'>The last time I ever saw Mr. Froude was at the house of -our common friend, Miss Elliot, where he was always to be -found at his best. Her other visitors had departed and we -three old friends sat on in the late and quiet Sunday afternoon, -talking of serious things, and at last of our hopes and beliefs -respecting a future life. Mr. Froude startled us somewhat by -saying he did not wish to live again. He felt that his life had -been enough, and would be well content not to awake when -it was over. “But,” said he, in conclusion, with sudden -vigour, “I believe there <em>is</em> another life, you know! I am -quite sure there is.” The clearness and emphasis of this -conviction were parallel to those he had used before to me in -talking of the probable extension of Atheism in coming -years. “But, as there <em>IS</em> a God,” said Mr. Froude, -“Religion can never die.”</p> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_517'>517</span> - <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER<br /> XVIII.<br /> <span class='large'><em>MY LIFE IN LONDON IN THE SEVENTIES AND EIGHTIES.</em><br /> <em>SOCIAL</em></span></h2> -</div> - -<p class='c006'><span class='pageno' id='Page_519'>519</span>I must not write here any personal sketch however slight -of my revered friend Dr. Martineau, since he is still,—God -be thanked for it!—living, and writing as profoundly and -vigorously as ever, in his venerable age of 89. But the -weekly sermons which I had the privilege of hearing from -his lips for many years, down to 1872, beside several courses -of his Lectures on the Gospels and on Ethical Philosophy which -I attended, formed so very important, I might say, vital a -part of my “Life” in London, that I cannot omit some account -of them in my story.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Little Portland Street Chapel is a building of very moderate -dimensions, with no pretensions whatever to ecclesiastical -finery; whether of architecture, or upholstery, or art of any -kind. But it was, I always thought, a fitting, simple place for -serious people to meet to <em>think in</em>; not to gaze round them -in curiosity or admiration, or to be intoxicated with colours, -lights, incense and music; as would seem to be the intention -of the administrators of a neighbouring fane! Our services, -I suppose, would have been pronounced cold, bare and dull -by an <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">habitué</span></i> of a Ritualistic or Romanist church; but for -my own part I should prefer even to be “cold,” (which we were -<em>not</em>) rather than allow my religious feelings to be excited -through the gratification of my æsthetic sense.</p> - -<p class='c007'>On this matter, however, each one must speak and choose -for himself. For me I was perfectly satisfied with my seat -in the gallery in that simple chapel, where I could well hear -the noblest sermons and see the preacher of whom they -always seemed a part; his “<em>Word</em>” in the old sense; not -<span class='pageno' id='Page_520'>520</span>(like many other men’s sermons) things quite apart from the -speaker, as we know him in his home and in the street. Of -all the men with whom I have ever been acquainted the one -who most impressed me with the sense,—shall I call it of -congruity? or homogeneity?—of being, in short, <em>the same all -through</em>, was he to whom I listened on those happy Sundays.</p> - -<p class='c007'>They were very varied Sermons which Dr. Martineau -preached. The general effect, I used to think, was -not that of receiving Lessons from a Teacher, but of being -invited to accompany a Guide on a mountain-walk. -From the upper regions of thought where he led us, -we were able,—nay, compelled,—to look down on our daily -cares and duties from a loftier point of view; and -thence to return to them with fresh feelings and resolutions. -Sometimes these ascents were very steep and difficult; and -I have ventured to tell him that the richness of his metaphors -and similes, beautiful and original as they always were, made -it harder to climb after him, and that we sometimes wanted -him to hold out to us a shepherd’s crook, rather than a -<em>jewelled crozier</em>! But the exercise, if laborious, was to the -last degree mentally healthful, and morally strengthening. -There was a great variety also, in these wonderful sermons. -To hear one of them only, a listener would come away -deeming the preacher <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">par éminence</span></i> a profound and most -discriminating Critic. To hear another, he would consider -him a Philosopher, occupied entirely with the vastest problems -of Science and Theology. Again another would leave the -impression of a Poet, as great in his prose as the author of -<cite><span lang="la" xml:lang="la">In Memoriam</span></cite> in verse. And lastly and above all, there was -always the man filled with devout feeling, who, by his very -presence and voice communicated reverence and the sense of -the nearness of an all-seeing God.</p> - -<p class='c007'>I could write many pages concerning these Sunday -experiences; but I shall do better, I think, if I give my -<span class='pageno' id='Page_521'>521</span>readers, who have never heard them, some small samples of -what I carried away from time to time of them, as noted -down in letters to my friend. Here are a few of them:</p> - -<p class='c008'>“Mr. Martineau preached of aiming at perfection. At -the end he drew a picture of a soul which has made such -struggles but has failed. Then he supposed what must be -the feeling of such a soul entering on the future life, its -regrets; and then inquired what influence being lifted -above the things of sense, the nearness to God and holiness -would have on it? Would it then arise? <em>Yes!</em> and the -Father would say, ‘This my son was dead and is alive again; -he was lost and is found for evermore.’ I cannot tell you -how beautiful it was, how true in the sense of those deepest -intuitions which I hold to be certainly true <em>because</em> they -bear with them the sense of being absolutely <em>highest</em>, the -echo of a higher harmony than belongs to our poor minds. -He seemed, for a moment, to be talking in the old conventional -way about repentance <em>when too late</em>; and then burst -out in faith and hope, so far transcending all such ideas -that one felt it came from another source.”</p> - -<p class='c010'>“Mr. Martineau gave us a magnificent sermon on Sunday. -I was in great luck not to miss it. One point was this. -Our moral judgments are always founded on what we -suppose to be the <em>inward motive</em> of the actor, not on the -mere external act itself, which may be mischievous or -beneficent in the highest degree, without, properly-speaking, -affecting our purely <em>ethical</em> judgment—<em>e.g.</em>, an unintentional -homicide. Now, if, (as our opponents affirm) our Moral -Sense came to us <i><span lang="la" xml:lang="la">ab extra</span></i>, merely as the current opinion -which society has attached to injurious or beneficial -actions, then we should <em>not</em> thus decide our judgment by -the <em>internal</em>, but by the external and visible part of the act, -by which alone society is hurt or benefitted. The fact -that our moral judgment regards <em>internal</em> things exclusively, -is evidence that it springs from an <em>internal</em> source; and that -we judge another, because we are compelled to judge ourselves -in the same way.”</p> - -<p class='c031'><span class='pageno' id='Page_522'>522</span>Here is a Note I took after hearing another Sermon:—</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c009'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Sunday, June 23rd.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c010'>“‘If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to -forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.’</p> - -<p class='c010'>“There are two ways of looking at Sin common in our -time. One is to proclaim it so infinitely black that God -<em>cannot</em> forgive it except by a method of Atonement itself -the height of injustice. The other is to treat it as so venial -that God may be counted on as certain to pass it over at -the first moment of regret; and all the threats of conscience -may be looked on as those of a nurse to a refractory child, -threats which are never to be executed. The first of these -views seems to honour God most, but really dishonours -Him, by representing Him as governing the world on a -principle abhorrent to reason and justice. The second can -never commend itself save to the most shallow minds who -make religion a thing of words, and treat sin and repentance -as trivial things, instead of the most awful. How shall we -solve the mystery? It is equally unjust for God to treat -the guilty as if they were innocent, and the penitent as if -they were impenitent. Each fact has to be taken into -account, and the most important practical consequences -follow from the view we take of the matter. First we must -never lose hold of the truth, that, as Cause and Effect are -never severed in the natural world, and the whole order -of nature would fall to ruin were God ever to interfere with -them, so likewise Guilt and Pain are, in His Providence, -indissolubly linked; and the order of the moral world -would be destroyed were they to be divided. But beside -the realm of Law, in which the Divine penalties are -unalterable, there is the free world of Spirit wherein our -repentance avails. When we can say to God, ‘Put me to -grief—I have deserved it. Only restore me Thy love,’ the -great woe is gone. We shall be the weaker evermore for -our fall, but we shall be restored.”</p> - -<p class='c031'><span class='pageno' id='Page_523'>523</span>The following remarks were in a letter to Miss Elliot:—</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c009'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“January, 1867.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c010'>“I wish I could write a <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">résumé</span></i> of a Sermon which Mr. -Martineau preached last Sunday. Just think how many -sermons some people would make of this one sentence of -his text (speaking of the longing for Rest):—‘If Duty -become laborious, do it more fervently. If Love become a -source of care and pain, love more nobly and more tenderly. -If Doubts disturb and torture, face them with more earnest -thought and deeper study!’</p> - -<p class='c010'>“This was not a <em>peroration</em>, but just one phrase of a -discourse full of other such things.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“It seems to me that the spontaneous response of our -inner souls to such ideas is just the same proof of their -truth as the shock we feel in our nerves when a lecturer has -delivered a current of electricity proves <em>his</em> lesson to be true.”</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“January, 1867.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c010'>“While you were enjoying your Cathedral, I was enjoying -Little Portland Street Chapel, having bravely tramped -through miles of snow on the way, and been rewarded. -Mr. Martineau said we were always taunted with only -having a <em>negative</em> creed, and were often foolish enough to -deny it. But all Reformation is a negation of error and -return to the three pure articles of faith—God, Duty, -Immortality.... The distinction was admirably drawn -between <em>extent of creed</em> and <em>intensity of faith</em>.”</p> - -<p class='c006'>On February 5th, 1871, Mr. Martineau preached:—</p> - -<p class='c008'>“Philosophers might and do say that all Religion is only -a projection of Man himself on Nature, lending to Nature -his own feelings, brightened by a supreme Love or -shadowed by infinite displeasure. Does this disprove -Religion? Is there no reliance to be placed on the -faculties which connect us with the Infinite? We have -two sets of faculties: our Senses, which reveal the outer -world; and a deeper series, giving us Poetry, Love, -Religion. Should we say that these last are more false -than the others? They are true <em>all round</em>. In fact, these -<span class='pageno' id='Page_524'>524</span>are truest. Imagination is true. Affection is true. Do -men say that Affection is blind? No! It is the only thing -which truly sees. Love alone really perceives. The cynic -draws over the world a roof of dark and narrow thoughts -and suspicions, and then complains of the close, unhealthy -air. Memory again is more than mere Recollection. It -has the true artist-power of seizing the points which -determine the character and reconstructing the image -without details. Suppose there be a God. By what -faculties could we know Him save by those which now tell -us of Him. And why should they deceive us?”</p> - -<p class='c006'>Alas! the exercise of preaching every Sunday became too -great for Dr. Martineau to encounter after 1872, and, by his -physician’s orders, those noble sermons came to an end.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Beside Dr. Martineau, I had the privilege of friendship -with three eminent Unitarian Ministers, now alas! all -departed—Rev. Charles Beard, of Liverpool, for a long time -editor of the <cite>Theological Review</cite>; the venerable and beloved -John James Tayler; and Rev. William Henry Channing, to -whom I was gratefully attached, both on account of religious -sympathies, and of his ardent adoption of our Anti-vivisection -cause, which he told me he had at first regarded as somewhat -of a “fad” of mine, but came to recognise as a moral crusade -of deep significance. Among living friends of the same body, -I am happy to number Rev. Philip Wicksteed, the successor -of Dr. Martineau in Portland Street and the exceedingly able -President of University Hall, Gordon Square,—an institution, -in the foundation of which I gladly took part on the invitation -of Mrs. Humphry Ward.</p> - -<p class='c007'>A man in whose books I had felt great interest in my old -studies at Newbridge, and whose intercourse was a real -pleasure to me in London, was Mr. W. R. Greg. I intensely -respected the courage which moved him, in those early days -of the Fifties, to publish such a book as the <cite>Creed of -<span class='pageno' id='Page_525'>525</span>Christendom</cite>. He was then a young man, entering public life -with the natural ambitions which his great abilities justified, -and the avowal of such exorbitant heresies (nothing short of -pure Theism) as the book contained, was enough at that -date to spoil any man’s career. He was a layman, too, and -man of the world, “<i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Que Diable allait il faire</span></i>, writing on -theology at all?” That book remains to this day a most -valuable manual of arguments and evidences against the -<cite>Creed of Christendom</cite>; set forth in a grave and reverent -spirit and in a clear and manly style. His <cite>Enigmas of Life</cite> -had, I believe, a larger literary success. The world had -moved much nearer to his standpoint; and the Enigmas -concern the most interesting subjects. We had a little -friendly controversy over one passage in the essay, <cite>Elsewhere</cite>. -Mr. Greg had laid it down that, hereafter, Love must retreat -from the discovery of the sinfulness of the beloved; and that -both saint and sinner will accept as inevitable an eternal -separation (<cite>Enigmas</cite>, 1st Edit., p. 263). To this I demurred -strenuously in my <cite>Hopes of the Human Race</cite> (p. 132–6). I -said, “The poor self-condemned soul whom Mr. Greg images -as turning away in an agony of shame and hopelessness from -the virtuous friend he loved on earth, and loves still at an -immeasurable distance,—such a soul is not outside the pale -of love, divine or human. Nay, is he not,—even assuming -his guilt to be black as night,—only in a similar relation to -the purest of created souls, which that purest soul holds to -the All-holy One above? If God can love <em>us</em>, is it not the -acme of moral presumption to think of a human soul being -too pure to love any sinner, so long as in him there remains -any vestige of affection? The whole problem is unreal and -impossible. In the first place, there is a potential moral -equality between all souls capable of equal love, and -the one can never reach a height whence it may justly despise -the other. And, in the second place, the higher the virtuous -<span class='pageno' id='Page_526'>526</span>soul may have risen in the spiritual world, the more it must -have acquired the god-like Insight which beholds the good -under the evil, and not less the god-like Love which embraces -the repentant Prodigal.</p> - -<p class='c007'>In the next edition of his <cite>Enigmas</cite> (the 7th), after the -issue of my book, Mr. Greg wrote a most generous recantation -of his former view. He said:—</p> - -<p class='c008'>“The force of these objections to my delineation cannot -be gainsaid, and ought not to have been overlooked. No -doubt a soul that can so love and so feel its separation -from the objects of its love, cannot be wholly lost. It must -still retain elements of recovery and redemption, and -qualities to win and to merit answering affection. The -lovingness of a nature—its capacity for strong and deep -attachment—must constitute, there as here, the most -hopeful characteristic out of which to elicit and foster all -other good. No doubt, again, if the sinful continue to love -in spite of their sinfulness, the blessed will not cease to -love in consequence of their blessedness.”</p> - -<p class='c006'>Later on he asks:—</p> - -<p class='c008'>“How can the blessed enjoy anything to be called -Happiness if the bad are writhing in hopeless anguish?” -“Obviously only in one way. By <em>ceasing</em> to love, that is, by -renouncing the best and purest part of their nature.... -Or, to put it in still bolder language, ‘<em>How,—given a hell of -torment and despair for millions of his friends and fellow men—can -the good enjoy Heaven</em> except <em>by becoming bad</em>, and without -being miraculously changed for the worse?’”</p> - -<p class='c006'>The following flattering letters are unluckily all which I -have kept of Mr. Greg’s writing:—</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c009'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Park Lodge, Wimbledon Common, S.W.,</div> - <div class='line in16'>“February 19th.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='lg-container-l c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“My Dear Miss Cobbe,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c010'>“I have been solacing myself this morning, after a month -of harrowing toil, with your paper in the last <cite>Theological</cite>, -and I want to tell you how much it has gratified me.</p> - -<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_527'>527</span>“I don’t mean your appreciative cordiality towards -myself, nor your criticisms on a portion of my speculations, -which, however (though I fancy you have rather misread -me), I will refer to again and try to profit by. I daresay -you are mainly right, the more so as I see Mr. Thom in the -same number remonstrates in an identical tone.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“That your paper is, I think, not only beautiful in -thought and much of it original, but singularly full of rich -suggestions, and one of the most real <em>contributions</em> to a -further conception of a possible future that I have met with -for long. It is real <em>thought</em>—not like most of mine, mere -sentiment and imagination.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“I don’t know if you are still in town, or have began the -villegiatura you spoke of when I last saw you, but I daresay -this note will be forwarded.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“When did No. 1 appear?</p> - -<p class='c010'>“I particularly like your remark about self-<em>reprobation</em>, -p. 456, and from 463 onward. By the way, do you know -Isaac Taylor’s ‘<cite>Physical Theory of Another Life</cite>?’ It is -very curious and interesting.</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Yours faithfully,</div> - <div class='line in16'>“<span class='sc'>W. R. Greg</span>.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c010'>“I have just finished an Introduction (about 100 pp.) to a -new edition of “The Creed of Christendom,” which will be -published in the autumn, and it contains some thoughts -very analogous to yours.”</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c009'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Park Lodge, Wimbledon Common, S.W.,</div> - <div class='line in20'>“August 6th.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='lg-container-l c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“My dear Miss Cobbe,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c010'>“I have read your <cite>Town and Country Mouse</cite> with much -pleasure. I should have enjoyed your Paper still more if -I had not felt that it was suggested by your intention to cut -London, and the desire to put as good a face upon that -regrettable design as you could. However you have stated -the case with remarkable fairness. I, who am a passionate -lover of nature, who have never lived in Town, and should -<span class='pageno' id='Page_528'>528</span>pine away if I attempted it, still feel in the decline of years -the increasing necessity of creeping <em>towards</em> the world -rather than retiring from it. I feel, as one grows old, the -want of external stimulus to stave off stagnation. The -vividness of youthful thought is needed, I think, to support -solitude.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“I retired to Westmoreland for 15 years in the middle of -life when I was much worn, and it did me good: but I was -glad to come back to active life, and I think my present -location—Wimbledon Common for a cottage, within 5 miles -of London, and coming in five days a week—is perfection.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“I daresay you may be right; but all your friends will -miss you much—I not the least.</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Yours faithfully,</div> - <div class='line in8'>“<span class='sc'>W. R. Greg</span>.”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c006'>Mr. Greg’s allusion to my <cite>Town and Country Mouse</cite> -reminds me of a letter which was sent me by some unknown -reader on the publication of that article. It repeats a famous -story worth recording as told thus by an ear-witness who, -though anonymous is obviously worthy of credit.</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c009'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Athenæum Club,</div> - <div class='line in8'>“Pall Mall, S.W.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c010'>“Will Miss Cobbe kindly pardon the liberty taken by a -reader of her delightful ‘Town and Country Mouse’ in -venturing to substitute the true version of Sir George -Lewis’ too famous dictum?</p> - -<p class='c010'>“In the <em>hearing of the writer</em> he was asked (by one of his -subordinates in the Government) as they were getting -into the train, returning to town,</p> - -<p class='c010'>“‘Well! How do you like life in Herefordshire?’</p> - -<p class='c010'>“‘Ah! It would be very tolerable, if it were not for <em>the -Amusements</em>’—was his reply.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“Miss Cobbe has high Authority for the mis-quotation: -for the <cite>Times</cite> invariably commits it; and the present writer -has again and again intended to correct it, and failed to -execute the intention.</p> - -<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_529'>529</span>“If they <em>are</em> pleasures, they are <em>pleasures</em>; and the -paradox is absurd, instead of amusing; but the oppressive -stupidity of many of the ‘<em>Amusements</em>’ (to the Author of -‘Influence of Authority,’ &c.!) may well call up in the mind -the sort of amiable cynicism, which was a feature of his -own character.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“On arriving late and unexpectedly at home for a fortnight’s -<em>Rest</em>, he found his own study occupied by two young -ladies (sisters) as a <em>Bedroom</em>—it being the night of Lady -Theresa’s Ball! With his exquisite good nature he simply -set about finding some other roost; and all the complaint -he ever made was <em>that</em>, which has become perhaps <em>not</em> too -famous!”</p> - -<p class='c006'>At the time of the Franco-Prussian war, as will be -remembered by everyone living at the time in London, the -cleavage between the sympathisers with the two contending -countries was almost as sharp as it had previously been -during the American War between the partizans of the North -and of the South. Dean Stanley was one of our friends -who took warmly the side of the Germans, and I naturally -sent him a letter I had received from a Frenchman whom -we both respected, remonstrating rather bitterly against the -attitude of England. The Dean, in returning M. P.’s letter -wrote as follows<a id='r24' /><a href='#f24' class='c013'><sup>[24]</sup></a>:—</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c009'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Deanery, March 25th, 1871.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='lg-container-l c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Dear Miss Cobbe,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c010'>“Although you kindly excuse me from doing so, I cannot -but express, and almost, wish that you could convey to -M. P. the melancholy interest with which we have read his -<span class='pageno' id='Page_530'>530</span>letter. Interesting of course it is but to us—I know not -whether to you—it is deeply sad to see a man like M. P. so -thoroughly blind to the true situation of his country. Not -a word of repentance for the aggressive and unjust war! -not a word of acknowledgment that, had the French, as they -wished, invaded Germany, they would have entered Berlin -and seized the Rhenish provinces without remorse or compunction!—not -a spark of appreciation of the moral superiority -by which the Germans achieved their successes! I -do not doubt that excesses may have been committed by -the German troops; but I feel sure that they have been -exceeded by those of the French, and would have been yet -more had the French entered Germany.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“And how very superfluous to attack us for having done -just the same as in 1848! Our sad crime was not to have -prevented the war by remonstrating with the French -Emperor and people in July, 1870, and of <em>that</em> poor P. takes -no account! Alas! for France!</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Yours sincerely,</div> - <div class='line in8'>“<span class='sc'>A. P. Stanley</span>.”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c006'>The following is a rather important note as recording the -Dean’s sentiments as regarded Cardinal Newman. I cannot -recall what was the paper which I had sent him to which he -alludes. I think I had spoken to him of my friendship -with Francis Newman, and of the information given me by -the latter that he could never remember his brother putting -his hand to a single cause of benevolence or moral reform. -I had asked him to solicit his support with that of Cardinal -Manning (already obtained) to the cause for which I was -then beginning to work,—on behalf of animals.</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c009'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Jan. 15th, 1875.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='lg-container-l c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“My dear Miss Cobbe,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c010'>“I return this with many thanks. I think you must -have sent it to me, partly as a rebuke for having so nearly -<span class='pageno' id='Page_531'>531</span>sailed in the same boat of ignorance and inhumanity with -Dr. Newman.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“I have just finished, with a mixture of weariness and -nausea, his letter to the Duke of Norfolk. Even the fierce -innuendoes and deadly thrusts at Manning cannot reconcile -me to such a mass of cobwebs and evasions. When the -sum of the theological teaching of the two brothers is -weighed, will not ‘the <em>Soul</em>’ of Francis be found to counterbalance, -as a contribution to true, solid, catholic (even in -any sense of the word) Christianity, all the writings of -John Henry?</p> - -<p class='c010'>“I have sent my paper on Vestments to the <cite>Contemporary</cite>.</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Yours sincerely,</div> - <div class='line in12'>“<span class='sc'>A. P. Stanley</span>.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c010'>“Read it in the light of his old letter to B. Ullathorne, -published in (illegible).”</p> - -<p class='c006'>The papers on “Vestments,” to which Dean Stanley -alludes, had interested and amused me much when he read it -at Sion College, and I had urged him to send it to one of the -Reviews. Here is a report of that evening’s proceedings -which I sent next day to my friend Miss Elliot.</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c009'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“January 14th, 1875.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c010'>“I do so much wish you had been with us last night at -Sion College. Dean Stanley was more delightful than ever. -He read a splendid paper, full of learning, wit, and sense on -<cite>Ecclesiastical Vestments</cite>. In the course of it, he said, referring -to the position of the altar, &c., that on this subject he had -nothing to add to the remarks of his friend, the Dean of -Bristol, ‘whose authority on all matters connected with -English ecclesiastical history was universally admitted to -be the best.’ After the reading of his paper, which lasted -an hour and a quarter, that odious Dr. L—— got up, and in -his mincing brogue attacked Dean Stanley very rudely. -Then they called on Martineau, and he made a charming -speech, beginning by saying <em>he</em> had nothing to do with -vestments, having received no ordination, and might for his -<span class='pageno' id='Page_532'>532</span>part repeat the poem “<cite>Nothing to Wear!</cite>” Then he went -on to say that if the Church were ever to regain the Nonconformists, -it would certainly <em>not</em> be by proceeding in the -sacerdotal direction. He was much cheered. Rev. H. -White made, I thought, one of the best speeches of the -evening. Altogether, it was exceedingly amusing.”</p> - -<p class='c006'>On the occasion of the interment of Sir Charles Lyell in -Westminster Abbey, I sent the Dean, by his request, some -hints respecting Sir Charles’ views and character, and -received the following reply:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c009'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“February 25th, 1875.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='lg-container-l c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“My dear Miss Cobbe,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c010'>“Your letter is invaluable to me. Long as was my -acquaintance with Sir Charles Lyell, and kind as he was -to me, I never knew him intimately, and therefore most -of what you tell me was new. The last time he spoke to -me was in urging me with the greatest earnestness to ask -Colenso to preach. Can you tell me one small point? -Had he a turn for music? I must refer back to the last -funeral (when I could not preach) of Sir Sterndale Bennett, -and it would be a convenience for me to know this, <em>Yes</em> -or <em>No</em>.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“You will come (if you come to the sermon) and any -friends,—<em>thro’ the Deanery</em> at 2.45 on Sunday.</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Yours sincerely,</div> - <div class='line in12'>“<span class='sc'>A. P. Stanley</span>.”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c006'>Some time after this I sent him one of my theological -articles on the Life after Death. He acknowledged it thus -kindly:—</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c009'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Deanery, November 2nd.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='lg-container-l c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Dear Miss Cobbe,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c010'>“Many thanks. Your writing on this subject is to me -more nearly to the truth—at least more nearly to my hopes -and desires—than almost any others which are now floating -around us.</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Yours sincerely,</div> - <div class='line in8'>“<span class='sc'>A. P. Stanley</span>.”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c006'><span class='pageno' id='Page_533'>533</span>This next letter again referred to one of my books—and -to Cardinal Newman:—</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c009'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“October 12th, 1876.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='lg-container-l c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“My dear Miss Cobbe,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c010'>“Many thanks for your book. You will see by my letter -last night that I had already made good progress in it; as -borrowed from the Library. I shall much value it.</p> - -<p class='c010'>Do not trouble yourself about Newman’s letter. I am -much more anxious that the public should see it than that -I should. I am amazed at the impression made upon me -by the “Characteristics” of Newman. Most of the selections -I had read before; but the net result is of a farrago -of fanciful, disingenuous nonentities; all except the personal -reminiscences.</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Yours truly,</div> - <div class='line in4'>“<span class='sc'>A. P. Stanley</span>.”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c006'>One day I had been calling on him at the Deanery, and -said to him, after describing my office in Victoria Street and -our frequent Committee meetings there: “Now Mr. Dean, -<em>do</em> you think it right and as it ought to be, that <em>I</em> should sit -at that table as Hon. Sec. with Lord Shaftesbury on my -right, and Cardinal Manning on my left,—and that <em>you</em> should -not sit opposite to complete the “<cite>Reunion of Christendom</cite>?” -He laughed heartily, agreed he certainly ought to be there, -and promised to come. But time failed, and only his -honoured name graced our lists.</p> - -<p class='c007'>The following is the last letter I have preserved of Dean -Stanley’s writing. It is needless to say how much pleasure -it gave me:—</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c009'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“October 16th, 1876.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='lg-container-l c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Dear Miss Cobbe,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c010'>“I have just finished re-reading with real admiration -and consolation your “<cite>Hopes of the Human Race</cite>.” May I ask -these questions: 1. Is it in, or coming into, a second edition? -If the latter, is it too much to suggest that the note on -<span class='pageno' id='Page_534'>534</span>p. 3 could, if not omitted, be modified? I appreciate the -motive for its insertion, but it makes the lending and -recommending of the book difficult. 2. Who is ‘one of the -greatest men of Science’—p. 20? 3. Where is there an -authentic appearance of the Pope’s reply to Odo Russell—p. -107?</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Yours sincerely,</div> - <div class='line in20'>“<span class='sc'>A. P. Stanley</span>.”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c006'>I afterwards learned from Dean Stanley, one day when I -was visiting him at the Deanery after his wife’s death, that -he had read these Essays to Lady Augusta in the last weeks of -her life, finding them, as he told me, the most satisfactory -treatment of the subject he had met; and that after her death -he read them over again. He gave me with much feeling -a sad photograph of her as a dying woman, after telling -me this. Mr. Motley the historian of the Netherlands, -having also lost his wife not long afterwards, spoke to Dean -Stanley of his desire for some book on the subject which -would meet his doubts, and Dean Stanley gave him this -one of mine.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Dean Stanley, it is needless to say, was the most welcome -of guests in every house which he entered. There was something -in his <em>high-mindedness</em>, I can use no other term, his sense -of the glory of England, his love of his church (on extremely -Erastian principles!) as the National Religion, his unfailing -courtesy, his unaffected enjoyment of drollery and gossip, and -his almost youthful excitement about each important subject -which cropped up, which made him delightful to everyone -in turn. There was no man in London I think whom -it gave me such pleasure to meet “in the sixties and -seventies” as the “Great Dean”; and he was uniformly -most kind to me. The last occasion, I think, on which I saw -him in full spirits was at a house where the pleasantest -people were constantly to be found,—that of Mr. and Mrs. -<span class='pageno' id='Page_535'>535</span>Simpson, in Cornwall Gardens. Renan and his wife were -there, and I was so favoured as to be seated next to Renan; -Dean Stanley being on the other side of our tactful hostess. -The Dean had been showing Renan over the Abbey in the -morning, and they were both in the gayest mood, but I -remember Dean Stanley speaking to Renan with indescribable -and concentrated indignation of the avowal Mr. Gladstone -had recently made that the Clerkenwell explosion had caused -him to determine on the disestablishment of the Irish Church.</p> - -<p class='c007'>I have found an old letter to my friend describing this -dinner:—</p> - -<p class='c008'>“I had a most amusing evening yesterday. Kind Mrs. -Simpson made me sit beside Renan; and Dean Stanley was -across the corner, so we made, with nice Mrs. W. R. G. and -Mr. M., a very jolly little party at our end of the table. -The Dean began with grace, rather <i><span lang="it" xml:lang="it">sotto voce</span></i>, with a blink -at Renan, who kept on never minding. His (Renan’s) looks -are even worse than his picture leads one to expect. His -face is exactly like a <em>hog</em>, so stupendously broad across the -ears and jowl! But he is very gentlemanly in manner, very -winning and full of fun and <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">finesse</span></i>. We had to talk French -with him, but the Dean’s French was so much worse than -mine that I felt quite at ease, and rattled away about the -<i><span lang="it" xml:lang="it">Triduos</span></i> at Florence (to appease the wrath of Heaven on -account of his <cite><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Vie de Jésus</span></cite>), and had some private jokes -with him about his malice in calling the Publicans of the -Gospels ‘douaniers,’ and the ass a ‘baudet!’ He said -he did it on purpose; and that when he was last in Italy -numbers of poor people came to him, and asked him for the -lucky number for the lotteries, because they thought he was -<em>so near the Devil</em> he must know! I gave him your message -about the Hengwrt MSS., and he apologised for having -written about the ‘mesquines’ considerations which had -caused them to be locked up, [to wit, that several leaves of the -<cite>Red Book of Hergest</cite> had been stolen by too enthusiastic -Welsh scholars!] and solemnly vowed to alter the passage -<span class='pageno' id='Page_536'>536</span>in the next edition, and thanked you for the promise of -obtaining leave for him to see them.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“I also talked to M. Renan of his Essay on the <cite><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Poésie de -la Race Celtique</span></cite>, and made him laugh at his own assertion -that Irishmen had such a longing for ‘the Infinite’ that -when they could not attain to it otherwise they sought it -through a strong liquor ‘<i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">qui s’appelle le Whiskey</span></i>.’”</p> - -<p class='c006'>Sir Mountstuart Grant Duff’s delightful volume on Renan -has opened to my mind many fresh reasons for admiring the -great French scholar, whose works I had falsely imagined I -had known pretty well before reading it. But when -all is said, the impression he has left on me (and I should -think on most other people) is one of disappointment and -short-falling.</p> - -<p class='c007'>M. Renan has written of himself the well-known and often -laughed-at boast: “<i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Seul dans mon siècle j’ai pu comprendre -Jésus Christ et St. François d’Assise!</span></i>” I do not know about -his comprehension of St. Francis, though I should think it a -very great <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">tour de force</span></i> for the brilliant French academician -and critic to throw himself into <em>that</em> typical mediæval mind! -But as regarded the former Person I should say that of all -the tens of thousands who have studied and written about -him during these last nineteen centuries, Renan was in some -respects the <em>least</em> able to “comprehend” him. The man -who could describe the story of the Prodigal as a “<i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">délicieuse -parabole</span></i>,” is as far out of Christ’s latitude as the pole -from the equator. One abhors æsthetics when things -too sacred to be measured by their standard are commended -in their name. Renan seems to me to have been for -practical purposes a Pantheist without a glimmer of that -sense of moral and personal relation to God which was the -supreme characteristic of Christ. When he translates -Christ’s pity for the Magdalenes as jealousy “<i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">pour la gloire -de son Père dans ces belles créatures</span></i>;” and introduces the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_537'>537</span>term “<i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">femmes d’une vie équivoque</span></i>” as a rendering for -“sinners,” he strikes a note so false that no praise lavished -afterwards can restore harmony.</p> - -<p class='c007'>The late Lord Houghton was one of the men of note who -I met occasionally at the houses of friends. I had known him -in Italy and he was always kind to me and invited me to his -Christmas parties at Frystone, which were said to be delightful, -but to which I did not go. For a poet he had an extraordinarily -rough exterior and blunt manner. One day we had a -regular set-to argument lasting a long time. He attacked the -order of things with the usual pessimist observations on all -the evil in the world, and implied that I had no reasonable -right to my faith. I answered as best I could, with some -earnestness, and he finally concluded the discussion by -remarking with concentrated contempt: “You might almost as -well be a Christian!” Next day I went to Westminster -Abbey and was sitting in the Dean’s pew, when, to my -amusement Lord Houghton came in just below, with a party -of ladies and took a seat exactly opposite me. He behaved -of course with edifying propriety, but I could not help -reflecting with a smile on our argument of the night -before, and wondering how many members of that and similar -congregations who were naturally counted by outsiders as -faithful supporters of the orthodox creed, were as little so, -<i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">au fond</span></i>, as either Lord Houghton or I.</p> - -<p class='c007'>With Carlyle, though I saw him very frequently, I never -interchanged more than a few <em>banal</em> words of civility. When -his biography appeared, I was, (as I frankly told the illustrious -biographer) exceedingly glad that I had never given him the -chance of attaching one of his pungent epigrams to my poor -person. I had been introduced to him by a lady at whose -house he happened to call one afternoon when I was sitting -with her, and where he showed himself (as it seems to me -the roughest men invariably do in the society of amiable -<span class='pageno' id='Page_538'>538</span>Countesses),—extremely <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">apprivoisé</span></i>. Also I continually met -him out walking with one or other of his great historian -friends, who were also mine, but I avoided trespassing on their -good nature; or addressing him when he walked up and down -alone daily before our door in Cheyne Walk,—till one day -when he had been very ill, I ventured to express my satisfaction -in seeing him out of doors again. He then answered -me kindly. I never shared the admiration felt for him by so -many able men who knew him personally, and therefore had -means which I did not possess, of estimating him aright. To -me his books and himself represented an anomalous sort of -human Fruit. The original stock was a hard and thorny -Scotch peasant-character, with a splendid intellect superadded. -The graft was not wholly successful. A flavour of the old -acrid sloe was always perceptible in the plum.</p> - -<p class='c007'>The following letter was received by Dr. Hoggan in reply -to a letter to Mr. Carlyle concerning Vivisection:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c009'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Keston Lodge, Beckenham,</div> - <div class='line in16'>“28th August, 1875.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='lg-container-l c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Dear Sir,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c010'>“Mr. Carlyle has received your letter, and has read it -carefully. He bids me say, that ever since he was a boy -when he read the account of Majendie’s atrocities, he has -never thought of the practice of vivisecting animals but -with horror. I may mention that I have heard him speak -of it in the strongest terms of disgust long before there was -any speech about public agitation on the subject. He -believes that the reports about the good results said to be -obtained from the practice of vivisection to be immensely -exaggerated; with the exception of certain experiments -by Harvey and certain others by Sir Charles Bell, he is not -aware of any conspicuous good that has resulted from it. -But even supposing the good results to be much greater -than Mr. Carlyle believes they are, and apart too from the -shocking pain inflicted on the helpless animals operated -upon, he would still think the practice so brutalising to the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_539'>539</span>operators that he would earnestly wish the law on the -subject to be altered, so as to make Vivisection even in -Institutions like that with which you are connected a most -rare occurrence, and when practised by private individuals -an indictable offence.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“You are not sure that the operators on living animals -‘can be counted on your fingers.’ Mr. Carlyle with an equal -share of certainty believes Vivisection and other kindred -experiments on living animals to be much more largely -practised, and that they are by no means uncommonly -undertaken by doctors’ apprentices and ‘other miserable -persons.’</p> - -<p class='c010'>“You are mistaken if you look upon the <cite>Times</cite> as a mirror -of virtue; on this very subject when it at first began to be -publicly discussed last winter, it printed a letter from ... -which your letter itself would prove to be altogether -composed of falsehoods.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“With Mr. Carlyle’s compliments and good wishes,</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“I remain, dear Sir,</div> - <div class='line in8'>“Yours truly,</div> - <div class='line in12'>“<span class='sc'>Mary Carlyle Aitken</span>.”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c006'>Mr. Carlyle supported our Anti-vivisection Society from -the outset, for which I was very grateful to him; but having -promised to join our first important deputation to the Home -Office, to urge the Government to bring in a Bill in accordance -with the recommendations of the Royal Commission, he -failed at the last moment to put in an appearance, having -learned that Cardinal Manning was to be also present. I was -told that he said he would not appear in public with the -Cardinal, who was, he thought, “the chief emissary of -Beelzebub in England!” When this was repeated to me, my -remark was:—“Infidels <em>is riz</em>! Time was, when Cardinals -would not appear in public with infidels!”</p> - -<p class='c007'>Nothing has surprised me more in reading the memoirs -and letters of Mr. and Mrs. Carlyle than the small interest -<span class='pageno' id='Page_540'>540</span>either of them seems to have felt in the great subjects which -formed the life-work of their many illustrious visitors. While -humbler folk who touched the same circles were vehemently -attracted, or else repelled, by the political, philosophical and -theological theories and labours of such men as Mazzini, -Mill, Colenso, Jowett, Martineau and Darwin, and every -conversation and almost every letter contained new facts, or -animated discussions regarding them, the Carlyles received visits -from these great men continually, with (it would seem) little -or no interest in their aims or views one way or the other, -in approval or disapproval; and wrote and talked much more -seriously about the delinquencies of their own maidservants, -and the great and never-to-be-sufficiently-appealed-against -cock and hen nuisance.</p> - -<p class='c007'>I had known Cardinal Manning in Rome about 1861 or -1863 when he was “Monsignor Manning,” and went a little -into English society, resplendent in a beautiful violet robe. -He was very busy in those days making converts among -English young ladies, and one with whom we were acquainted, -the daughter of a celebrated authoress, fell into his net. He -had, at all times, a gentle way of ridiculing English doings -and prejudices which was no doubt telling. One of the -stories he told me was of an Italian sacristan asking him -“what was the <em>Red Prayer Book</em> which all the English tourists -carried about and read so devoutly in the churches?” (of -course Murray’s <cite>Hand-books</cite>).<a id='r25' /><a href='#f25' class='c013'><sup>[25]</sup></a></p> - -<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_541'>541</span>A few years afterwards when he had returned to England -as Archbishop of Westminster, I met him pretty frequently -at Miss Stanley’s house in Grosvenor Crescent. He there -attacked me cheerfully one evening: “Miss Cobbe I have -found out something against you. I have discovered that -Voltaire was part-owner of a Slave-ship!”</p> - -<p class='c007'>“I beg you to believe,” said I, “that I have no responsibility -whatever respecting Voltaire! But I would ask your Grace, -whether it be not true that Las Casas, the saintly Dominican, -<em>founded</em> Negro Slavery in America?” A Church of England -friend coming up and laughing, I discharged a second barrel: -“And was not the Protestant Saint, Newton of Olney,—much -worse than all,—the <em>Captain</em> of a Slave-ship?”<a id='r26' /><a href='#f26' class='c013'><sup>[26]</sup></a></p> - -<p class='c007'>One evening at this pleasant house I was standing on the -rug in one of the rooms talking to Mr. Matthew Arnold and -two or three other acquaintances of the same set. The -Archbishop, on entering shook hands with each of us, and -we were all talking in the usual easy, sub-humorous, London -way when a tall military-looking man, a Major G., came in, -and seeing Manning, walked straight up to him, went down -on one knee and kissed his ring! A bomb falling amongst us -would scarcely have been more startling; and Manning, -Englishman as he was to the backbone under his fine Roman -feathers, was obviously disconcerted, though dignified as ever.</p> - -<p class='c007'>In a letter to a friend dated Feb. 19th, 1867, I find I said:</p> - -<p class='c008'>“I had an amusing conversation with Archbishop Manning -the other night at Miss Stanley’s. He was most good-humoured, -coming up to me as I was talking to Sir C. -Trevelyan, about Rome, and saying ‘I am glad you think of -going to Rome next winter, Miss Cobbe. It proves you expect -the Pope to be firmly established there still.’ We had rather a -<span class='pageno' id='Page_542'>542</span>long talk about Passaglia who he says <em>has</em> recanted,—[a fact I -heard strongly contradicted later.] Mr. J. (now Sir H. J.) -came behind him in the midst of our talk and almost pitched -the Archbishop on me, with such a push as I never saw -given in a drawing-room! The Dean and Lady Augusta -came in later, and she asked eagerly: ‘Where was Manning?’ -having never seen him. He had gone away, so I told her -of the enthusiastic meeting which had afforded a spectacle -to us all an hour before, between him and Archdeacon -Denison. It was quite a scene of ecclesiastical reconciliation; -a ‘Reunion of Christendom!’ (They had been told -each that the other was in the adjoining room, and Archdeacon -Denison literally rushed with both hands outspread -to meet the Cardinal, whom he had not seen since his -conversion.)”</p> - -<p class='c006'>In later years, I received at least half-a-dozen notes from -time to time from his Eminence asking for details of our -Anti-vivisection work, and exhibiting his anxiety to master -the facts on which he proposed to speak at our Meetings. -Here are some of these notes:—</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c009'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Archbishop’s House, Westminster, S.W.,</div> - <div class='line in28'>“June 12th, 1882.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='lg-container-l c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Dear Miss Cobbe,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c010'>“I should be much obliged if you would send me some -recent facts or utterances of the Mantegazza kind, for -the meeting at Lord Shaftesbury’s. I have for a long time -lost all reckoning from overwork, and need to be posted up.</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Believe me, always faithfully yours,</div> - <div class='line in24'>“<em>Henry E.</em>, Card. Archbp.”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='lg-container-r c009'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Cardinal Manning to Miss F. P. C.</div> - <div class='line in20'>“Eastern Road, Brighton.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='lg-container-l c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Dear Miss Cobbe,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c010'>“I can assure you that my slowness in answering your -letter has not arisen from any diminution of care on Vivisection. -<span class='pageno' id='Page_543'>543</span>I was never better able to understand it, for I -have been for nearly three weeks in pain day and night -from neuralgia in the right arm, which makes writing -difficult.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“I have not seen Mr. Holt’s Bill, and I do not know what -it aims at.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“Before I can say anything, I wish to be fully informed. -The Bill of last year does not content me.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“But we must take care not to weaken what we have -gained. I hope to stay here over Sunday, and should be -much obliged if you could desire someone to send me a -copy of Mr. Holt’s Bill.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“Has sufficient organised effort been made to enforce -Mr. Cross’s Act?</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Believe me, always yours very truly,</div> - <div class='line in16'>“<span class='sc'>Henry E.</span>, Card. Archbp.”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='lg-container-r c009'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Archbishop’s House, Westminster, S.W.,</div> - <div class='line in20'>“June 22nd, 1884.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='lg-container-l c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Dear Miss Cobbe,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c010'>“I will attend the meeting of the 26th unless hindered -by some unforeseen necessity, but I must ask you to send -me a brief. I am so driven by work that for some time I -have fallen behind your proceedings. Send me one or two -points marked and I will read them up.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“My mind is more than ever fixed on this subject.</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Believe me, yours faithfully,</div> - <div class='line in12'>“<span class='sc'>Henry E.</span>, Card. Archbp.”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='lg-container-r c009'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Archbishop’s House, Westminster, S.W.,</div> - <div class='line in24'>“January 27th, 1887.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='lg-container-l c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“My dear Miss Cobbe,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c010'>“For the last three weeks I have been kept to the house -by one of my yearly colds; but if possible I will be present -at the Meeting of the Society. If I should be unable to be -there I will write a letter.</p> - -<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_544'>544</span>“I clearly see that the proposed Physiological and -Pathological Institute would be centre and sanction of ever -advancing Vivisection.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“I hope you are recovering health and strength by your -rest in the country?</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Believe me, always faithfully yours,</div> - <div class='line in16'>“<span class='sc'>Henry E.</span>, Card. Archbp.”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='lg-container-r c009'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Archbishop’s House, Westminster, S.W.,</div> - <div class='line in28'>“July 31st, 1889.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='lg-container-l c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“My dear Miss Cobbe,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c010'>“My last days have been so full that I have not been able -to write. I thank you for your letter, and for the contents -of it. The highest counsel is always the safest and best, -cost us what it may. We may take the cost as the test of -its rectitude.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“I hope you will go on writing against this inflation of -vain glory calling itself Science.</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Believe me, always, very truly yours,</div> - <div class='line in12'>“<span class='sc'>Henry E.</span>, Card. Archbishop.”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c006'>At no less than seven of our annual Meetings (at one of -which he presided) did Cardinal Manning make speeches. -All these I have myself reprinted in an ornamental pamphlet -to be obtained at 20, Victoria Street. The reasons for his -adoption of our Anti-vivisection cause, were, I am sure, -mainly moral and humane; but I think an incident which -occurred in Rome not long before our campaign began may -have impressed on his mind a regret that the Catholic Church -had hitherto done nothing on behalf of the lower animals, -and a desire to take part himself in a humane crusade and so -rectify its position before the Protestant world.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Pope Pio IX. had been addressed by the English in Rome -through Lord Ampthill, (then Mr. Odo Russell, our representative -there)—with a request for permission to found a Society -for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in Rome; where, (as all -<span class='pageno' id='Page_545'>545</span>the world knows) it was almost as deplorably needed -as at Naples. After a considerable delay, the formal reply -through the proper Office, was sent to Mr. Russell <em>refusing</em> the -(indispensable) permission. The document conveying this -refusal expressly stated that “a Society for such a purpose -could not be sanctioned in Rome. Man owed duties to his -fellow men; but he owed no duties to the lower animals -therefore, though such societies might exist in Protestant -countries they could not be allowed to be established -in Rome.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>The late Lord Arthur Russell, coming back from Italy -to England just after this event, told me of it with great -detail, and assured me that he had seen the Papal document -in his brother’s possession; and that if I chose to publish -the matter in England, he would guarantee the truth of the -story at any time. I <em>did</em> very much choose to publish it, -thinking it was a thing which ought to be proclaimed on the -housetops; and I repeated it in seven or eight different -publications, ranging from the <cite>Quarterly Review</cite> to the -<cite>Echo</cite>. Soon after this, if I remember rightly, began the -Anti-vivisection movement, and almost immediately when -the Society for Protection of Animals from Vivisection -(afterwards called the Victoria Street Society) was founded, -by Dr. Hoggan and myself, Cardinal Manning gave us his -name and active support. He took part in our first -Deputation to the Home Office, and spoke at our first -meeting, which was held on the 10th June, 1876, at the -Westminster Palace Hotel. On that occasion, when it came -to the Cardinal’s turn to speak, he began at once to say that -“Much misapprehension existed as to the attitude of his -Church on the subject of duty to animals.” [As he said -this, with his usual clear, calm, deliberate enunciation, he -looked me straight in the face and I looked at him!] He -proceeded to say: “It was true that man owed no duty -<span class='pageno' id='Page_546'>546</span><em>directly</em> to the brutes, but he owed it to God, whose creatures -they are, to treat them mercifully.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>This was, I considered a very good way of reconciling -adhesion to the Pope’s doctrine, with humane principles; -and I greatly rejoiced that such a <i><span lang="it" xml:lang="it">mezzo-termine</span></i> could be put -forward on authority. Of course in my private opinion the -Cardinal’s ethics were theoretically untenable, seeing that if -it were possible to conceive of such a thing as a creature made -by a man, (as people in the thirteenth century believed that -Arnaldus de Villa-Nova had made a living man), or even such -a thing as a creature made by the Devil,—that most wretched -being would still have a right to be spared pain if <em>he were -sensitive to pain</em>; and would assuredly be a proper object of -measureless compassion. That a dog or horse is a creature -of God; that its love and service to us come of God’s -gracious provisions for us; that the animal is unoffending to -its Creator, while we are suppliants for forgiveness for our -offences; all these are true and tender reasons for <em>additional</em> -kindness and care for these our dumb fellow-creatures. -But they are not (as the Cardinal’s argument would -seem to imply) the <em>only</em> reasons for showing mercy towards -them.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Nevertheless it was a great step,—I may say an historical -event,—that a principle practically including universal -humanity to the lower animals, should have been enunciated -publicly and formally by a “Prince of the Church” of Rome. -That Cardinal Manning was not only the first great Roman -prelate to lay down any such principle, but that he far -outran many of his contemporaries and co-religionists in so -doing, has become painfully manifest this year (1894) from -the numerous letters from priests which have appeared in -the <cite>Tablet</cite> and <cite>Catholic Times</cite>, bearing a very different -complexion. Cardinal Manning repeated almost <i><span lang="la" xml:lang="la">verbatim</span></i> the -same explanation of his own standpoint in his speech on -<span class='pageno' id='Page_547'>547</span>March 9th, 1887, when he occupied the chair at our Annual -Meeting. He said:</p> - -<p class='c008'>“It is perfectly true that obligations and duties are -between moral persons, and therefore the lower animals are -not susceptible of those moral obligations which we owe to -one another; but we owe a seven-fold obligation to the -Creator of those animals. Our obligation and moral duty -is to Him who made them, and, if we wish to know the limit -and the broad outline of our obligation, I say at once it is -His Nature and His perfections; and, among those perfections, -one is most profoundly that of eternal mercy. (Hear, -hear.) And, therefore, although a poor mule or a poor -horse is not indeed a moral person, yet the Lord and Maker -of that mule and that horse is the highest law-giver, and -His Nature is a law to Himself. And, in giving a dominion -over His creatures to man, He gave them subject to the -condition that they should be used in conformity to His own -perfections, which is His own law, and, therefore, our law.”</p> - -<p class='c006'>On the first occasion a generous Roman Catholic nobleman -present gave me £20 to have the Cardinal’s speech translated -into Italian and widely circulated in Italy.</p> - -<p class='c007'>I have good reason to believe that when Cardinal Manning -went to Rome after the election of Leo XIII., he spoke -earnestly to his Holiness on the subject of cruelty to animals -generally in Italy, and especially concerning Vivisection, and -that he understood the Pope to agree with him and sanction -his attitude. I learned this from a private source, but his -Eminence referred to it quite unmistakeably in his speech at -Lord Shaftesbury’s house on the 21st June, 1882, as -follows:—</p> - -<p class='c008'>“I am somewhat concerned to say it, but I know that an -impression has been made that those whom I represent -look, if not with approbation, at least with great indulgence, -at the practice of Vivisection. I grieve to say that abroad -there are a great many (whom I beg to say I do not -<span class='pageno' id='Page_548'>548</span>represent) who do favour the practice; but this I do protest, -that there is not a religious instinct in nature, nor a religion -of nature, nor is there a word in revelation, either in the -Old Testament or the New Testament, nor is there to be -found in the great theology which I do represent, no, nor -in any Act of the Church of which I am a member; no, -nor in the lives and utterances of any one of those great -servants of that Church who stand as examples, nor is there -an authoritative utterance anywhere to be found in favour -of Vivisection. There may be the chatter, the prating, and -the talk of those who know nothing about it. And I know -what I have stated to be the fact, for some years ago I took -a step known to our excellent secretary, and brought the -subject under the notice and authority where alone I could -bring it. And those before whom it was laid soon proved -to have been profoundly ignorant of the outlines of the -alphabet even of Vivisection. They believed entirely that -the practice of surgery and the science of anatomy owed -everything to the discoveries of vivisectors. They were -filled to the full with every false impression, but when the -facts were made known to them, they experienced a -revulsion of feeling.”</p> - -<p class='c006'>Cardinal Manning also, (as I happen likewise to know) -made a great effort about 1878 or 1879, to induce the then -General of the Franciscans, to support the Anti-vivisection -movement <em>for love of St. Francis</em>, and his tenderness to -animals. In this attempt, however, Cardinal Manning must -have been entirely unsuccessful, as no modern Franciscan -that ever I have heard of, has stirred a finger on behalf of -animals anywhere, or given his name to any Society for -protecting them, either from vulgar or from scientific cruelty. -Knowing this, I confess to feeling some impatience when the -name of St. Francis and his amiable fondness for birds and -beasts is perpetually flaunted whenever the lack of common -humanity to animals visible in Catholic countries happens to -be mentioned. It is a very small matter that a Saint, six -<span class='pageno' id='Page_549'>549</span>hundred years ago, sang with nightingales and fed wolves, -if the monks of his own Order and the priests of the Church -which has canonised him, never warn their flocks that to -torment God’s creatures is even a venial sin, and when -forced to notice barbarous cruelties to a brute, invariably -reply, “<i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Non è Cristiano</span></i>,” as if all claims to compassion -were dismissed by that consideration!</p> - -<p class='c007'>The answer of the General of the Franciscans to Cardinal -Manning’s touching appeal was,—“that he had consulted his -doctor and that his doctor assured him that <em>no such thing -as Vivisection was ever practised in Italy</em>!”</p> - -<p class='c007'>I was kindly permitted to call at Archbishop’s House and -see Cardinal Manning several times; and I find the following -little record of one of my first visits in a letter to my friend, -written the same, or next day:—</p> - -<p class='c008'>“I had a very interesting interview with the Cardinal. I -was shown into a vast, dreary dining-room quite monastic -in its whitey-brown walls, poverty-stricken furniture, -crucifix, and pictures of half-a-dozen Bishops who did -not exhibit the ‘Beauty of Holiness.’ The Cardinal -received me most kindly, and said he was so glad to -see me, and that he was much better in health after a -long illness. He is not much changed. It was droll to sit -talking <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">tête-à-tête</span></i> with a man with a pink <em>octagon</em> on his -venerable head, and various little scraps of scarlet -showing here and there to remind one that ‘<i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Grattez</span></i>’ the -English gentleman and you will find the Roman Cardinal! -He told me, really with effusion, that his heart was -in our work; and he promised to go to the Meeting -to-morrow.... I told him we all wished <em>him</em> to take -the chair. He said it would be much better for a layman -like Lord Coleridge to do so. I said, ‘I don’t think you -know the place you hold in English, (I paused and -added <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">avec intention</span></i>,) <em>Protestant</em> estimation’! He laughed -very good-humouredly and said: ‘I think I do, very -well.’”</p> - -<p class='c006'><span class='pageno' id='Page_550'>550</span>At the Meeting on the following day when he <em>did</em> take the -chair, I had opportunities as Hon. Sec., of which I did -not fail to avail myself, of a little quiet conversation with -his Eminence before the proceedings.</p> - -<p class='c007'>I spoke of the moral results of Darwinism on the -character and remarked how paralyzing was the idea that -Conscience was merely an hereditary instinct fixed in the -brain by the interests of the tribe, and in no sense -the voice of God in the heart or His law graven -on the “fleshly tablets.” He abounded in my sense, -and augured immeasurable evils from the general adoption -of such a philosophy. I asked him what was the Catholic -doctrine of the origin of Souls? He answered, promptly -and emphatically: “O, that each one is a distinct creation -of God.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>The last day on which His Eminence attended a Committee -Meeting in Victoria Street I had a little conversation -with him as usual, after business was over; and reminded -him that on every occasion when he had previously attended, -we had had our beloved President, Lord Shaftesbury present. -“Shall I tell your Eminence,” I asked, “what Mrs. F.” (now -Lady B.) “told me Lord Shaftesbury said to her shortly -before he died, about our Committees here? He said that -‘if our Society had done nothing else but bring you and him -together, and make you sit and work at the same table for -the same object, it would have been well worth while to have -founded it!’” “<em>Did</em> Lord Shaftesbury say that?” said the -Cardinal, with a moisture in his eyes, “<em>Did</em> he say that? -I <em>loved</em> Lord Shaftesbury!”</p> - -<p class='c007'>And <em>these</em>, I reflected, were the men whom narrow bigots -of both creeds, looked on as the very chiefs of opposing -camps and bitter enemies! The one rejoiced at an <em>excuse</em> for -meeting the other in friendly co-operation! The other said -as his last word: “I <em>loved</em> him!”</p> - -<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_551'>551</span>I was greatly touched by this little scene, and going -straight from it to the house of the friend who had told me -of Lord Shaftesbury’s remark, I naturally described it to her -and to Mr. Lowell, who was taking tea with us. “Ah, yes!” -Lady B. said,—“I remember it well, and I could show you -the very tree in the park where we were sitting when Lord -Shaftesbury made that remark. But” (she added) “why -did you not tell the Cardinal that he included <em>you</em>? What -Lord Shaftesbury said was, that ‘the Society had brought -the Cardinal and you and himself to work together.’” Mr. -Lowell was interested in all this, and the evidence it afforded -of the width of mind of the great philanthropist, so often supposed -to be “a narrow Evangelical.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>Alas! he also has “gone over to the majority.” I met -him often and liked him (as every one did) extremely. -Though in so many ways different, he had some of Mr. -Gladstone’s peculiar power of making every conversation -wherein he took part interesting; of turning it off dusty roads -into pleasant paths. He had not in the smallest degree that -tiresome habit of <em>giving information</em> instead of <em>conveying -impressions</em>, which makes some worthy people so unspeakably -fatiguing as companions. I had once the privilege of sitting -between him and Lord Tennyson when they carried on an -animated conversation, and I could see how much the great -Poet was delighted with the lesser one; who was also a -large-hearted Statesman; a silver link between two great -nations.</p> - -<p class='c007'>I shall account it one of the chief honours which have -fallen to my lot that Tennyson asked leave, through his son, -to pay me a visit. Needless to say I accepted the offer -with gratitude and, fortunately, I was at home, in our little -house in Cheyne Walk, when he called on me. He sat for -a long time over my fire, and talked of poetry; of the share -melodious words ought to have in it; of the hatefulness of -<span class='pageno' id='Page_552'>552</span>scientific cruelty, against which he was going to write again; -and of the new and dangerous phases of thought then -apparent. Much that he said on the latter subject was, I -think, crystallised in his <cite>Locksley Hall Sixty Years Later</cite>. -After he had risen to go and I had followed him to the stairs, -I returned to my room and said from my heart, “<em>Thank God!</em>” -The great poem which had been so much to me for half a -lifetime, was not spoiled; the Man and the Poet were one. -Nothing that I had now seen and heard of him in the flesh -jarred with what I had known of him in the spirit.</p> - -<p class='c007'>After this first visit I had the pleasure of meeting Lord -Tennyson several times and of making Lady Tennyson’s -charming acquaintance; the present Lord Tennyson being -exceedingly kind and friendly to me in welcoming -me to their house. On one occasion when I met Lord -Tennyson at the house of a mutual friend, he told -me, (with an innocent surprise which I could not but -find diverting,) that a certain great Professor had been -positively angry and rude to him about his lines in the -<cite>Children’s Hospital</cite> concerning those who “carve the living -hound”! I tried to explain to him the fury of the whole -<em>clique</em> at the discovery that the consciences of the rest of -mankind has considerably outstepped theirs in the matter of -humanity and that while they fancied themselves, (in his -words,) “the heirs of all the ages, in the foremost files of -Time,” it was really in the Dark Ages, as regarded humane -sentiment,—or at least one or two centuries past,—in which -they lingered; practising the Art of Torture on beasts, as -men did on men in the sixteenth century. I also tried to -explain to him that his ideal of a Vivisector with red face and -coarse hands was quite wrong, and as false as the -representation of Lady Macbeth as a tall and masculine -woman. Lady Macbeth <em>must</em> have been small, thin and concentrated, -not a big, bony, conscientious Scotch woman; and -<span class='pageno' id='Page_553'>553</span>Vivisectors (some of them at all events) are polished and -handsome gentlemen, with peculiarly delicate fingers (for -drawing out nerves, &c., as Cyon describes).</p> - -<p class='c007'>Lord Tennyson from the very first beginning of our -Anti-vivisection movement, in 1874, to the hour of his death, -never once failed to append his name to every successive -Memorial and Petition,—and they were many,—which I, and -my successors, sent to him; and he accepted and held our -Hon. Membership and afterwards the Vice-Presidency of our -Society from first to last.</p> - -<p class='c007'>The last time I saw Lord Tennyson was one day in London -after I had taken luncheon at his house. When I rose to -leave the table, and he shook hands with me at the door as -we were parting, as we supposed, for that season; he said -to me: “Good-Bye, Miss Cobbe—Fight the good Fight. -Go on! Fight the good Fight.” I saw him no more; but I -shall do his bidding, please God, to the end.</p> - -<p class='c007'>I shall insert here two letters which I received from Lord -Tennyson which, though trifling in themselves, I prize as -testimonies of his sympathy and goodwill. I am fortunately -able to add to them two papers of some real interest,—the -contemporary estimate of Tennyson’s first poems by his -friends, the Kembles; and the announcement of the death of -Arthur Hallam by his friend John Mitchell Kemble to Fanny -Kemble. They have come into my possession with a vast -mass of family and other papers given me by Mrs. Kemble -several years ago, and belong to a series of letters, marvellously -long and closely written, by John Kemble, during -and after his romantic expedition to Spain along with the -future Archbishop Trench and the other young enthusiasts -of 1830. The way in which John Mitchell Kemble speaks -of his friend Alfred Tennyson’s Poems is satisfactory, but -much more so is the beautiful testimony he renders to the -character of Hallam. It is touching, and uplifting too, to -<span class='pageno' id='Page_554'>554</span>read the rather singular words “of a holier heart,” applied -to the subject of “<em>In Memoriam</em>,” by his young companion.</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c009'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Farringford, Freshwater,</div> - <div class='line in16'>“Isle of Wight,</div> - <div class='line in20'>“June 4th, 1880.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='lg-container-l c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Dear Miss Cobbe,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c010'>“I have subscribed my name, and I hope that it may be -of some use to your cause.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“My wife is grateful to you for remembrance of her, and</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“I am, ever yours,</div> - <div class='line in8'>“<span class='sc'>A. Tennyson</span>.”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='lg-container-r c009'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Aldworth, Haslemere,</div> - <div class='line in8'>“Surrey, January 9th, 1882.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='lg-container-l c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“My dear Miss Cobbe,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c010'>“I thank you for your essay, which I found very -interesting, though perhaps somewhat too vehement to -serve your purpose. Have you seen that terrible book by -a Swiss (reviewed in the <cite>Spectator</cite>) <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Ayez Pitié</span></i>? Pray -pardon my not answering you before. I am so harried -with letters and poems from all parts of the world, that -my friends often have to wait for an answer.</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Yours ever,</div> - <div class='line in8'>“<span class='sc'>A. Tennyson</span>.”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='lg-container-r c009'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Farringford, Freshwater,</div> - <div class='line in8'>“Isle of Wight, June 12th, 1882.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='lg-container-l c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Dear Miss Cobbe,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c010'>“I am sorry to say that I shall not be in London -the 21st, so that I cannot be present at your meeting. -Many thanks for asking me. My father has been suffering -from a bad attack of gout, and does not feel inclined to -<em>write</em> more about Vivisection. You have, as you know, -his warmest good wishes in all your great struggle. When -<span class='pageno' id='Page_555'>555</span>are we to see you again? Can you not pay us a visit at -Haslemere this summer?</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“With our kindest regards,</div> - <div class='line in8'>“Yours very sincerely,</div> - <div class='line in16'>“<span class='sc'>Hallam Tennyson</span>.”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c006'>Extract from letter from John M. Kemble to Fanny Kemble. -No date. In packet of 1830–1833:—</p> - -<p class='c008'>“I am very glad that you like Tennyson’s Poems; if you -had any poetry in you, you could not help it; for the -general system of criticism, and the notion that a poet is to -be appreciated by everybody, if he be a poet, are mighty -fallacies. It was only the High Priest who was privileged -to enter the Holy of Holies; and so it is with that other -Holy of Holies, no less sacred and replete with divinity, a -great poet’s mind: therein no vulgar foot may tread. To -meet this objection, it is often said that all men appreciate, -&c., &c., Shakespeare and Milton, &c. To this I answer by -a direct denial. Not one man in a hundred thousand cares -three straws for Milton; and though from being a <em>dramatic</em> -Poet Shakespeare must be better understood, I believe I -may say that not one in a hundred thousand feels all that is -to be felt in him. There is no man who has done so much -as Tennyson to express poetical feeling by <em>sound</em>; Titian -has done as much with colours. Indeed, I believe no poet -to have lived since Milton, so perfect in his form, except -Göthe. In this matter, Shelley and Keats and Byron, even -Wordsworth, have been found wanting. Coleridge expresses -the greatest admiration for Charles Tennyson’s sonnets; -we have sent him Alfred’s poems, which, I am sure, will -delight him.”</p> - -<p class='c006'>Extract from letter from John Mitchell Kemble to Fanny -Kemble:—</p> - -<p class='c008'>“It is with feelings of inexpressible pain that I announce -to you the death of poor Arthur Hallam, who expired -<span class='pageno' id='Page_556'>556</span>suddenly from an attack of apoplexy at Vienna, on the -15th of last month. Though this was always feared by us -as likely to occur, the shock has been a bitter one to bear: -and most of all so to the Tennysons, whose sister Emily he -was to have married. I have not yet had the courage to -write to Alfred. This is a loss which will most assuredly -be felt by this age, for if ever man was born for great -things he was. Never was a more powerful intellect joined -to a purer and holier heart; and the whole illuminated -with the richest imagination, the most sparkling yet the -kindest wit. One cannot lament for him that he is gone to -a far better life, but we weep over his coffin and wonder -that we cannot be consoled. The Roman epitaph on two -young children: <i><span lang="la" xml:lang="la">Sibi met ipsis dolorem abstulerunt, suis -reliquere</span></i> (from themselves they took away pain, to their -friends they left it!) is always present to my mind, and -somehow the miserable feeling of loneliness comes over one -even though one knows that the dead are happier than the -living. His poor father was with him only. They had -been travelling together in Hungary and were on their -return to England; but there had been nothing whatever -to announce the fatal termination of their journey; indeed, -bating fatigue, Arthur had been unusually well. Our other -friends, though all mourning for him as if he had been our -brother, are well.”</p> - -<p class='c006'>In my chapter on Italy I have written some pages concerning -Mr. and Mrs. Browning, and printed two or three -kind letters from him to me. It is a great privilege, I now -feel, to have known, even in such slight measure these two -great poets. But what an unspeakable blessing and honour -it has been for England all through the Victorian Age to -have for her representatives and teachers in the high realm -of poetry, two such men as Tennyson and Browning; men of -immaculate honour, blameless and beautiful lives, and lofty -and pure inspiration! Not one word which either has ever -<span class='pageno' id='Page_557'>557</span>published need be blotted out by any recording angel, and, -widely different as they were, their high doctrine was the -same. The one tells us that “good” will be “the final -goal of ill”; the other that—</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c018'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“God’s in His Heaven!</div> - <div class='line'>All’s right with the world!”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c007'>I have had also the good fortune to find other English -poets ready to sympathise with me on the subject of Vivisection. -Sir Henry Taylor wrote many letters to me upon it -and called my attention to his own lines which go so deep -into the philosophy of the question, and which I have since -quoted so often;</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c018'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line in16'>“Pain in Man</div> - <div class='line'>Bears the high mission of the flail and fan,</div> - <div class='line'>In brutes ’tis purely piteous.”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c007'>Here is one of his notes to me:—</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c009'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“The Roost, Bournemouth,</div> - <div class='line in8'>“November 25th, 1875.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='lg-container-l c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Dear Miss Cobbe,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c010'>“I return your papers that they may not be wasted. I -wish you all the success you deserve, which is all you can -desire. But I can do nothing. My hands are full here, and -my pockets are empty.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“Two months ago I succeeded in forming a local Society -for the Prevention of Cruelty in this place.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“We have ordered prosecutions every week since, and -have obtained convictions in every case. And these local -operations are all that I can undertake or assist.</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Believe me, yours sincerely,</div> - <div class='line in16'>“<span class='sc'>Henry Taylor</span>.”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c006'>He was also actively interested in an effort to improve the -method of slaughtering cattle by using a mask with a fixed -hole in the centre, through which a long nail may be easily -<span class='pageno' id='Page_558'>558</span>driven, straight through the exact suture of the skull to the -brain, causing instant death. Sir Henry specially approved -the masks for this purpose, made, I believe, under his -own direction at Bournemouth, by Mr. Mendon, a saddler -at Lansdowne.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Mr. Lewis Morris has also written some beautiful and -striking poems touching on the subject of scientific cruelty, -and I have reason to hope that a younger man, who many -of us look upon as the poet of the future in England, -Mr. William Watson, is entirely on the same side. In short, -if the <em>Priests</em> of Science are against us, the <em>Prophets</em> of -Humanity, the Poets, are with us in this controversy, almost -to a man.</p> - -<p class='c007'>It will be seen that we had Politicians, Historians, and -thinkers of various parties among our friends in London; -but there were no Novelists except that very agreeable -woman Miss Jewsbury and the two Misses Betham -Edwards. Mr. Anthony Trollope I knew but slightly. I had -also some acquaintance with a very popular novelist, then a -young man, who was introduced in the full flush of his -success to Mr. Carlyle, whereon the “Sage of Chelsea” -greeted him with the <em>encouraging</em> question, “Well, Mr. —— -when do you intend to <em>begin to do something sairious</em>?”</p> - -<p class='c007'>With Mr. Wilkie Collins I exchanged several friendly -letters concerning some information he wanted for one of -his books. The following letter from him exhibits the -“Sairius” spirit, at all events (as Mr. Carlyle might admit), -in which he set about spinning the elaborate web of his -exciting tales.</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c009'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“90, Gloucester Place, Portman Square, W.,</div> - <div class='line in28'>“23rd June, 1882.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='lg-container-l c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Dear Madam,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c010'>“I most sincerely thank you for your kind letter and for -the pamphlets which preceded it. The ‘Address’ seems -<span class='pageno' id='Page_559'>559</span>to me to possess the very rare merit of forcible statement -combined with a moderation of judgment which sets a -valuable example, not only to our enemies, but to some of -our friends. As to the ‘Portrait,’ I feel such a strong -universal interest in it that I must not venture on criticism. -You have given me exactly what I most wanted for the -purpose that I have in view—and you have spared me time -and trouble in the best and kindest of ways. If I require -further help, you shall see that I am gratefully sensible of -the help that has been already given.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“I am writing to a very large public both at home and -abroad; and it is quite needless (when I am writing to <em>you</em>) -to dwell on the importance of producing the right impression -by means which keep clear of terrifying and revolting the -ordinary reader. I shall leave the detestable cruelties of -the laboratory to be merely inferred, and, in tracing the -moral influence of those cruelties on the nature of the man -who practices them, and the result as to his social relations -with the persons about him, I shall be careful to present -him to the reader as a man <em>not</em> infinitely wicked and cruel, -and to show the efforts made by his better instincts to resist -the inevitable hardening of the heart, the fatal stupefying -of all the finer sensibilities, produced by the deliberately -merciless occupations of his life. If I can succeed in making -him, in some degree, an object of compassion as well as of -horror, my experience of readers of fiction tells me that the -right effect will be produced by the right means.</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Believe me, very truly yours,</div> - <div class='line in12'>“<span class='sc'>Wilkie Collins</span>.”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c006'>Of another order of acquaintances was that excellent man -Mr. James Spedding; also Mr. Babbage, (in whose horror -of street music I devoutly sympathised); and Mr. James -Fergusson the architect, in whose books and ideas generally I -found great interest. He avowed to me his opinion that the -ancient Jews were never builders of stone edifices, and that -all the relics of stone buildings in Palestine were the work -<span class='pageno' id='Page_560'>560</span>either of Tyrians or of the Idumean Herod, or of other non-Jewish -rulers. His conversation was always most -instructive to me, and I rejoiced when I had the opportunity -of writing a long review (for <cite>Fraser</cite> I think) of his <cite>Tree and -Serpent Worship</cite>; with which he was so well pleased that he -made me a present of the magnificent volume, of which I -believe only a hundred copies were printed. Mr. Fergusson -taught me to see that the whole civilization of a country has -depended historically on the stones with which it happens -naturally to be furnished. If these stones be large and hard -and durable like those of Egypt, we find grand, everlasting -monuments and statues made of them. If they be delicate -and beautiful like Pentelic marble, we have the Parthenon. -If they be plain limestone or freestone as in our northern -climes, richness of form and detail take the place of greater -simplicity, and we have the great cathedrals of England, -France and Germany. Where there is no good stone, only -brick, we may have fine mansions, but not great temples, -and where there is neither clay for bricks, nor good stone -for building, the natives can erect no durable edifices, and -consequently have no places to be adorned with statues and -paintings and all the arts which go with them. I do not -know whether I do justice to Mr. Fergusson in giving this -<i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">résumé</span></i> of his lesson, but it is my recollection of it, and to -my thinking worth recording.</p> - -<p class='c007'>One of the friends of whom we saw most in London was -Sir William Boxall, whose exquisite artistic taste was -specially congenial to my friend, and his varied conversation -and love of his poor, dear, old dog “Garry,” to me. -After Lord Coleridge’s charming obituary of him nothing -need be added in the way of tribute to his character and -gifts, or to the refined feeling which inspired him always. I -may add, however (what the Lord Chief Justice naturally -would not say on his own account), namely, that Boxall, in -<span class='pageno' id='Page_561'>561</span>his latter years of weakness and almost constant confinement -to the house, frequently told us when we went to visit him -how Lord Coleridge had found time from all his labours to -come frequently to sit with him and cheer him; and after a -whole day spent in the hot Law Courts would dine on his -old friend’s chops, and spend the evening in his dingy rooms -in Welbeck Street. Here is a letter from Sir William which -I happen to have preserved. It refers to an article I had -written in the <cite>Echo</cite> on the death of Landseer:—</p> - -<div class='lg-container-l c009'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“My dear Miss Cobbe,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c010'>“Your sympathetic notice of my old friend Landseer -and his friends has delighted me—a grain of such feeling -is worth a newspaper load of worn-out criticism. I thank -you very sincerely for it.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“I should have called upon you, but I have been shut up -with the cold which threatened me when I last saw you.</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Yours very sincerely,</div> - <div class='line in12'>“<span class='sc'>W. Boxall</span>.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='lg-container-l c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“October 6th, 1879.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c010'>“There is no hope of my getting to Dolgelly. It will be -a great escape for Miss Lloyd, for I am utterly worn out.”</p> - -<p class='c006'>I find that the most common opinion about Lord -Shaftesbury is, that he was an excellent and most disinterested -man, who did a vast amount of good in his time -among the poor, and in the factories and on behalf of the -climbing-boy sweeps, but that he was somewhat narrowminded; -and dry, if not stern in character. Perhaps some -would add that his extreme Evangelicalism had in it a tinge -of Calvinistic bigotry. I shared very much such ideas about -him till one day in 1875, when I had gone to Stanhope -Street to consult Lord and Lady Mount-Temple, my unfailing -helpers and advisers, about some matter connected with Lord -Henniker’s Bill then before Parliament,—for the restriction -<span class='pageno' id='Page_562'>562</span>of Vivisection. After explaining my difficulty, Lady Mount-Temple -said, “We must consult Lord Shaftesbury about -this matter. Come with me now to his house.” I -yielded to my kind friend, but not without hesitation, -fearing that Lord Shaftesbury would, in the first place, -be too much absorbed in his great philanthropic undertakings -to spare attention to the wrongs of the brutes; -and, in the second, that his religious views were too -strict to allow him to co-operate with such a heretic -as I, even if (as I was assured) he would tolerate my -intrusion. How widely astray from the truth I was as -regarded his sentiments in both ways, the sequel proved. -He had already, it appeared, taken great interest in the Anti-vivisection -controversy then beginning, and entered into it -with all the warmth of his heart; not as something <em>taking him -off</em> from service to mankind, but <em>as apart of his philanthropy</em>. -He always emphatically endorsed my view; that, if we could -save Vivisectors from persisting in the sin of Cruelty, we -should be doing them a moral service greater than to save -them from becoming pickpockets or drunkards. He also felt -what I may call passionate pity for the tortured brutes. He -loved dogs, and always had a large beautiful Collie lying under -his writing-table; and was full of tenderness to his daughters’ -Siamese cat, and spoke of all animals with intimate knowledge -and sympathy. As to my heresies, though he knew of them -from the first, they never interfered with his kindness and -consideration for me, which were such as I can never -remember without emotion.</p> - -<p class='c007'>I shall speak in its place in another chapter of the share he -took as leader and champion of our party in all the subsequent -events connected with the Anti-vivisection agitation. I -wish here only to give, (if it may be possible for me), some -small idea to the reader of what that good man really was, -and to remove some of the absurd misconceptions current -<span class='pageno' id='Page_563'>563</span>concerning him. For example. He was no bigot as to -Sabbatarian observances. I told him once that I belonged to -the Society for opening Museums on Sundays. He said: “I -think you are mistaken—the working men do not wish it. -See! I have here the result of a large enquiry among their -Trades Unions and clubs. Nearly all of them deprecate the -change. But I am on this point not at all of the same -opinion as most of my friends. I have told them (and they -have often been a little shocked at it), that I think if a lawyer has -a brief for a case on Monday and has had no time to study it -on Saturday, he is quite justified in reading it up on Sunday -after church.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>Neither did he share the very common bigotry of teetotalism. -He said to me, “The teetotallers have added an Eleventh -Commandment, and think more of it than of all the rest.” -Again, when (as is well known) Lord Palmerston left -the choice of Bishops for many years practically in his -hands (I believe that seven owed their sees to him), -and he, of course, selected Evangelical clergymen who -would uphold what he considered to be vital religious -truth, he was yet able to concur heartily in the appointment -of Arthur Stanley to the Deanery of Westminster. He told -me that Lord Palmerston had written to him before inviting -Dr. Stanley, and said that he would not do it if he, (Lord -Shaftesbury) disapproved; and that he had answered that he -was well aware that Dr. Stanley’s theological views differed -widely from his own, but that he was an admirable man and -a gentleman, with special suitability for this post and a claim -to some such high office; and that he cordially approved Lord -Palmerston’s choice. I do not suppose that Dean Stanley -ever knew of this possible <i><span lang="la" xml:lang="la">veto</span></i> in Lord Shaftesbury’s hands, -but he entertained the profoundest respect for him, and -expressed it in the little poem which he wrote about him (of -which Lord Shaftesbury gave me an MS. copy), which -<span class='pageno' id='Page_564'>564</span>appears in Dean Stanley’s biography. He compares the -aged philanthropist to “a great rock’s shadow in a weary -land.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>It was a charge against Howard and some other great -philanthropists that, while exhibiting the enthusiasm of -humanity on the <em>largest</em> scale they failed to show it on a -small one, and were scantily kind to those immediately -around them. Nothing could be less true of Lord -Shaftesbury. While the direction of a score of great -charitable undertakings rested on him, and his study -was flooded with reports, Bills before Parliament and -letters by the hundred,—he would remember to perform all -sorts of little kindnesses to individuals having no special claim -on him; and never by any chance did he omit an act of -courtesy. No more perfectly high-bred gentleman ever -graced the old school; and no young man, I may add, ever -had a fresher or warmer heart. Indeed, I know not where -I should look among old or young for such ready and full -response of feeling to each call for pity, for sympathy, for -indignation, and, I may add, for the enjoyment of humour, -the least gleam of which caught his eye a moment. He was -always particularly tickled with the absurdities involved in -the doctrine of Apostolic Succession, and whenever a clergyman -or a bishop did anything he much disapproved, he was -sure to stigmatize it from that point of view. One day he -was giving me a rather long account of some Deputation -which had waited on him and endeavoured to bully him. As -he described the scene: “There they stood in a crowd in the -room, and I said to them; Gentlemen! I’ll see you.”... -(Good Heavens! I thought: <em>Where</em> did he -say he would see them?)—“I’ll see you <em>at the bottom -of the Red Sea</em> before I’ll do it!” The revulsion was -so ludicrous and the allusion to the “Red Sea” -instead of “another place,” so characteristic, that I broke -<span class='pageno' id='Page_565'>565</span>into a peal of laughter which, when explained, made -him also laugh heartily. Another day I remember his great -amusement at a story not reported, I believe, in the <cite>Times</cite>, -but told me by an M.P. who was present in the House when -Sir P. O. had outdone Sir Boyle Roche. He spoke of “the -ingratitude of the Irish to Mr. Gladstone <em>who had broken down -the bridges which divided them from England</em>!”</p> - -<p class='c007'>A lady whose reputation was less unblemished than might -have been wished, and of whom I fought very shy in consequence, -went to call on him about some business. When I -saw him next he told me of her visit, and said, “When she -left my study, I said to myself; ‘there goes a <em>dashing Cyprian</em>!’” -One needed to go back a century to recall this droll old -phrase. More than once he repeated, chuckling with amusement, -the speech of an old beggar woman to whom he had -refused alms, and who called after him, “You withered -specimen of bygone philanthropy!” On another occasion -when he was in the Chair at a small meeting, one of the -speakers persisted in expressing over and over again his -conviction that the venerable Chairman could not be expected -to live long. Lord Shaftesbury turned aside to me and said -<i><span lang="it" xml:lang="it">sotto voce</span></i>, “I declare he’s telling me I’m going to die immediately!” -“There he is saying it again! Was there ever such -a man?” Nobody was more awake than he to the “dodges” -of interested people trying to make capital out of his religious -party. A most ridiculous instance of this he described to -me with great glee. At the time of the excitement (now long -forgotten) about the Madiai family, Barnum actually called -upon him (Lord Shaftesbury) and entreated him to allow of -the Madiai being taken over to be <em>exhibited</em> in New York! -“It would be such an affecting sight,” said Barnum, “to see -<em>real</em> Christian Martyrs!”</p> - -<p class='c007'>As an instance of his thoughtfulness, I may mention that -having one day just received a ticket for the Private View of -<span class='pageno' id='Page_566'>566</span>the Academy, he offered it to me and I accepted it gladly, -observing that since the recent death of Boxall I feared we -should not have one given to us, and that my friend would -be pleased to use it. “O, I am so glad!” said Lord -Shaftesbury; and from that day every year till he died he -never once failed to send her, addressed by himself, his -tickets for each of the two annual exhibitions. When one -thinks of how men who do not do in a year as much as he -did in a week, would have scoffed at the idea of taking such -trouble, one may estimate the good nature which prompted -this over-worked man to remember such a trifle, unfailingly.</p> - -<p class='c007'>The most touching interview I ever had with him, was -one of the last, in his study in Grosvenor Square, not long -before his death. Our conversation had fallen on the woes -and wrongs of seduced girls and ruined women; and he told -me many facts which he had learned by personal investigation -and visits to dreadful haunts in London. He described all -he saw and heard with a compassion for the victims and -yet a horror of vice and impurity, which somehow made me -think of Christ and the Woman taken in adultery. After -a few moments’ silence, during which we were both rather -overcome, he said, “When I feel age creeping on me, and -know I must soon die, I hope it is not wrong to say it, but -I <em>cannot bear to leave the world with all the misery in it</em>.” -No words can describe how this simple expression revealed -to me the man, in his inmost spirit. He had long passed the -stage of moral effort which does good <em>as a duty</em>, and had -ascended to that wherein even the enjoyment of Heaven -itself, (which of course, his creed taught him to expect -immediately after death) had less attractions for him than -the labour of mitigating the sorrows of earth.</p> - -<p class='c007'>I possess 280 letters and notes from Lord Shaftesbury -written to me during the ten years which elapsed from 1875, -when I first saw him, till his last illness in 1885. Many of -<span class='pageno' id='Page_567'>567</span>them are merely brief notes, giving me information or advice -about my work as Hon. Sec. of the Victoria Street Society, -of which he was President. But many are long and -interesting letters. The editor of his excellent Biography -probably did not know I possessed these letters, nor did I -know he was preparing Lord Shaftesbury’s <cite>Life</cite> or I should -have placed them at his disposal. I can only here quote a -few as characteristic, or otherwise specially interesting to me.</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c009'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Castle Wemyss, Wemyss Bay, N.B.,</div> - <div class='line in20'>“September 3rd, 1878.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='lg-container-l c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Dear Miss Cobbe,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c010'>“Your letter is very cheering. We were right to make -the experiment. We were right to test the man and the -law: Cross, and his administration of it. Both have -failed us, and we are bound in duty, I think, to leap over -all limitations, and go in for the total abolition of this vile -and cruel form of Idolatry; for idolatry it is, and, like all -idolatry, brutal, degrading, and deceptive....</p> - -<p class='c010'>“May God prosper us! These ill-used and tortured -animals are as much His Creatures as we are, and to say -the truth, I had, in some instances, rather be the animal -tortured than the man who tortured it. I should believe -myself to have higher hopes, and a happier future.</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Yours truly,</div> - <div class='line in4'>“<span class='sc'>Shaftesbury</span>.”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='lg-container-r c009'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“July 10th, 1879.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='lg-container-l c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Dear Miss Cobbe,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c010'>“I have sent your letter to Judas of X——. I find no -fault in it, but that of too much courtesy to one so lost to -every consideration of feeling and truth.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“Did you know him, as I know him, you would find it -difficult to restrain your pen and your tongue.”...</p> - -<hr class='c022' /> - -<p class='c010'>“Some good will come out of the discussion.</p> - -<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_568'>568</span>“I have unmistakable evidence that many were deeply -impressed, but adhesion to political leaders is a higher -law with most Politicians than obedience to the law of -truth.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“What do you think now of the Doctrine of ‘Apostolic -Succession’?</p> - -<p class='c010'>“Would St. Peter, St. Paul, and St. John have made such -a speech as that of my Lord of P——?</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Yours truly,</div> - <div class='line in4'>“<span class='sc'>Shaftesbury</span>.”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='lg-container-r c009'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Castle Wemyss, Wemyss Bay, N.B.,</div> - <div class='line in16'>“September 16th, 1879.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='lg-container-l c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Dear Miss Cobbe,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c010'>“You do that Bishop too much honour. He is not worth -notice.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“It is frightful to see that the open champions of Vivisection -are not Bradlaugh and Mrs. B. but Bishops, -‘<em>Fathers in God</em>,’ and ‘Pastors’ of the People!</p> - -<p class='c010'>“We shall soon have Bradlaugh and his company -claiming the Apostolical Succession; and if that succession -be founded on truth, mercy, and love, with as good a right -as Dr. G., Dr. M. or D.D. anything else.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“Your letter has crushed (if such a hard substance -can be crushed) his Lordship of C....</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Yours truly,</div> - <div class='line in4'>“<span class='sc'>Shaftesbury</span>.”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c006'>The next letter is in acknowledgment of the following verses -which I had sent to him on his Eightieth Birthday. They -were repeated by the late Chamberlain of the City of London, -Sir Benjamin Scott, in his oration on the presentation of -the Freedom of the City to Lord Shaftesbury. I print the -letter, (though all too kind in its expression about my poor -<span class='pageno' id='Page_569'>569</span>verses,) on account of the deeply interesting review of his -own life which it contains:—</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c018'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line in16'>A BIRTHDAY ADDRESS</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'><span class='sc'>To Anthony Ashley Cooper, 7th Earl of Shaftesbury, K.G.</span></div> - <div class='line in16'><span class='sc'>April 28th, 1881.</span></div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line in2'>For eighty years! Many will count them over,</div> - <div class='line in4'>But none save He who knoweth all may guess</div> - <div class='line in2'>What those long years have held of high endeavour,</div> - <div class='line in4'>Of world-wide blessing and of blessedness.</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line in2'>For eighty years the champion of the right</div> - <div class='line in4'>Of hapless child neglected and forlorn;</div> - <div class='line in2'>Of maniac dungeon’d in his double night;</div> - <div class='line in4'>Of woman overtasked and labour-worn;</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line in2'>Of homeless boy in streets with peril rife;</div> - <div class='line in4'>Of workman sickening in his airless den;</div> - <div class='line in2'>Of Indian parching for the streams of life,</div> - <div class='line in4'>Of Negro slave in bonds of cruel men;</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line in2'>O! Friend of all the friendless ‘neath the sun,</div> - <div class='line in4'>Whose hand hath wiped away a thousand tears,</div> - <div class='line in2'>Whose fervent lips and clear strong brain have done</div> - <div class='line in4'>God’s holy service, lo! these eighty years,—</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line in2'>How meet it seems thy grand and vigorous age</div> - <div class='line in4'>Should find beyond man’s race fresh pangs to spare</div> - <div class='line in2'>And for the wrong’d and tortured brutes engage</div> - <div class='line in4'>In yet fresh labours and ungrudging care!</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line in2'>O tarry long amongst us! Live, we pray,</div> - <div class='line in4'>Hasten not yet to hear thy Lord’s “Well done!”</div> - <div class='line in2'>Let this world still seem better while it may</div> - <div class='line in4'>Contain one soul like thine amid its throng.</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line in2'>Whilst thou art here our inmost hearts confess,</div> - <div class='line in4'>Truth spake the kingly Seer of old who said—</div> - <div class='line in2'>“Found in the way of God and righteousness,</div> - <div class='line in4'>A crown of glory is the hoary head.”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='lg-container-r c009'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'><span class='pageno' id='Page_570'>570</span>“Lord Shaftesbury to Miss F. P. C.</div> - <div class='line in8'>“24, Grosvenor Square, W.,</div> - <div class='line in28'>“April 30th, 1881.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='lg-container-l c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Dear Miss Cobbe,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c010'>“Had I not known your handwriting, I should never -have guessed, either that you were the writer of the verses, -or that I was the subject of them.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“Had I judged them simply by their ability and force, -I might have ascribed them to the true Author; but it -required the envelope, and the ominous word ‘eighty,’ to -justify me in applying them to myself.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“They both touched and gratified me, but I will tell you -the origin of my public career, which you have been so kind -as to commend. It arose while I was a boy at Harrow -School, about, I should think, fourteen years of age—an -event occurred (the details of which I may give you some -other day), which brought painfully before me the scorn -and neglect manifested towards the Poor and helpless. I -was deeply affected; but, for many years afterwards, I -acted only on feeling and sentiment. As I advanced in life, -all this grew up to a sense of duty; and I was convinced -that God had called me to devote whatever advantages He -might have bestowed upon me, to the cause of the weak, -the helpless, both man and beast, and those who had none -to help them.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“I entered Parliament in 1826, and I commenced -operations in 1828, with an effort to ameliorate the -conditions of lunatics, and then I passed on in a succession -of attempts to grapple with other evils, and such has been -my trade for more than half a century.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“Do not think for a moment that I claim any merit. If -there be any doctrine that I dislike and fear more than -another, it is the ‘Doctrine of Works.’ Whatever I have -done has been given to me; what I have done I was -enabled to do; and all happy results (if any there be) -must be credited, not to the servant, but to the great -Master, who led and sustained him.</p> - -<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_571'>571</span>“My course, however, has raised up for me many enemies, -and very few friends, but among those friends I hope that -you may be numbered.</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Yours truly,</div> - <div class='line in12'>“<span class='sc'>Shaftesbury</span>.”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c006'>I sent him another little <em>souvenir</em> two years later:—</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c018'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>TO LORD SHAFTESBURY ON HIS <span class='fss'>82ND</span> BIRTHDAY.</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line in16'><span class='sc'>With a China Tablet.</span></div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line in8'>The Lord of Rome, historians say,</div> - <div class='line in8'>Lamented he had “lost a day,”</div> - <div class='line in8'>When no good deed was done.</div> - <div class='line in8'>Scarce one such day, methinks, appears</div> - <div class='line in8'>In the long record of the years</div> - <div class='line in8'>Of England’s worthier son.</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line in8'>If on this tablet’s surface light</div> - <div class='line in8'>His hourly toils should Shaftesbury write</div> - <div class='line in8'>All may be soon effaced:</div> - <div class='line in8'>But in our grateful memories graven</div> - <div class='line in8'>And in the registers of Heaven</div> - <div class='line in8'>They will not be erased.</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line in36'><em>London, April 28th, 1883.</em></div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c007'>The next letter refers to my Lectures on the <cite>Duties of -Women</cite> which I had just delivered.</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c009'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“24, Grosvenor Square, W.,</div> - <div class='line in16'>“May 14th, 1880.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='lg-container-l c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Dear Miss Cobbe,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c010'>“... I admire your Lectures. But do you not try to -make, ‘the sex’ a little too pugnacious? And why do you -give ‘truth’ to the men, and deny it to the women?</p> - -<p class='c010'>“If you mean by ‘truth’ abstinence from fibs, I think that -the females are as good as the males. But if you mean -steadiness of friendship, adherence to principles, conscientiously -<span class='pageno' id='Page_572'>572</span>not superficially entertained, and sincerity in a -good cause, why, the women are far superior.</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Yours truly,</div> - <div class='line in4'>“<span class='sc'>Shaftesbury</span>.”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='lg-container-r c009'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“24, Grosvenor Square, W.,</div> - <div class='line in16'>“May 21st, 1880.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='lg-container-l c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Dear Miss Cobbe,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c010'>“... Your lecture on Vivisection was admirable—we -must be ‘mealy mouthed’ no longer.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“Shall you and I have a conversation on your lectures -and the ‘Duties of Women’? We shall not, I believe, have -much difference of opinion; perhaps none. I approve them -heartily, but there are one or two expressions which, -though intelligible to myself, would be greatly misconstrued -by a certain portion of Englishmen.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“I could give you instances by the hundred of the -wonderful success that, by a merciful Providence, has -followed with our Ragged children, male and female.<a id='r27' /><a href='#f27' class='c013'><sup>[27]</sup></a> In -fact, though after long intervals we have lost sight of a -good many, we have very few cases, indeed, of the failure -of our hopes and efforts.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“In thirty years we took off the streets of London, and -sent to service, or provided with means of honest livelihood -more than two hundred and twenty thousand ‘waifs and -strays.’</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Yours truly,</div> - <div class='line in12'>“<span class='sc'>Shaftesbury</span>.”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='lg-container-r c009'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“July 23rd, 1880.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='lg-container-l c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Dear Miss Cobbe,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c010'>“I have had a very friendly letter from Gladstone; but -on reference to him for permission to publish it, he seems -unwilling to assent.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“Our testimony, thank God, is cumulative for good. We -may hope, and we must pray, for better things.</p> - -<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_573'>573</span>“I send you Gladstone’s letter. Pray return it to me, -and take care that it does not appear in print.<a id='r28' /><a href='#f28' class='c013'><sup>[28]</sup></a></p> - -<p class='c008'>“I am glad that you liked the ‘Dinner.’ It was, I think, -a success in showing civility to foreign friends.</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Yours truly,</div> - <div class='line in12'>“<span class='sc'>Shaftesbury</span>.”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c006'>Lord Shaftesbury made the following remarks about the -Future State of Animals, in a very sympathizing reply to a -letter I had written to him in which I mentioned to him that -my dog had died:—</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c009'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“September 29th, 1883.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c010'>“I have ever believed in a happy future for animals; I -cannot say or conjecture how or where; but sure I am that -the love, so manifested, by dogs especially, is an emanation -from the Divine essence, and, as such, it can, or rather it -<em>will</em> never be extinguished.”<a id='r29' /><a href='#f29' class='c013'><sup>[29]</sup></a></p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c009'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“24, Grosvenor Square, W.,</div> - <div class='line in16'>“May 14th, 1885.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='lg-container-l c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“My dear Miss Cobbe,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c010'>“You must not suppose that because I did not answer -your letter, at the moment, I am indifferent to you or your -correspondence.</p> - -<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_574'>574</span>“Far from it, but when I have little to do, being almost -confined to the house, I have much to write, and to get -through my work, I must frequently be relieved by a -recumbent posture.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“Nevertheless, by God’s mercy, I am certainly better; -and I think that were we blessed with some warm, genial, -weather, I should recover more rapidly.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“Bryan<a id='r30' /><a href='#f30' class='c013'><sup>[30]</sup></a> is a good man, he is able, diligent, zealous -and has an excellent judgment. I have not been able to -attend his Committee, but his reports to me show -attention and good sense.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“I have left, as perhaps you have seen, the Lunacy -Commission. It was at the close of 56 years of service -that I did so. I dare say that you have had time to read -my letter of resignation in the <cite>Times</cite> of the 8th.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“I am very glad that Miss Lloyd is determined to print those -lines. They are very beautiful; and you must be sure to send -a copy to Miss Marsh. She admires them as much as I do.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“The thought of Calvary<a id='r31' /><a href='#f31' class='c013'><sup>[31]</sup></a> is the strength that has governed -all the sentiments and actions of my manhood and later life; -and you can well believe that I greatly rejoice to find that -one, whom I prize so highly, has kindred sympathies....</p> - -<p class='c010'>“May God prosper you.</p> - -<div class='nf-center-c0'> -<div class='nf-center c011'> - <div>“Yours truly,</div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='lg-container-r c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“<span class='sc'>Shaftesbury</span>.”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c006'><span class='pageno' id='Page_575'>575</span>The most remarkable woman I have known, not -excepting Mrs. Somerville (described in my chapter on Italy), -Elizabeth Barrett Browning and Mrs. Beecher Stowe, was, -beyond any doubt or question, my dear friend, Fanny Kemble. -I have told of the droll circumstances of our first meeting at -Newbridge in the early Fifties. From that time till her -death in 1892, her brilliant, iridescent genius, her wit, her -spirit, her tenderness, the immense “go” and momentum of -her whole nature, were sources of endless pleasure to me. -When I was lame, I used to feel that for days after talking -with her I could almost dispense with my crutches, so much -did she, literally, lift me up!</p> - -<p class='c007'>Mrs. Kemble paid us several visits here in Wales, and was -perhaps even more delightful in our quiet country quarters -than in London. She would sit out for many hours at a -time in our beautiful old garden, which she said was to her -“an idyll;” and talk of all things in heaven and earth; -touching in turn every note in the gamut of emotion from -sorrowful to joyous. One summer she came to us early, -and thus sat daily under a great cherry tree “in the midst of the -garden,” which was at the time a mass of odorous and -snowy blossoms. Alas! the blossoms have returned and are -blooming as I write;—but the friend sleeps under the sod in -Kensal Green.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Mr. Henry James’ obituary article and Mr. Bentley’s -generous-hearted letter concerning her in the <cite>Times</cite>—in rebuke -of the mean and grudging notice of her which that paper had -published,—seem to me to have been by far the most -truthful sketches which appeared of the “grand old -lioness;” as Thackeray called her. Everybody could -admire, and most people a little feared her; but it needed to -come very close to her and brush past her formidable thorns -of irony and sarcasm, to know and <em>love</em> her, as she most -truly deserved to be loved.</p> - -<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_576'>576</span>There is always something startling and perhaps the reverse -of attractive to those of us who have been brought up in the -usual English way to <em>repress</em> our emotions, in women who have -been trained reversely by histrionic life, to give all possible -outwardness and vividness of expression to those same emotions. -It is only when we get below both the extreme demonstrativeness -on one hand, and the conventional reserve and self-restraint -on the other, and meet on common ground of deep -sympathies, that real friendship is established; a friendship -which in my case was at once an honour and a delight.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Mrs. Kemble in her generous affection made a present to -me of the MSS. of her Memoirs, which subsequently I -induced her to take back, and publish herself, as her “<cite>Old -Woman’s Gossip</cite>,” her <cite>Records of a Girlhood</cite> and <cite>Records of -Later Life</cite>. Beside these, which, as I have said, I returned -to her one after another, she gave me, and I still possess, an -immense packet of her own old letters to her beloved H. S. -(Harriet St. Leger) and others; and the materials of five -large and thick volumes of autograph letters addressed to her, -extending over more than 50 years. They include whole -correspondences with W. Donne, Edward Fitzgerald, Henry -Greville, Mrs. Jameson, John Mitchell Kemble, George -Combe, and several others; and besides these there are either -one or half-a-dozen letters from almost every man and -woman of eminence in England in her time. Mr. Bentley -has very liberally purchased from me for publication about -100 letters from Edward Fitzgerald to Mrs. Kemble. The -rest of the Mrs. Kemble’s correspondence I have, as I have -mentioned, bound together in five volumes, and I do not -intend to publish them. Had any of Mrs. Kemble’s “<cite>Records</cite>” -remained inedited at the time of her death I should have -undertaken, (as she no doubt intended me to do) the task of -writing her biography. The work was, however, so fully -done by herself in her long series of volumes that there was -<span class='pageno' id='Page_577'>577</span>neither need nor room for more. I am happy to add, in -conclusion, that in the arrangements I have made regarding -my dear old friend’s literary remains, I have the consent -and approval of her daughters.</p> - -<p class='c006'>I knew Mrs. Gaskell a little, but not enough to harmonize -in my mind the woman I saw in the flesh with the books I -liked so well as <cite>Mary Barton</cite> and <cite>Libbie Marsh’s Three Eras</cite>. -Of Mrs. Stowe’s delightful conversation on the terrace of our -villa on Bellosguardo, I have written my recollections, and -recorded the glimpses I had of Mrs. Browning. I have also -described Harriet Hosmer and Rosa Bonheur; our sculptor -and painter friends, from the latter of whom I have just -(1898) received the kindest letters and her impressive photograph; -and Mary Carpenter, my leader and fellow-worker at -Bristol. I must not speak here of the affection and admiration -I entertain for my dear, living friend Anna Swanwick, the -translator of Æschylus and Faust; and for Louisa Lee -Schuyler, one of the leaders in the organization of relief in -the great Civil War of America and who founded and carried -to its present marvellous extent of power and usefulness the -<em>State Charities Aid Association</em> of New York. Again, I have -known in England Mdme. Bodichon (who furnished Girton -with its first thousand pounds); Mrs. Josephine Butler; -Mrs. Webster the classic poetess; and Mrs. Emily Pfeiffer, -another poetess and very beautiful woman at whose house I -once witnessed an interesting scene,—a large party of ladies -and gentlemen dressed in the attire of Athenians of the Periclean -age. Miss Swanwick and I, who were alone permitted -to attend in English costume, were immensely impressed by -the <em>ennobling</em> effect of the classic dress, not only on young -and graceful people, but on those who were quite the reverse.</p> - -<p class='c007'>I never saw Harriet Martineau; but was so desirous of -doing it that I intended to make a journey to Ambleside for -<span class='pageno' id='Page_578'>578</span>the purpose, and with that view begged our mutual friend, -the late Mrs. Hensleigh Wedgwood, to ask leave to introduce -me to her. It was an unfortunate moment, and I only -received the following kind message:—</p> - -<p class='c008'>“I need not say how happy I should have been to become -acquainted with Miss Cobbe; but the time is past and I am -only fit for old friends who can excuse my shortcomings. -I have lost ground so much of late that the case is clear. I -must give up all hopes of so great a pleasure. Will you say -this to her and ask her to receive my kind and thankful -regards, I venture to send on the grounds of our common -friendships?”</p> - -<p class='c006'>Of my living, beloved and honoured friends, Mrs. William -Grey, Lady Mount-Temple, Miss Shirreff, Mrs. Fawcett, -Miss Caroline Stephen, Miss Julia Wedgwood, Lady Battersea, -and Miss Florence Davenport Hill, I must not here speak. -I have had the pleasure also of meeting that very fine -woman-worker Miss Octavia Hill.</p> - -<p class='c007'>George Eliot I did not know, nor, as I have just said, did -I ever meet Harriet Martineau. But with those two great -exceptions I think I may boast of having come into contact -with nearly all the more gifted Englishwomen of the Victorian -era; and thus when I speak, as I shall do in the next -chapter, of my efforts to put the claims of my sex fairly -before the world, I may boast of writing with practical -personal knowledge of what women are and can be, both -as to character and ability.</p> - -<p class='c006'>The decade which began in 1880 brought me many sorrows. -The first was the death of my second brother, Thomas Cobbe, -of Easton Lyss. I loved him much for his own sweet and -affectionate nature; and much, too, for the love of our mother -which he shared especially with me. I was also warmly -attached to his beautiful and good Scotch wife, who survived -<span class='pageno' id='Page_579'>579</span>him only a few years; and to his dear children, who were my -pets in infancy and have been almost like my own daughters -ever since. My brother ought to have been a very successful -and brilliant barrister, but his life was broken by the faults -of others, and when in advanced years he wrote, with -immense patience and research, a really valuable <cite>History of -the Norman Kings</cite> (thought to be so by such competent -judges as Mr. William Longman, and the Historical Society -of Normandy, which asked leave to translate it), the book -was practically <em>killed</em> by a cruel and most unfair review -which attributed to him mistakes which he had not made, -and refused to publish his refutation of the charge. If -this review were written (as we could not but surmise) -by an eminent historian, now dead, whose own book my -brother had, very unwisely, ignored, I can only say it -was a malicious and spiteful deed. My brother’s ambition -was not strong enough to carry him over such a disappointment, -and he never attempted to write again for -the press, but spent his later years in the solitary study of -his favourite old chronicles and his Shakespeare. A little -later my eldest brother also died, leaving no children. I -must be thankful at my age that the youngest, the Rector of -Maulden, though five years older than I, still survives in -health and vigour, rejoicing in his happy home and family of -affectionate daughters. I trust yet to welcome him into the -brotherhood of the pen when his great monograph on -<span class='sc'>Luton Church, Historical and Descriptive</span>, sees the light -this year.</p> - -<p class='c007'>I lost also in this same decade, my earliest friend Harriet St. -Leger; and a younger, very dear one, Emily Shaen. Mrs. -Shaen and her admirable husband had been much drawn to -me by religious sympathies; and I regarded her with more -heartfelt respect, I might say reverence, than I can well -express. She endured twenty years of seclusion and -<span class='pageno' id='Page_580'>580</span>suffering, with the spirit at once of a saint and of a -philosopher. Had her health enabled her to take her -natural place in the world, I have always felt assured she would -have been recognised as one of the ablest as well as one of -the best women of the day, and more than the equal of her -two gifted sisters; Catharine and Susanna Winkworth. -The friendship between us was of the closest kind. I often -said that I <em>went to church</em> to her sick-room. In her last -days, when utterly crushed by incessant suffering and -by the death of her beloved husband and her favourite son, -she bore in whispers, to me, (she could scarcely speak for -mortal weakness,) this testimony to our common faith: -“I sent for you,—to tell you,—<em>I am more sure than ever that -God is Good</em>.”</p> - -<p class='c006'>All these deaths and the heart-wearing Anti-vivisection -work combined with my own increasing years to make my -life in London less and less a source of enjoyment and more -of strain than I could bear. In 1884 Miss Lloyd, with -my entire concurrence, let our dear little house in Hereford -Square to our friend, Mrs. Kemble, and we left London -altogether and came to live in Wales.</p> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_581'>581</span> - <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER<br /> XIX.<br /> <span class='large'><em>CLAIMS OF WOMEN.</em></span></h2> -</div> - -<p class='c006'><span class='pageno' id='Page_583'>583</span>It was not till I was actively engaged in the work of -Mary Carpenter at Bristol, and had begun to desire earnestly -various changes of law relating to young criminals and -paupers, that I became an advocate of “Women’s Rights.” It -was good old Rev. Samuel J. May, of Syracuse, New York, -who, when paying us a visit, pressed on my attention the -question: “<em>Why should you not have a vote?</em> Why should -not women be enabled to influence the making of the laws in -which they have as great an interest as men?”</p> - -<p class='c007'>My experience probably explains largely the indifference -of thousands of women, not deficient in intelligence, in -England and America to the possession of political rights. -They have much anxiety to fulfil their home duties, and the -notion of undertaking others, requiring (as they fully -understand) conscientious enquiry and reflection, rather -alarms than attracts them. But the time comes to -every woman worth her salt to take ardent interest in -some question which touches legislation. Then she -begins to ask herself, as Mr. May asked me; “Why -should the fact of being a woman, close to me the use of -the plain, direct means, of helping to achieve some large -public good or stopping some evil?” The timid, the -indolent, the conventional will here retreat, and try to believe -that it concerns men only to right the wrongs of the world -in some more effectual way than by single-handed personal -efforts in special cases. Others again,—and of their number -was I—become deeply impressed with the need of woman’s -<span class='pageno' id='Page_584'>584</span>voice in public affairs, and thenceforth attach themselves to -the “Woman’s Cause” more or less earnestly. For my -own part I confess I have been chiefly moved by reflection on -the sufferings and wrongs borne by women, in great measure -owing to the <em>deconsideration</em> they endure consequent on their -political and civil disabilities. Whilst I and other happily -circumstanced women, have had no immediate wrongs of -our own to gall us, we should still have been very poor -creatures had we not felt bitterly those of our less fortunate -sisters, the robbed and trampled wives, the mothers whose -children were torn from them at the bidding of a dead or -living father, the daughters kept in ignorance and poverty -while their brothers were educated in costly schools and fitted -for honourable professions. Such wrongs as these have -inspired me with the persistent resolution to do everything -in my power to protect the property, the persons and the -parental rights of women.</p> - -<p class='c007'>I do not think that this resolve has any necessary -connection with theories concerning the equality of the sexes; -and I am sure that a great deal of our force has been wasted -on fruitless discussions such as: “Why has there never been -a female Shakespeare?” A Celt claiming equal representation -with a Saxon, <em>or any representation at all</em>, might just as fairly -be challenged to explain why there has never been a Celtic -Shakespeare, or a Celtic Tennyson? My own opinion is, that -women <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">en masse</span></i> are by no means the intellectual equals of men -<i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">en masse</span></i>;—and whether this inequality arise from irremediable -causes or from alterable circumstances of education and -heredity, is not worth debating. If the nation had established -an intellectual test for political equality, and admission to the -franchise were confined to persons passing a given Standard; -well and good. Then, no doubt, there would be (as things -now stand) fifty per cent. of men who would win votes, and -perhaps only thirty per cent. of women. So much may be -<span class='pageno' id='Page_585'>585</span>freely admitted. But then that thirty per cent. of females -<em>would</em> obtain political rights; and those who failed, would be -debarred by a natural and real, not an arbitrary inferiority. -Such a state of things would not present such ludicrous -injustice as that which obtains,—for example,—in a parish -not a hundred miles from my present abode. There is in -the village in question a man universally known therein as -“The <em>Idiot</em>;” a poor slouching, squinting fellow, who yet -rents a house and can do rough field work, though he can -scarcely speak intelligibly. <em>He</em> has a vote, of course. The -owner of his house and of half the parish, who holds also -the advowson of the living, is a lady who has travelled -widely, understands three or four languages, and studies the -political news of Europe daily in the columns of the <cite>Times</cite>. -That lady, equally of course, has <em>no</em> vote, no power whatever -to keep the representation of her county out of the hands of -the demagogues naturally admired by the Idiot and his -compeers. Under the regulations which create inequalities -of this kind is it not rather absurd to insist perpetually, -(as is the practise of our opponents,) on the <em>intellectual</em> -inferiority of women,—as if it were really in question?</p> - -<p class='c007'>I hold, however, that whatever be our real mental rank,—to -be tested thoroughly only in future generations, under changed -conditions of training and heredity,—we women are the <em>equivalents</em>, -though not the <em>equals</em>, of men. And to refuse a share -in the law-making of a nation to the most law-abiding half -of it; to exclude on all largest questions the votes of the -most conscientious, temperate, religious and (above all) -most merciful and tender-hearted moiety, is a mistake which -cannot fail, and <em>has</em> not failed, to entail great evil and loss.</p> - -<p class='c007'>I wrote, as I have mentioned in Chapter XV., a great -many articles, (chiefly in <cite>Fraser</cite> and <cite>Macmillan</cite>,) on -women’s concerns about the years 1861–2–3: “<cite>What shall -we do with our Old Maids?</cite>”; “<cite>Female Charity, Lay and -<span class='pageno' id='Page_586'>586</span>Monastic</cite>;” “<cite>Women in Italy in 1862</cite>;” “<cite>The Education -of Women</cite>;” “<cite>Social Science Congress and Women’s Part in -them</cite>;” and, later, “<cite>The Fitness of Women for the Ministry -of Religion</cite>.” These made me known to many women who -were fighting in the woman’s cause; Miss Bessie Parkes (now -Madame Belloc), Madame Bodichon, Mrs. Grey, Miss Shirreff, -Mrs. Peter Taylor, Miss Becker, and others; and when Committees -were formed for promoting Woman Suffrage, I was -invited to join them. I did so; and frequently attended the -meetings, though not regularly. We had several Members of -Parliament and other gentlemen (notably Mr. Frederick Hill, -brother of my old friend Recorder Hill and of Sir Rowland), -who generally helped our deliberations; and many able women, -among others Mrs. Augusta Webster, the poetess; and Lady -Anna Gore Langton, an exceedingly sensible woman, who -also held Drawing-Room Suffrage Meetings (at which I -spoke) in her house. We had for secretary Miss Lydia -Becker; a woman of singular political ability, for whom I -had a sincere respect. Her premature death has been an -incalculable loss to the women of England. She gave me -the impression of one of those ill-fated people whose outward -persons do not represent their inward selves. I am sure she -had a large element of softness and sensitiveness in her -nature, unsuspected by most of those with whom she -laboured. She was a most courageous and straightforward -woman, with a single eye to the great political work which -she had undertaken, and which I think no one has understood -so well as she.</p> - -<p class='c007'>After Miss Becker’s lamented death the great schism between -Unionists and Home Rulers extended far enough to split even -our Committee, (which was avowedly of no party,) into two -bodies. I naturally followed my fellow-Unionist, Mrs. Fawcett -when she re-organized the moiety of the Society and established -an office for it in College Street, Westminster. Believing her to -<span class='pageno' id='Page_587'>587</span>be quite the ablest woman-economist and politician in -England, I entertain the hope that she may at last carry a -Woman Suffrage Bill and live to see qualified single women -recording their votes at Parliamentary elections. When that -time arrives every one will scoff at the objections which -have so long closed the “right of way,” to us of the -“weaker sex.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>Beside the Committee of the Society for <em>Woman Suffrage</em>, I -also joined for a time the Committee which,—long afterwards,—effected -the splendid achievement of procuring the passage of -the <cite>Married Women’s Property Act</cite>; the greatest step gained -up to the present time for women in England. I can claim -no part of that real honour, which is due in greatest measure -to Mrs. Jacob Bright.</p> - -<p class='c007'>The question of granting University Degrees to women, was -opened as far back as 1862. In that year I read, in the Guildhall -in London at the Social Science Congress, a paper, pleading for -the privilege. Dean Milman, who occupied the Chair, was very -kind in praising my crude address, and enjoyed the little jokes -wherewith it was sprinkled; but next morning every daily -paper in London laughed at my demand, and for a week or -two I was the butt of universal ridicule. Nevertheless, just -17 years afterwards, I was invited to join a Deputation -headed by Lady Stanley of Alderley, to thank Lord Granville -for having (as President of London University) conceded those -degrees to women, precisely as I had demanded! I took -occasion at the close of the pleasant interview, to present -him with one of the very few remaining copies of my original -and much ridiculed appeal.</p> - -<p class='c007'>From this time I wrote and spoke not unfrequently on -behalf of women’s political and civil claims. One article of -mine in <cite>Fraser</cite>, 1868, was reprinted more than once. It -was headed “<cite>Criminals, Idiots, Women and Minors</cite>;” and -enquired “Whether the classification should be counted -<span class='pageno' id='Page_588'>588</span>sound?” I hope that the discussion it involved on the laws -relating to the property of married women was of some -service in helping on the great measure of justice afterwards -granted.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Another paper of mine, circulated by the <cite>London National -Society for Women’s Suffrage</cite>, for whom I wrote it, was -entitled “<cite>Our Policy</cite>.” It was, in effect, an address to -women concerning the best way to secure the suffrage. I -began this pamphlet by the following remarks:—</p> - -<p class='c008'>“There is an instructive story, told by Herodotus, of an -African nation which went to war with the South Wind. -The wind had greatly annoyed these Psyllians by drying -up their cisterns, so they organised a campaign and set off -to attack the enemy at head-quarters—somewhere, I -presume, about the Sahara. The army was admirably -equipped with all the military engines of those days; -swords and spears, darts and javelins, battering rams and -catapults. It happened that the South Wind did not, -however, suffer much from these weapons, but got up one -fine morning and blew!—The sands of the desert have lain -for a great many ages over those unfortunate Psyllians; -and, as Herodotus placidly concludes the story, ‘The -Nasamones possess the territory of those who thus -perished.’</p> - -<p class='c010'>“It seems to me that we, women, who have been fighting -for the Suffrage with logical arguments—syllogisms, -analogies, demonstrations, and reductions-to-the-absurd -of our antagonists’ position, in short, all the weapons of -ratiocinative warfare—have been behaving very much like -those poor Psyllians, who imagined that darts, and swords, -and catapults would avail against the Simoom. The obvious -fact is, that it is <em>Sentiment</em> we have to contend against, -not Reason; Feeling and Prepossession, not intellectual -Conviction. Had Logic been the only obstacle in our way, -we should long ago have been polling our votes for -Parliamentary as well as for Municipal and School Board -<span class='pageno' id='Page_589'>589</span>elections. To those who hold that Property is the thing -intended to be represented by the Constitution of England, -we have shown that we possess such property. To those -who say that Tax-paying and Representation should go -together, we have pointed to the tax-gatherers’ papers, -which, alas! lie on our hall-tables wholly irrespective of -the touching fact that we belong to the ‘protected sex.’ -Where Intelligence, Education, and freedom from crime are -considered enough to confer rights of citizenship, we have -remarked that we are quite ready to challenge rivalry in -such particulars with those Illiterates for whose exercise -of political functions our Senate has taken such exemplary -care. Finally, to the ever-recurring charge that we cannot -fight, and therefore ought not to vote, we have replied that -the logic of the exclusion will be manifest when all the men -too weak, too short, or too old for the military standard be -likewise disfranchised, and when the actual soldiers of our -army are accorded the suffrage.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“But it is Sentiment, not Logic, against which we have -to struggle; and we shall best do so, I think, by endeavouring -to understand and make full allowance for it; and then by -steady working, shoulder to shoulder so as to conquer, or -rather <em>win</em> it over to our side.”</p> - -<p class='c006'>In 1876, May 13th, I made a rather long and elaborate -speech on the subject of women’s suffrage in a meeting in -St. George’s Hall, at which Mr. Russell Gurney, the -Recorder of London, took the chair. John Bright had -spoken against our Bill in the House, and though I had not -intended to speak at our meeting, I was spurred by -indignation to reply to him. In this address I spoke chiefly -of the wrongs of mothers whose children are taken from -them at the will of a living or dead father. I ended by -saying:—</p> - -<p class='c008'>“I advocate Woman Suffrage as the natural and needful -constitutional means of protection for the rights of the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_590'>590</span>weaker half of the nation. I do this as a woman pleading -for women. But I do it also, and none the less confidently, -as a citizen, and for the sake of the whole community, -because it is my conviction that such a measure is no less -expedient for men than just for women; and that it will -redound in coming years ever more and more to the -happiness, the virtue and the honour of our country.”</p> - -<p class='c006'>Several years after this, I wrote a letter which was printed -in the (American) <cite>Woman’s Tribune</cite>, May 1st, 1884. It -expresses so exactly what I feel still on the subject that I -shall redeem it if possible from oblivion. The following are -the passages for which I should like to ask the reader’s -attention:</p> - -<p class='c008'>“If I may presume to offer an old woman’s counsel to -the younger workers in our cause, it would be that they -should adopt the point of view—that it is before all things -our <em>Duty</em> to obtain the franchise. If we undertake the work -in this spirit, and with the object of using the power it -confers, whenever we gain it, for the promotion of justice -and mercy and the kingdom of God upon earth, we shall -carry on all our agitation in a corresponding manner, firmly -and bravely, and also calmly and with generous good -temper. And when our opponents come to understand that -this is the motive underlying our efforts, they, on their part, -will cease to feel bitterly and scornfully toward us, even -when they think we are altogether mistaken.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“That people <span class='fss'>MAY</span> conscientiously consider that we are -mistaken in asking for woman suffrage, is another point -which it surely behoves us to carry in mind.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“We naturally think almost exclusively of many advantages -which would follow to our sex and to both sexes from -the entrance of woman into political life. But that there -are some ‘lions in the way,’ and rather formidable lions, -too, ought not to be forgotten.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“For myself, I would far rather that women should -remain without political rights to the end of time than that -<span class='pageno' id='Page_591'>591</span>they should lose those qualities which we comprise in the -word ‘womanliness;’ and I think nearly every one of the -leaders of our party in America and in England agrees with -me in this feeling.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“The idea that the possession of political rights will -destroy ‘womanliness,’ absurd as it may seem to us, is very -deeply rooted in the minds of men; and when they oppose -our demands, it is only just to give them credit for doing so -on grounds which we should recognize as valid, <em>if their -premises were true</em>. It is not so much that our opponents -(at least the better part of them) despise women, as that -they really prize what women <em>now are</em> in the home and in -society so highly that they cannot bear to risk losing it by -any serious change in their condition. These fears are -futile and faithless, but there is nothing in them to affront -us. To remove them, we must not use violent words, for -every such violent word confirms their fears; but, on the -contrary, show the world that while the revolutions -wrought by men have been full of bitterness and rancour, -and stormy passions, if not of bloodshed, we women will -at least strive to accomplish our great emancipation calmly -and by persuasion and reason.”</p> - -<p class='c006'>I was honoured about this time by several friendly -advances from American ladies and gentlemen interested like -myself in woman’s advancement. The astronomer, Prof. -Maria Mitchell, wrote me a charming letter, which I exceedingly -regret should have been lost, as I felt particular -interest in her great achievements. I had the pleasure of -receiving Mrs. Julia Ward Howe in Hereford Square, and -also Mrs. Livermore, whose speech at one of our Suffrage -Meetings realised my highest ideal of a woman’s public -address. Her noble face and figure like that of a Roman -Matron, her sweet manners and playful humour without a -scintilla of bitterness in it,—as if she were a mother remonstrating -with a foolish, school-boy son,—were all delightful -to me.</p> - -<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_592'>592</span>Col. J. W. Higginson, who has been so good a friend and -adviser to women, also came to see me, and gave me some -bright hours of conversation on his wonderful experiences in -the war, during which he commanded a coloured regiment, -which fought valiantly under his leadership. Finally I had -the privilege of being elected a member of the famous <em>Sorosis</em> -Club of New York, and of receiving the following very pleasant -letter conveying the gift of a pretty gold and enamel brooch, -the badge of the Sisterhood.</p> - -<div class='lg-container-l c009'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Dear Madam,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c010'>“The ladies of <em>Sorosis</em>—The Woman’s Club of New -York—beg your acceptance of the accompanying Pin, the -insignia of their organization, which they send by the hand -of their foreign correspondent, Mrs. Laura Curtis Ballard.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“Trifling as is this testimonial in itself, they feel that if -you knew the genuine appreciation of you and your work -that goes with it—the gratitude with which each one -regards you as a faithful worker for women—you would not -consider it unworthy your acceptance. With best wishes -for your continued health, which in your case means -continued usefulness,</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line in4'>“I am, dear Madam,</div> - <div class='line'>“With great respect and esteem,</div> - <div class='line in8'>“Your obedient Servant,</div> - <div class='line in12'>“<span class='sc'>Celia Burleigh</span>,</div> - <div class='line in16'>“Cor. Sec. Sorosis.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='lg-container-l c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“37, Huntingdon Street, Brooklyn, New York,</div> - <div class='line in12'>“June 21st, 1869.”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c006'>The part of my work for women, however, to which I -look back with most satisfaction was that in which I -laboured to obtain protection for unhappy wives, beaten, -mangled, mutilated or trampled on by brutal husbands. One -day in 1878 I was by chance reading a newspaper in which -a whole series of frightful cases of this kind were recorded, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_593'>593</span>here and there, among the ordinary news of the time. I got -up out of my armchair, half dazed, and said to myself: “I -will never rest till I have tried what I can do to stop this.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>I thought anxiously what was the sort of remedy I ought -to endeavour to put forward. A Parliamentary Blue Book -had been printed in 1875 entitled: “Reports on the State -<em>of the law relating to Brutal Assaults</em>,” and the following is a -summary of the results. There was a large consensus of -opinion that the law as it now stands is insufficient for its -purpose. Lord Chief Justice Cockburn, Mr. Justice Lush, -Mr. Justice Mellor, Chief Baron Kelly, Barons Bramwell, -Pigott and Pollock, all expressed the same judgment -(pp. 7–19). The following gave their opinion in favour of -flogging offenders in cases of brutal assaults. Lord Chief -Justice Cockburn, Mr. Justices Blackburn, Mellor, Lush, Quain, -Archibald, Brett, Grove, Chief Baron Kelly, Barons Bramwell, -Pigott, Pollock, Charles, and Amphlett. Only Lord -Coleridge and Lord Denman hesitated, and Mr. Justice -Keating opposed flogging. Of Chairmen of Quarter -Sessions 64 (out of 68, whose answers were sent to the Home -Office,) and the Recorders of 41 towns, were in favour of -flogging. After all this testimony of the opinions of experts -(collected of course at the public expense), <em>three years</em> -elapsed during which absolutely nothing was done to make -any practical use of it! During the interval, scores of -Bills, <em>interesting to the represented sex</em>, passed through Parliament; -but <em>this</em> question on which the lives of women -literally hung, was never mooted! Something like 5,000 -women, judging by the published judicial statistics, were in -those years “brutally assaulted;” <em>i.e.</em>, not merely struck, -but maimed, blinded, burned, trampled on by strong men in -heavy shoes, and, in many cases, murdered outright; and -thousands of children were brought up to witness scenes -which (as Colonel Leigh said) “infernalise a whole generation.” -<span class='pageno' id='Page_594'>594</span>Where lay the fault? Scarcely with the Government, -or even with Parliament, but with the simple -fact that, under our present constitution, Women, having no -votes, can only exceptionally and through favour, bring -pressure to bear to force attention even to the most -crying of injustices under which they suffer. The Home Office -<em>must</em> attend first to the claims of those who can bring pressure -to bear on it; and Members of Parliament <em>must</em> bring in the -measures pressed by their constituents; and thus the -unrepresented <em>must</em> go to the wall.</p> - -<p class='c007'>The cases of cruelty of which I obtained statistics, furnished -to me mainly by the kindness of Miss A. Shore, almost surpassed -belief. It appeared that about 1,500 cases of aggravated -(over and above ordinary) assaults on wives took place every -year in England; on an average about four a day. Many -of them were of truly incredible savagery; and the victims -were, in the vast majority of cases, not drunken viragos (who -usually escape violence or give as good as they receive), but -poor, pale, shrinking creatures, who strove to earn bread for -their children and to keep together their miserable homes; -and whose very tears and pallor were reproaches which -provoked the <em>heteropathy</em> and cruelty of their tyrants.</p> - -<p class='c007'>After much reflection I came to the conclusion that in spite -of all the authority in favour of flogging the delinquents, it -was <em>not</em> expedient on the women’s behalf that they should be -so punished, since after they had undergone such chastisement, -however well merited, the ruffians would inevitably return -more brutalised and infuriated than ever; and again have -their wives at their mercy. The only thing really effective, I -considered, was to give the wife the power of separating -herself and her children from her tyrant. Of course in the -upper ranks, where people could afford to pay for a suit in -the Divorce Court, the law had for some years opened to the -assaulted wife this door of escape. But among the working -<span class='pageno' id='Page_595'>595</span>classes, where the assaults were ten-fold as numerous and -twenty times more cruel, no legal means whatever existed of -escaping from the husband returning after punishment to beat -and torture his wife again. I thought the thing to be desired -was the extension of the privilege of rich women to their -poorer sisters, to be effected by an Act of Parliament which -should give a wife whose husband had been convicted of an -aggravated assault on her, the power to obtain a Separation -Order under Summary Jurisdiction.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Mr. Alfred Hill, J.P., of Birmingham, son of my old friend -Recorder Hill, most kindly interested himself in my project, -and drafted a Bill to be presented to Parliament embodying -my wishes. Meanwhile; I set about writing an article -setting forth the extent of the evil, the failure of the measures -hitherto taken in various Acts of Parliament, and, finally, the -remedy I proposed. This article my friend Mr. Percy -Bunting was good enough to publish in the <cite>Contemporary -Review</cite> in the spring of 1878. I also wrote an article in -<cite>Truth</cite> on <cite>Wife Torture</cite>, afterwards reprinted. Meanwhile, I -had obtained the most cordial assistance from Mr. Frederick -Pennington and Mr. Hopwood, both of whom were then in -Parliament, and it was agreed that I should beg Mr. Russell -Gurney to take charge of the Bill which these gentlemen -would support. I went accordingly, armed with the draft -Bill, to the Recorder’s house in Kensington Palace Gardens, -and, as I anxiously desired to find him at home, I ventured -to call as early as 10.30. Mr. Gurney read the draft Bill -carefully, and entirely approved it. “Then,” I said, “you will -take charge of it, I earnestly hope?” “No,” said Mr. Gurney, -“I cannot do that; I am too old and over-worked to undertake -all the watching and labour which may be necessary; -but I will put my name on the back of it, with pleasure.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>I knew, of course, that his name would give the measure -great importance and also help me to find some other M.P. -<span class='pageno' id='Page_596'>596</span>to take charge of it, so I could not but thank him gratefully. -At that moment of our interview, his charming wife entered -the room leading a little boy; I believe his nephew. -Naturally I apologized to Mrs. Gurney for my presence at -that unholy hour of the morning; and said, “I came to Mr. -Gurney in my anxiety, as the Friend of Women.” Mr. -Gurney, hearing me, put his hands on the little lad’s -shoulder and said to him, “Do you hear that, my boy? I -hope that when you are an old man, as I am, some lady like -Miss Cobbe may call you <em>the Friend of Women</em>!”</p> - -<p class='c007'>At last, the Bill embodying precisely the purport of that -drawn up for me by Mr. Hill, and subsequently published -in the <cite>Contemporary Review</cite>, was read a first time, the names -of Mr. Herschell (now Lord Herschell) and Sir Henry -Holland (afterwards Lord Knutsford) being on the back of it. -Every arrangement was made for the second Reading; and -for avoiding the opposition which we expected to meet from a -party which seems always to think that by <em>calling</em> certain -unions “Holy” a Church can sanctify that which has -become a bond of savage cruelty on one side, and soul-degrading -slavery on the other. Just at this crisis, Lord -Penzance, who was bringing a Bill into the House of Lords to -remedy some defects concerning the costs of the intervention -of the Queen’s Proctor in Matrimonial causes, introduced -into it a clause dealing with the case of the assaulted wives, -and giving them precisely the benefit contemplated in our -Bill and in my article; namely, that of Separation Orders -to be granted by the same magistrates who have convicted -the husband of aggravated assaults upon them. That Lord -Penzance had seen our Bill, then before the Lower House, -(it was ordered to be printed February 14th) and had had -his attention called to the subject, either by it, or by my article -in the <cite>Contemporary Review</cite>, I have taken as probable, but -have no exact knowledge. I went at once to call on him -<span class='pageno' id='Page_597'>597</span>and thank him from my heart for undertaking to do this -great service of mercy to women; and also to pray him to -consider certain points about the custody of the children of -such assaulted wives. Lord Penzance received me with the -utmost kindness and likewise gave favourable consideration -to a letter or two which I ventured to address to him. It is -needless to say that his advocacy of the measure carried it -through the House of Lords without opposition. I believe -that in speaking for it he said that if any noble Lord needed -proof of the grievous want of such protection for wives they -would find it in my article, which he held in his hand.</p> - -<p class='c007'>There was still, we feared, an ordeal to go through in the -House of Commons; but the fates and hours were propitious, -and the Bill, coming in late one night as already passed -by the House of Lords and with Lord Penzance’s great name -on it,—escaped opposition and was accepted without debate. -By the 27th May, 1878, it had become the law of the land, -and has since taken its place as Chapter 19 of the 41st Vict. -<cite>An Act to amend the Matrimonial Causes Acts.</cite> The following -are the clauses which concern the assaulted Wives:—</p> - -<p class='c008'>4. If a husband shall be convicted summarily or otherwise -of an aggravated assault within the meaning of the statute -twenty-fourth and twenty-fifth Victoria, chapter one -hundred, section forty-three, upon his wife, the Court or -magistrate before whom he shall be so convicted may, if -satisfied that the future safety of the wife is in peril, order -that the wife shall be no longer bound to cohabit with her -husband; and such order shall have the force and effect in -all respects of a decree of judicial separation on the ground -of cruelty; and such order may further provide,</p> - -<p class='c032'>1. That the husband shall pay to his wife such weekly -sum as the Court or magistrate may consider to be -in accordance with his means, and with any means -which the wife may have for her support, and the -payment of any sum of money so ordered shall be -<span class='pageno' id='Page_598'>598</span>enforceable and enforced against the husband in the -same manner as the payment of money is enforced -under an order of affiliation; and the Court or magistrate -by whom any such order for payment of money -shall be made shall have power from time to time to -vary the same on the application of either the -husband or the wife, upon proof that the means of -the husband or wife have been altered in amount -since the original order or any subsequent order -varying it shall have been made.</p> - -<p class='c032'>2. That the legal custody of any children of the marriage -under the age of ten years shall, in the discretion of -the Court or magistrate, be given to the wife.</p> - -<p class='c006'>At first the magistrates were very chary of granting the -Separation Orders. One London Police Magistrate had said -that the House of Commons would never put such power in -the hands of one of the body, and he was, I suppose, -proportionately startled when just six weeks later, it actually -lay in his own. By degrees, however, the practice of -granting the Orders on proper occasions became common, -and appears now to be almost a matter of course. I hope -that at least a hundred poor souls each year thus obtain -release from their tormentors, and probably the deterrent -effect of witnessing such manumission of ill-treated slaves -may have still more largely served to protect women from -the violence of brutal husbands.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Six years after the Act had passed in 1884, I received a -letter from a very energetic and prominent woman-worker -with whom I had a slight acquaintance, in which the following -passages occur. I quote them here (though with some hesitation -on the score of vanity) for they have comforted me -much and deeply, and will do so to my life’s end.</p> - -<p class='c008'>“On Wednesday last I was two hours with a widow,—of -O——, near W——; one of those persons who <em>make</em> a -country so good, brave, loving and hardworking! For 33 -<span class='pageno' id='Page_599'>599</span>long years she lived with a fiend of a husband, and suffered -furious blows, kicks, and attacks with ropes, hot water, -and crockery; was hurled down cellar-steps, &c., starved -and insulted. All the time, up early and at work managing -a large shop and superintending 35 girls....</p> - -<p class='c010'>“I wish you could have been there to hear her tell me -that ‘the law was altered now,’ and how her niece had got -a separation for brutal treatment; and (best of all) ‘her -two bairns’ (children). As for the 8s. a week ordered,—the -wife never ‘bothers after that.’ ‘The Lord has stopped -that villain’s ways, and she wants no more.’ I could not -help crying, as I looked at the exquisitely clean person and -home,—the determined face, and thought of the diabolical -horrors this good, clever woman had gone through. I told -her how you had got the law altered—and she kept saying -‘She’s a lady—she’s a lady. Bring her to O——, Missis! -and we’ll <em>percession</em> her down t’ street!’...</p> - -<p class='c010'>“You have love and gratitude from our hearts, I assure -you; we live wider lives and better for your presence. I -have ventured to write freely on a subject some would find -wearisome, but your heart is big and will sympathise; and -I am always longing for you to know the active result of -your achieved work. This! that poor battered, bruised -women are relieved—are safer—and bless you, and so do I, -from a full heart.</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“I am, dear Miss Cobbe,</div> - <div class='line in16'>“Yours faithfully,</div> - <div class='line in28'>“A. S.”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c006'>If I could hear before I die that I had been able to do as -much for tortured brutes, I should say “<i><span lang="la" xml:lang="la">Nunc Dimittis</span></i>,” and -wish no more.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Some time after this (I have kept no copy or record of date) -I delivered a Lecture, which was a good deal noticed at the -time, on the <cite>Little Health of Ladies</cite>. It was an exposure of -the evils resulting to families from the state of semi-invalidism -in which so many women live, usually gently lapped therein -<span class='pageno' id='Page_600'>600</span>by interested advisers. I exhorted women to do, as a duty -to God and man, everything possible to avoid falling into this -wretched condition, with the self-indulgence and neglect of -home and social duties leading to it or consequent on it. I -did not then know as much as I subsequently learned of the -inner history of a great deal of this misery, or I might have -added to my warning some remarkable denunciations by -honourable doctors of the practices of their colleagues.<a id='r32' /><a href='#f32' class='c013'><sup>[32]</sup></a></p> - -<p class='c007'>A singular incident followed the publication of this address -in one of the Magazines.</p> - -<p class='c007'>There was a lady, whose husband was a wealthy -manufacturer in the North of England, who came to London -once or twice a year, and for several years called on me; -<span class='pageno' id='Page_601'>601</span>having much sympathy with my various interests. She -appeared to be a confirmed invalid, crawling with great -difficulty out of her carriage into our dining-room, and lying -on a sofa during her visits. One day I was told she had -come, and I was hastening to receive her downstairs, when a -tall, elegant woman, whom I scarcely recognized, walked -firmly and lightly, into my drawing-room, and greeted me -cordially with laughter in her eyes at my astonishment.</p> - -<p class='c007'>“So glad to see you so well!” I exclaimed, “but what -has happened to you?”</p> - -<p class='c007'>“It is <em>you</em> who have effected the cure!” she answered.</p> - -<p class='c007'>“Good gracious! How?”</p> - -<p class='c007'>“Why, I read your <cite>Little Health of Ladies</cite>, and I resolved -to set my doctor at naught and go about like other people. -And you see how well I am! There was really nothing the -matter with me but want of exercise!”</p> - -<p class='c007'>I saw her several times afterwards in good health; and -once she brought me a beautiful gold bracelet with clasp of -diamonds set in black enamel, which she had had made for -me, and which she forced me to accept as a token of her -gratitude. I am fond of wearing it still.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Another incident strongly confirmed my belief in the -source of much of the evil and misery arising from the <cite>Little -Health of Ladies</cite>. Travelling one day from Brighton I fell -into conversation with a nice-looking, well-bred woman the -only other occupant of the railway carriage. Speaking of -the salubrity of Brighton, she said, “I am sure I have reason -enough to bless it. I was for fourteen years a miserable -invalid on my sofa in London; my doctor telling me I must -never go out or move. At last I said to my husband, ‘It is -better to die than to go on thus;’ and, in defiance of our -Doctor, he brought me away to Brighton, and there I soon -grew, as you see, quite strong; and—and,—I must tell you, -<em>I have a little baby</em>, and my husband is so happy!”</p> - -<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_602'>602</span>That clever Gynæcologist lost, I daresay, a hundred, or -perhaps two hundred, a year by the escape of his patient -from his assiduous visitations; but the lady gained health -and happiness; her husband his wife’s companionship; and -both of them a child! How much of the miseries and -ill-health, and, in many cases, death of women (of the poorer -classes especially) lies at the door of medical practitioners -and operators, too fond by half of the knife, is known to -those who have read the recent articles and correspondence -respecting the Women’s Hospitals and “Human Vivisection” -therein in the <cite>Daily Chronicle</cite> (May, 1894) and in -the <cite>Homœopathic World</cite> for June.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Quite apart from the doctors, however, a great deal of the -sickliness of women is undoubtedly due to wretched fashions -of tight-lacing, and wearing long and heavy skirts, and -tight, thin boots, which render free exercise of their limbs -impossible. Nothing makes me really despair of my sex, -except looking at fashion-plates; or seeing (what is much -worse still, being wicked, as well as foolish) the adornments -so many women use of dead birds, stuck on their -empty heads and heartless breasts. These things are a -disgrace to women for which I have often felt they <em>deserve</em> to -be despised and swept aside by men as soulless creatures -unworthy of freedom. But alas! it is precisely the women -who adopt these idiotic fashions in dress, and wear -(abominable cruelty!) Egrets as ornaments, who are <em>not</em> -despised but admired by men, who reserve their indifference -and contempt for their homely and sensible sisters. Men -in these respects are as silly as the fish in the river -caught by a gaudy artificial fly on a hook, or enticed into -a net by a scrap of scarlet cloth, and a glittering morsel -of brass. I often wonder whether women are generally, -as little capable of forming a discriminating judgment -of men?</p> - -<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_603'>603</span>Lastly, there is a cause of female ill-health which always -impresses me with profoundest pity, and which has never, I -think, been fairly brought to the front as the origin of a -large part of feminine feebleness. I mean the common -want, among women who earn their livelihood, of sufficiently -brain-nourishing and stimulating food. Let any man, the -strongest in the land in body and mind, subsist for one -week on tea without milk, and bread and butter, and at the -end of that time, he will, I venture to predict, have lost half -his superiority. His nervous excitability and cheerfulness -may remain, or even be enhanced, but the faculty of largely -grasping and strongly dealing with the subjects presented to -him, and of doing thorough and complete work, nay even -the <em>desire</em> of such perfection and finish, will have abated; -and the fatal <em>slovenliness</em> of women’s work will probably -have begun to show itself. The physical conditions under -which the human spirit can alone (in this life) carry out its -purpose and attain its maximum of vigour, are more or less -lacking to half the women even in our country; and almost -completely wanting to the poor prisoners of the Zenanas of -India and the cripples of China. Exercise in the open air, -wholesome and sufficient food, plenty of sleep at night,—every -one of these <i><span lang="la" xml:lang="la">sine qua non</span></i> elements of real Health of -Mind, as well as of Body, are out of reach of one woman out -of every two; yet we remark, curiously, on the inferiority of -their work! It is a vicious circle in which they are caught. -They take lower wages because they can live more cheaply -than men; and they necessarily live on those low wages too -poorly to do anything but poor work;—and again their -wages are paltry because their work is so poor!</p> - -<p class='c007'>I confess, however, that—on the other hand—the spectacle of -feminine feebleness and futility when (as continually happens) -it is exhibited without the smallest excuse from inadequate -food supply, is indescribably irritating, nay, to me, humiliating -<span class='pageno' id='Page_604'>604</span>and exasperating. Watch (for example of what I mean by -“feminine futility”) a woman asked to open a just-arrived -box, or a bottle of champagne or of soda-water. She has been -given a cold-chisel for opening the box, and a hammer; but -they are invariably “astray” when required, or she does not -think it worth while to fetch them from up or downstairs, so -she kneels down before the box and begins by fumbling -with her fingers at the knots in the cord. After five minutes’ -efforts and broken nails, she gives this up in despair, and -“thinks she must cut it.” But how? She never by any chance -has a knife in her pocket; so she first tries her scissors, -which she <em>does</em> keep there, but which, being always quite -blunt, fail to sever the rope; and then she fetches a dinner-knife, -and gives one cut,—when the feminine passion for -economy suggests to her that she can save the rest of the -cord by pushing it (with immense effort) an inch or two along -the box, first at one side and then at the other. Then she -hopes by breaking open the top of the box at one end only, -to get out the contents without dealing further with the -recalcitrant rope; and she endeavours to pull it open where -the nails seem least firm. Alas! those nails will never yield -to her weak hands; so her scissors are in requisition again, -and being inserted and used as a wedge, immediately break off -at the points, and are hastily withdrawn with an exclamation -of agonising regret for the blunt, but precious, instrument. -Something must be thrust in, however, to prize open the box. -The cold-chisel and hammer having been at last sought, but -sought in vain, the kitchen cleaver, covered with the fat of -the last joint it has cut, is brought into play; or, happy -thought! she knows where her master keeps a fine sharp -chisel, and this is pushed in,—of course against a nail which -breaks the edge and makes it useless for ever. The poker -serves sufficiently well as a hammer to knock in the chisel, -or the cleaver, and to bang up the protruding lid of the box; -<span class='pageno' id='Page_605'>605</span>and at last one plank of the top is loosened, and she tears it -off triumphantly, with a cry of rejoicing: “There! Now, -we shall get at everything in the box!” The goods, however, -stubbornly refuse to be extricated through the hole on -any terms; and eventually all the planks have to be -successively broken up, and the long-cared-for cord (for the -preservation of which so much trouble has been undergone) -is cut into little pieces of a foot or two in length, each -attached to a hopelessly entangled knot, while the box itself -is entirely wrecked.</p> - -<p class='c007'>The case of the soda-water, or champagne bottle is -worse again; so much so that experience warns the -wise to forbear from calling for effervescent drinks where -parlour-maids prevail. The preliminary ineffectual attempt -to loosen the wires with the fingers (the proper pliers -being, of course, missing); the resort to a steel carving-fork -to open them, and, in default of the steel fork, to -a silver one, which is, of course, bent immediately; -the endeavour to cut the hempen cord with the bread -knife with the result of blunting that tool against the -wire; the struggle to cause the cork to fly by wobbling it -with the right hand, while clasping the neck of the bottle -till it and the contents are hot in the left; then (on the -failure of this bold attempt) the cutting off the head of the -cork with a carving knife, and at the same time a small slice -of the operator’s hand, which, of course, bleeds profusely; -the consequent hasty transference of the bottle and the job to -a second attendant; the hurried search of the same in the -side-table drawer for the corkscrew; her rush to the kitchen -to fetch that instrument where it has been nefariously -borrowed and where the point of the screw has been broken -off; the difficult (and crooked) insertion of the broken screw -into the cork; the repeated frantic tugs at the bottle, held -tight between the knees, finally the climax, when the cork -<span class='pageno' id='Page_606'>606</span>bursts out and the champagne along with it, up in the -reddening face and over the white muslin apron of the poor -anxious woman, who hurries nervously to wipe it off, -and then pours the small quantity of liquor which -remains bubbling over the glasses, till the table-cloth is -swamped;—such in brief is Feminine Futility, as exhibited -in the drawing of corks! Luckily it is possible to find -parlour-maids who know how to use, and will keep at hand, -both cold-chisels and corkscrews. But they are exceptions. -The normal woman, in the presence of a nailed-down box or a -champagne bottle, behaves as I have depicted from careful -study; and the irritation she produces in me is past words, -especially if a man be waiting for his beverage and observing -the spectacle of the helplessness of my sex. If “Man” be “a -tool-making animal,” I am afraid that “Woman” is a -“tool-breaking” one. I think every girl, as well as every -boy, ought to be given a month’s training in a carpenter’s -shop to teach her how to strike a nail straight; what is the -difference between the proper insertion and extraction of nails -and of screws; why chisels should not be employed as -screw-drivers; how far preferable for making holes are -gimlets to hairpins or the points of scissors; and, finally, the -general superiority of glue over paste or gum for sticking -wooden furniture when broken by her besom of destruction!</p> - -<p class='c007'>My dear friend Emily Shaen wrote an excellent tract which -I should like to see republished, urging that it is absurd to go -on talking of the House being the proper sphere of a woman, -while we neglect to teach her the very rudiments of a <em>Hausfrau’s</em> -duties, and leave her to find them all out, at her -husband’s expense, when she marries. The nature of gas -and of gasometers, and how <em>not</em> to cause explosions nor be -cheated in the bill; the arrangements of water-works in -houses, pipes, drains, cisterns, ball-cocks and all the rest, for -hot and cold water; the choice of properly morticed, not -<span class='pageno' id='Page_607'>607</span>merely glued, furniture; what constitutes a good kitchen -range, and how coal should be economised in it; how to -choose fresh meat, &c., such should be her lessons. To this -might be usefully added an inkling of the laws relating to -masters and servants, debts, bills, &c., &c., and of the -elementary arrangements of banking and investing money. -It was once discovered at my school that a very clever young -lady, who could speak four languages and play two instruments -well, <em>could not read the clock</em>! I think there are many -grown up women, well-educated according to the ordinary -standard of their class, whose ignorance concerning the -simplest matters of household duty is not a whit less absurd.</p> - -<p class='c007'>In 1881—I prepared and delivered to an audience of about -150 ladies, in the Westminster Palace Hotel, a course of six -Lectures on the <cite>Duties of Women</cite>. My dear friend, Miss -Anna Swanwick took the chair for me on these occasions, -and performed her part with such tact and geniality as to -give me every advantage. My auditors were very attentive -and sympathetic, and altogether the task was made very -pleasant to me. I repeated the course again at Clifton the -same year, Mrs. Beddoe, the wife of Dr. John Beddoe the -anthropologist who was then living at that place, most -obligingly lending me her large drawing-rooms.</p> - -<p class='c007'>These Lectures when printed, went through three editions -in England and, I think, eight in America, the last being -brought out by Miss Willard, who adopted the little book as -the first of a series on women’s concerns, published by her -vast and wonderful organisation, the W.C.T.U.</p> - -<p class='c007'>My object in giving these Lectures was to impress women -as strongly as might be in my power, with the unspeakable -importance of adding to our claims for just <em>Rights</em> of all -kinds, the adoption of the highest standard of <em>Duty</em>; and the -strict preservation amongst us of all womanly virtues, while -adding to them those others to the growth of which our -<span class='pageno' id='Page_608'>608</span>conditions have hitherto been unfavourable,—namely, Truth -and Courage. I desired also to discuss the new views current -amongst us respecting filial and conjugal “obedience;” the -proper attitude to be held towards (unrepentant) vice, and -many other topics. Finally I wished to place the efforts to -obtain political freedom on what I deem to be their proper -ground. I ask:</p> - -<p class='c008'>“What ought we to do at present, as concerns all public -work wherein it is possible for us to obtain a share?</p> - -<p class='c010'>“The question seems to answer itself in its mere statement. -We are bound to do all we can to promote the -virtue and happiness of our fellow-men and women, and -<em>therefore</em> we must accept and seize every instrument of -power, every vote, every influence which we can obtain, to -enable us to promote virtue and happiness.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“... Why are we not to wish and strive to be -allowed to place our hands on that vast machinery whereby, -in a constitutional realm, the great work of the world is -carried on, and which achieves by its enormous power, -ten-fold either the good or the harm which any individual -can reach; which may be turned to good or turned to harm -according to the hands which touch it? In almost every -case it is only by legislation that the roots of great evils -can be reached at all, and that the social diseases of -pauperism, vice and crime can be brought within hope -of cure.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“You will judge from these remarks the ground on -which, as a matter of duty, I place the demand for woman’s -political emancipation. I think we are bound to seek it, in -the first place, as a means,—a very great means,—of fulfilling -our Social Duty, of contributing to the virtue and happiness -of mankind, and advancing the Kingdom of God. There -are many other reasons, viewed from the point of -Expediency; but this is the view from that of Duty. We -know too well that men who possess political rights do not -always, or often, regard them in this fashion; but this is -no reason why we should not do so. We also know that the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_609'>609</span>individual power of one vote at any election seems rarely -to effect any appreciable difference; but this also need not -trouble us, for, little or great, if we can obtain any influence -at all, we ought to seek for it, and the multiplication of the -votes of women bent on securing conscientious candidates, -would soon make it not only appreciable, but weighty. -Nay, further, the direct influence of a vote is but -a small part of the power which the possession -of the political franchise confers. Its indirect influence -is far more important. In a government like ours, -where the basis of representation is so immensely extensive -the whole business of legislation is carried on by pressure—the -pressure of each represented class and party to get its -grievances redressed, to make its interests prevail.... -It is one of the sore grievances of women that, not possessing -representation, the measures which concern them are for -ever postponed to the bills promoted by the represented -classes (<em>e.g.</em>, the Married Woman’s Property Bill, was, if I -mistake not, six times set down for reading in one Session -in vain, the House being counted out on every occasion).</p> - -<p class='c010'>“Thus, in asking for the Parliamentary Franchise, we are -asking, as I understand it, for the power to influence legislation -generally; and in every other kind of franchise, -municipal, parochial, or otherwise, for similar power to -bring our sense of justice and righteousness to bear on -public affairs....</p> - -<p class='c010'>“What is this, after all, my friends, but <em>Public Spirit</em>; in -one shape called Patriotism, in another Philanthropy; the -extension of our sympathies beyond the narrow bounds of -our homes, and disinterested enthusiasm for every good -and sacred cause? As I said at first, all the world has -recognised from the earliest times how good and noble and -wholesome a thing it is for men to have their breasts filled -with such public spirit; and we look upon them when they -exhibit it as glorified thereby. Do you think it is not -equally an ennobling thing for a <em>woman’s</em> soul to be likewise -filled with these large and generous and unselfish -emotions?”</p> - -<p class='c006'><span class='pageno' id='Page_610'>610</span>I draw the Lectures to a conclusion thus:—</p> - -<p class='c008'>“None of us, I am sure, realise how blessed a thing we -might make of our lives if we would but give ourselves, -heart and soul, to fulfil <em>all</em> the obligations, personal, social -and religious which rest upon us; to gain the strength—</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c020'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>‘To think, to feel, to do, only the holy Right,</div> - <div class='line'>To yield no step in the awful race, no blow in the fearful fight,’</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c021'>to live, in purity and truth and courage, a life of love to -God and to man; striving to make every spot where we -dwell, every region to which our influence can extend -<span class='sc'>God’s Kingdom</span>, where His Will shall be done on earth as it -is done in heaven.”</p> - -<p class='c006'>Some time after the delivery of these addresses when the -Primrose League was in full activity I wrote at the request -of the Committee of the Women’s Suffrage Association a -circular-letter to the “Dames” (of whom I am one) begging -them to endeavour to make the granting of votes to women -a “plank” in their platform. I received many friendly -letters in reply—but the men who influenced the League, -apparently finding that they could make the Dames do their -political work for them <em>without votes</em>, discouraged all movement -in the desired direction, and I do not suppose that -anything was gained by my attempt.</p> - -<p class='c007'>My last effort on behalf of women was to read a paper on -<cite>Women’s Duty to Women</cite> at the Conference of Women -workers held at Birmingham in Nov., 1890. This address -was received with such exceeding kindness and sympathy by -my audience that the little event has left very tender -recollections which I am glad to carry with me.</p> - -<p class='c007'>I will record here two paragraphs which I should like to -leave as my last appeal on behalf of my sex.</p> - -<p class='c008'>“It may be an open question whether any individual -woman suffers more severely in body or mind than any -<span class='pageno' id='Page_611'>611</span>individual man. There are some who say that all our -passions matched with theirs</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c020'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>‘Are as moonlight is to sunlight, and as water is to wine.’</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c021'>A sentiment, which I am happy to tell you, Lord Tennyson -has angrily disclaimed as his own, declaring that he only -‘put it into the mouth of an impatient fool.’ But that our -<em>whole sex together</em> suffers more physical pain, more want, -more grief, than the other, is not, I think, open to doubt. -Even if we put aside the poor Chinese women maimed from -infancy, the Hindoo women against whose cruel wrongs -their noble countryman, Malabari, has just been pleading -so eloquently in London,—if we put these and all the other -prisoners of Eastern Harems, and miserable wives of African -and Australian savages out of question, and think only of -the comparatively free and happy women of Christendom, -how much more <em>liable to suffering</em>, if not always actually -condemned to suffer, is the life of women! ‘To be weak is -to be miserable,’ and we <em>are</em> weak; always comparatively to -our companions, and weak often, absolutely, and in reference -to the wants we must supply, the duties we must perform. -Now, it seems to me that just in proportion as any one is -possessed of strength of mind or of body, or of wealth or -influence, so far it behoves him, or her, to turn with -sympathy and tender helpfulness to the weakest and most -forlorn of God’s creatures, whether it be man or woman or -child, or even brute. The weight of the claim is in exact -ratio of the feebleness and helplessness and misery of the -claimant.</p> - -<hr class='c022' /> - -<p class='c010'>“Thus, then, I would sum up the counsels which I am -presuming to offer to you. You will all remember the -famous line of Terence, at which the old Roman audience -rose in a tumult of applause: ‘I am a <em>Man</em>—nothing human -is alien to me.’ I would have each of you add to this in an -emphatic way. ‘<i><span lang="la" xml:lang="la">Mulier sum. Nihil muliebre a me alienum -puto.</span></i>’ ‘I am a <em>woman</em>. Nothing concerning the interests -of women is alien to me.’ Take the sorrows, the wants, the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_612'>612</span>dangers (above all the dangers) of our sisters closely to -heart, and, without ceasing to interest yourself in charities -having men and boys for their objects, recognise that your -earlier care should be for the weakest, the poorest, those -whose dangers are worst of all—for, (after all) ruin can only -drive a <em>Man</em> to the workhouse; it may drive a woman to -perdition! Think of all the weak, the helpless, the wronged -women and little children, and the harmless brutes; and -save and shield them as best you can; even as the mother-bird -will shelter and fight for her little helpless fledgelings. -This is the natural field of feminine courage. Then, when -you have found your work, whatever it be, give yourself -to it with all your heart, and make the resolution -in God’s sight never to go to your rest leaving a -stone unturned which may help your aims. Half-and-half -charity does very little good to the objects; and is a -miserable, slovenly affair for the workers. And when the -end comes and the night closes in, the long, last night of -earth, when no man can work any more in this world, your -milk-and-water, half-hearted charities will bring no -memories of comfort to you. They are not so many ‘good -works’ which you can place on the credit side of your -account, in the mean, commercial spirit taught by some of -the churches. Nay, rather they are only solemn evidences -that you <em>knew your duty</em>, knew you <em>might</em> do good, and did it -not, or did it half-heartedly! What a thought for those -last days when we know ourselves to be going home to God, -God—whom at bottom after all, we have loved and shall -love for ever;—that we <em>might</em> have served Him here, <em>might</em> -have blessed his creatures, <em>might</em> have done His will on -earth as it is done in Heaven, but we have let the glorious -chance slip by us for ever.”</p> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_613'>613</span> - <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER<br /> XX.<br /> <span class='large'><em>CLAIMS OF BRUTES.</em></span></h2> -</div> - -<p class='c006'><span class='pageno' id='Page_615'>615</span>Readers who have reached this twentieth Chapter of my -Life will smile (as I have often done of late years) at the -ascription to me in sundry not very friendly publications, of -exclusive sympathy for animals and total indifference to -human interests. I have seen myself frequently described -as a woman “who would sacrifice any number of men, -women and children, sooner than that a few rabbits should -be inconvenienced.” Many good people apparently suppose -me to represent a personal survival of Totemism in England; -and to worship Dogs and Cats, while ready to consign the -human race generally to destruction.</p> - -<p class='c007'>The foregoing pages, describing my life in old days in -Ireland and the years which I spent afterwards working in -the slums in Bristol, ought, I think, to suffice to dissipate -this fancy picture. As a matter of fact, it has only been of -late years and since their wrongs have appealed alike to my -feelings of pity and to my moral sense, that I have come to bestow -any peculiar attention on animals; or have been concerned -with them more than is common with the daughters of -country squires to whom dogs, horses and cattle are -familiar subjects of interest from childhood. I have indeed -always felt much affection for dogs: that is to say, for those -who exhibit the true Dog-character,—which is far from -being the case of every canine creature! Their eagerness, -their joyousness, their transparent little wiles, their -caressing and devoted affection, are to me more winning, even -I may say, more really and intensely <em>human</em> (in the sense in -which a child is human), than the artificial, cold and selfish -<span class='pageno' id='Page_616'>616</span>characters one meets too often in the guise of ladies and gentlemen. -It is not the four legs, nor the silky or shaggy coat -of the dog which should prevent us from discerning his inner -nature of Thought and Love; limited Thought, it is true; -but quite unlimited Love. That he is dumb, is, to me, only -another claim (as it would be in a human child) on my consideration. -But because I love good dogs, and, in their -measure also, good horses and cats and birds, (I had once -a dear and lovely white pea-hen), I am not therefore a -morbid <cite>Zoophilist</cite>. I should be very sorry indeed to say -or think like Byron when my dog dies, that I “had but -one true friend, and here he lies!” I have,—thank God!—known -many men and women, who have all a dog’s -merits of honesty and single-hearted devotion <em>plus</em> the -virtues which can only flourish on the high level of -humanity; and to them I give a friendship which the best -of dogs cannot share.</p> - -<p class='c007'>That there are some Timons in the world whose hearts, -embittered by human ingratitude, have turned with relief to -the faithful love of a dog, I am very well aware. Surely the -fact makes one appeal the more on behalf of the creatures -who thus by their humble devotion heal the wounds of -disappointed or betrayed affection; and who come to cheer -the lonely, the unloved, the dull-witted, the blind, the -poverty-stricken whom the world forsakes? I think -Lamartine was right to treat this love of the Dog for Man as -a special provision of Divine mercy, and to marvel,—</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c018'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“<span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Par quelle pitié pour nos cœurs Il vous donne</span></div> - <div class='line'><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Pour aimer celui que n’aime plus personne!</span>”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c019'>Not a few deep thanksgivings, I believe, have gone up to the -Maker of man and brute for the silent sympathy,—expressed -perhaps in no nobler way than by the gentle licking of a -passive hand,—which has yet saved a human heart from the -sense of utter abandonment.</p> - -<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_617'>617</span>But <em>I</em> have no such sorrowful or embittering experience of -human affection. I do not say, “The more I know of men -the more I love dogs”; but, “The more I know of dogs the -more I love <em>them</em>,” without any invidious comparisons with -men, women, or children. As regards the children, indeed, -I have been always fond of those which came in my way; and -if the Tenth Commandment had gone on to forbid coveting -one’s neighbour’s “<em>child</em>,” I am not sure that I should not -have had to plead guilty to breaking it many times.</p> - -<p class='c007'>In my old home I possessed a dear Pomeranian dog of -whom I was very fond, who, being lame, used constantly to -ensconce herself (though forbidden by my father) in my -mother’s carriage under the seat, and never showed her little -pointed nose till the britzska had got so far from home that -she knew no one would put her down on the road. Then -she would peer out and lie against my mother’s dress and be -fondled. Later on I had the companionship of another -beautiful, mouse-coloured Pomeranian, brought as a puppy -from Switzerland. In my hardworking life in Bristol in the -schools and workhouse she followed me and ingratiated -herself everywhere, and my solitary evenings were much -the happier for dear Hajjin’s company. Many years -afterwards she was laid under the sod of our garden in -Hereford Square. Another dog of the same breed whom I -sent away at one year old to live in the country, was -returned to me <em>eight years</em> afterwards, old and diseased. -The poor beast recognized me after a few moments’ eager -examination, and uttered an actual scream of joy when I -called her by name; exhibiting every token of tender affection -for me ever afterwards. When one reflects what eight -years signify in the life of a dog,—almost equivalent to the -distance between sixteen and sixty in a human being,—some -measure is afforded by this incident of the durability of a -dog’s attachment. Happily, kind Dr. Hoggan cured poor -<span class='pageno' id='Page_618'>618</span>Dee of her malady, and she and I enjoyed five happy years -of companionship ere she died here in Hengwrt. I have -dedicated my <cite>Friend of Man</cite> to her memory.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Among my smaller literary tasks in London I wrote an -article for which Mr. Leslie Stephen (then editing the -<cite>Cornhill Magazine</cite> in which it appeared) was kind enough to -express particular liking. It was called “<cite>Dogs whom I have -met</cite>;” and gave an account of many canine individualities of -my acquaintance. I also wrote an article in the <cite>Quarterly -Review</cite> on the <cite>Consciousness of Dogs</cite> of which I have given -above (p. 127) Mr. Darwin’s favourable opinion. Both of -these papers are reprinted in my <cite>False Beasts and True</cite>. -Such has been the sum total, I may say, of my personal -concern with animals before and apart from my endeavours -to deliver them from their scientific tormentors.</p> - -<p class='c007'>It was, as I have stated, the abominable wrongs endured -by animals which first aroused, and has permanently -maintained, my special interest in them. My great-grandfather had an office in the yard at Newbridge -for his magisterial work, and over his own seat he -caused to be inscribed the text: “<em>Deliver him that is -oppressed from the hand of the adversary</em>.” I know not -whether it were a juvenile impression, but I have felt all -my life an irresistible impulse to rush in wherever anyone is -“oppressed” and try to “deliver” him, her, or <em>it</em>, as the -case may be, from the “adversary!” In the case of beasts, -their helplessness and speechlessness appeal, I think, to every -spark of generosity in one’s heart; and the command, “Open -thy mouth for the dumb,” seems the very echo of our -consciences. Everything in us, manly or womanly, (and the -best in us all is <em>both</em>) answers it back.</p> - -<p class='c007'>When I was a little child, living in a house where hunting, -coursing, shooting, and fishing, were carried on by all the -men and boys, I took such field sports as part of the order of -<span class='pageno' id='Page_619'>619</span>things, and learned with delight from my father to fish in our -ponds on my own account. Somehow it came to pass that -when, at sixteen, my mind went through that strange process -which Evangelicals call “Conversion,” among the first -things which my freshly-awakened moral sense pointed out -was,—that I must give up fishing! I reflected that the poor -fishes were happy in their way in their proper element; that -we did not in the least need, or indeed often use them for -food; and that I must no longer take pleasure in giving pain -to any creature of God. It was a little effort to me to -relinquish this amusement in my very quiet, uneventful life; -but, as the good Quaker’s say, it was “borne in on me,” that -I had to do it, and from that time I have never held a rod or -line (though I have been out in boats where large quantities -of fish were caught on the Atlantic coast), and I freely admit -that angling scarcely comes under the head of cruelty at all, -and is perfectly right and justifiable when the fish are wanted -for food and are killed quickly. I used to stand sometimes -after I had ceased to fish, over one of the ponds in our -park and watch the bright creatures dart hither and thither, -and say in my heart a little thanksgiving on their behalf -instead of trying to catch them.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Fifty years after this incident, I read in John Woolman’s, -(the Quaker Saint’s,) <cite>Journal</cite>, Chap. XI., this remark:—</p> - -<p class='c008'>“I believe, where the love of God is verily perfected and -the true spirit of government watchfully attended, a tenderness -towards all creatures made subject to us will be -experienced, and a care felt in us that we do not lessen that -sweetness of life in the animal creation which the great -Creator intends for them under our government.”</p> - -<p class='c006'>To me as I have said it was almost the <em>first</em>, and not an -<em>advanced</em>, much less “perfected,” religious impulse, which -led me to begin to recognise the claims of the lower animals -on our compassion. Of course, I disliked then, and always, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_620'>620</span>hunting, coursing and shooting; but as a woman I was not -expected to join in such pursuits, and I did not take on -myself to blame those who followed them. I do not now -allow of any comparison between the cruelty of such <em>Field -Sports</em> and the deliberate <em>Chamber-Sport</em> of Vivisection.</p> - -<p class='c007'>I shall now relate as succinctly as possible the history of -the Anti-vivisection Movement, so far as I have had to do -with it. Of course an immense amount of work for the -same end has been carried on all these twenty years by other -Zoophilists with whom I have had no immediate connection, -or perhaps cognizance of their labours, but without whose -assistance the Society which I helped to found certainly could -not have made as much way as it has done. I only presume -here to tell the story of the Victoria Street Society, and the -occurrences which led to its formation.</p> - -<p class='c006'>In the year 1863, there appeared in several English newspapers -complaints of the cruelties practised in the Veterinary -Schools at Alfort near Paris. The students were taught -there, as in most other continental veterinary schools, to -perform operations on <em>living</em> animals, and so to acquire, (at -the cost, of course, of untold suffering to the victims,) the -same manipulative skill which English students gain equally -well by practising on dead carcases. Living horses were -supplied to the Alfort students on which, at the time I speak -of, they performed sixty operations apiece, including every -one in common use, and many which were purely academic, -being never employed in actual practice because the horse, -after enduring them, becomes necessarily useless. These -operations lasted eight hours, and the aspect of the mangled -creatures, hoofless, eyeless, burned, gashed, eviscerated, -skinned, mutilated in every conceivable way, appalled the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_621'>621</span>visitors, who reported the facts, while it afforded, they said, -a subject of merriment to the horde of students. The -English <em>Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals</em> laudably -exerted itself to stop these atrocities, and appealed to the -Emperor to interfere; not, perhaps, very hopefully, since, as -I have heard, Napoleon III. was in the habit of attending -these hideous spectacles in his own imperial person on the -Thursdays on which they took place. This circumstance, -taken in connection with the Empress’ patronage of Bull-Fights, -has made Sedan seem to me an event on which the -animal world, at all events, has to be congratulated.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Some years later Mr. James Cowie took over to France an -Appeal, signed by 500 English Veterinarians entreating their -French colleagues to adopt the English practice of using -only dead carcases for the exercises of students. Through -this and other good offices it is understood that the number -and severity of the operations performed at Alfort, and elsewhere -in France, were then greatly reduced. Unhappily the -humane regulations made in 1878 are now evaded, and the -dreadful cruelties above described have been actually witnessed -by Mr. Peabody and Dr. Baudry, in 1895.</p> - -<p class='c007'>On reading of these cruelties I wrote an article, <cite>The -Rights of Man and the Claims of Brutes</cite>, which I hoped might -help to direct public attention to them. In this paper I -endeavoured to work out as best I could the ethical problem -(which I at once perceived to be beset with difficulties) of a -definition of the limits of human rights over animals. -My article was published by Mr. Froude in <cite>Fraser’s -Magazine</cite> for Nov., 1863, and was subsequently reprinted -in my <cite>Studies Ethical and Social</cite>. It was, so far as I know -the first effort made to deal with the moral questions involved -in the torture of animals either for sake of scientific and -therapeutic research, or for the acquirement of manipulative -skill. In the 30 years which have elapsed since I wrote it I -<span class='pageno' id='Page_622'>622</span>have seen reason to raise considerably the “claims” which -I then urged on behalf of the brutes, but I observe that new -recruits to our Anti-vivisection party usually begin exactly -where I stood at that time, and announce their ideas to me -as their mature conclusions.</p> - -<p class='c007'>The same month of November, 1863, in which my article, -(written some weeks before, while I was ill and lame at -Aix-les-Bains), appeared in <cite>Fraser</cite>, I was living near -Florence, and was startled by hearing of similar cruelties -practised at the <em>Specola</em>, where Prof. Schiff had his laboratory. -My friend Miss Blagden and I were holding our usual weekly -reception in Villa Brichieri on Bellosguardo, and we learned -that many of our guests had been shocked by the rumours which -had reached them. In particular the American physician who -had accompanied Theodore Parker to Florence and attended -him in his last days,—Dr. Appleton, of Harvard University,—told -us that he himself had gone over Prof. Schiff’s -laboratory, and had seen dogs, pigeons and other animals in -a frightfully mangled and suffering state. A Tuscan officer -had seen a cat so tortured that he forced Schiff to kill it. -Some 50 or 60 letters had been (or were afterwards) lodged -at the Mairie from neighbours complaining of the disturbance -caused by the cries and moans of the victims in the <em>Specola</em>. -After much conversation I asked, What could be done to -check these systematic cruelties, which no Tuscan law could -then touch in any way? It was suggested that a Memorial -should be addressed to Prof. Schiff himself, urging him to -spare his victims as much as possible. This Memorial I -drafted at once, and it was translated into Italian and sent -round Florence for signatures. Mrs. Somerville placed her -name at the head of it; and through her earnest exertions and -those of her daughters and of several other friends, the list of -supporters soon became very weighty. Among the English -signatures was those of Walter Savage Landor (who added -<span class='pageno' id='Page_623'>623</span>some words so violent that I was obliged to suppress them!); -and among the Italians almost the whole historic aristocracy -of old Florence,—Corsi’s and Corsini’s, and Aldobrandini’s -and Strozzi’s, and a hundred more, the reading of whose -names recalled Medicean times. In all, there were 783 signatories. -Very few of them were of the <i><span lang="it" xml:lang="it">mezzo-ceto</span></i> class, and <em>none</em> -belonged to the (Red) Republican party. Schiff was himself -a “Red,” and, as such, he might, apparently, commit any -cruelty he thought fit, inasmuch as he and the other -vivisectors (we were told by a lady prominent in that party) -were seeking “the religion of the future”—in the brains and -entrails of the tortured beasts! The same lady expressed to me -her wish that “every animal in creation should be immolated, -if only to discover a single fact of science.” Another Englishwoman -(also married to a foreigner) wrote to the <cite>Daily News</cite> -to praise Schiff for “actively pursuing Vivisection.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>The Memorial, as often happens, did no <em>direct</em> good; -Professor Schiff tossing it aside, and politely qualifying -the signatories, (in the <cite><span lang="it" xml:lang="it">Nazione</span></cite> newspaper,) as “<i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">un tas de -Marquis</span></i>.” But it certainly caused the subject to be much -discussed, and doubtless prepared the way for the complaints -and lawsuits concerning the “nuisances” of the moaning -dogs, which eventually made Florence an unpleasant abode -for Professor Schiff. He retreated thence to Geneva in -1877. The Florentine <i><span lang="it" xml:lang="it">Società Protettrice degli Animali</span></i> was -founded by Countess Baldelli in 1873, and has led the -agitation there against Vivisection ever since.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Meanwhile on the presentation of the Memorial, Professor -Schiff wrote a letter in the <cite><span lang="it" xml:lang="it">Nazione</span></cite> (the chief newspaper of -Florence) denying the facts mentioned in the letter of the -official Correspondent of the <cite>Daily News</cite>, and challenging the -said correspondent to come forward and make good the -statement. I instantly wrote a letter saying that I was the -<cite>Daily News’</cite> Correspondent in Florence; that the letter -<span class='pageno' id='Page_624'>624</span>complained of was mine; and that for verification of my -assertions therein I appended a full and signed statement by -Dr. Appleton of what he had himself witnessed in the <em>Specola</em>.</p> - -<p class='c007'>It was rather difficult for me then to believe that this -letter of mine (in Italian of course) duly signed and -authenticated with name, date and place, was refused -publication in the paper wherein I had been challenged to -come forward! On learning this amazing fact, I requested -Dr. Appleton to go down again to Florence and ask the -editor of the <cite><span lang="it" xml:lang="it">Nazione</span></cite> to publish my letter if in no other -way, at least <em>as a paid advertisement</em>. The answer made -by the editor to Dr. Appleton was, that it might be inserted, -but only among the advertisements in certain columns of -the paper where no decent reader would look for it. N.B.—the -<cite><span lang="it" xml:lang="it">Nazione</span></cite> replenished its exchequer by the help of that -class of notices which are declined by every reputable English -newspaper. After this Dr. Appleton went in despair to -Professor Schiff himself, and told him he was bound in -honour, (seeing he had made the challenge to us,) to compel -the editor to print our answer. The learned and scientific -gentleman shrugged his shoulders and laughed in the face of -the American who could imagine him to be so simple!</p> - -<p class='c007'>I left Florence soon after this first brush with the demon -of Vivisection, but retained (as will easily be understood) very -strong feelings on the subject.</p> - -<p class='c007'>At a meeting of the British Association in Liverpool in -1870 a Committee was appointed to consider the subject of -“Physiological Experimentation,” and their Report was -published in the <cite>Medical Times and Gazette</cite>, Feb. 25th, -1871; and in <cite>British Assoc. Reports</cite>, 1871, p. 144. It -consists of the following four Rules or Recommendations on -the subject of Vivisection:—</p> - -<p class='c008'>“(I.) No experiment which can be performed under the -influence of an anæsthetic ought to be done without it. -<span class='pageno' id='Page_625'>625</span>(II.) No painful experiment is justifiable for the mere -purpose of illustrating a law or fact already demonstrated; -in other words, experimentation without the employment -of anæsthetics is not a fitting exhibition for teaching -purposes. (III.) Whenever, for the investigation of new -truth, it is necessary to make a painful experiment, every -effort should be made to ensure success, in order that the -sufferings inflicted may not be wasted. For this reason, -no painful experiment ought to be performed by an -unskilled person, with insufficient instruments and -assistants, or in places not suitable to the purpose; that is -to say, anywhere except in physiological and pathological -laboratories, under proper regulations. (IV.) In the -scientific preparation for veterinary practice, operations -ought not to be performed upon living animals for the -mere purpose of obtaining greater operative dexterity.”</p> - -<p class='c006'>These four Rules were countersigned by <em>M. A. Lawson</em>, -<em>G. M. Humphry</em> (now Sir George Humphry), <em>J. H. Balfour</em>, -<em>Arthur Gamgee</em>, <em>William Flower</em>, <em>J. Burdon-Sanderson</em>, and -<em>George Rolleston</em>. Of course we, who attended that celebrated -Liverpool Meeting of the British Association and had heard -the President laud Dr. Brown-Séquard enthusiastically, -greatly rejoiced at this humane Ukase of autocratic Science.</p> - -<p class='c007'>But as time passed we were surprised to find that nothing -was done to enforce these rules in any way or at any place; -and that the particular practice which they most distinctly -condemn, namely, the use of vivisections as Illustrations of -recognised facts,—was flourishing more than ever without -let or hindrance. The prospectuses of <em>University College</em> for -1874–5, of <em>Guy’s Hospital Medical School 1874–5</em>, of <em>St. -Thomas’s Hospital</em>, of <em>Westminster Hospital Medical School</em>, -etc., all mentioned among their attractions: “Demonstrations -on living animals;” “Gentlemen will themselves -perform the experiments;” &c., and quite as if nothing -whatever had been said against them.</p> - -<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_626'>626</span>But worse remained. One of the signatories of the above -Rules (or as perhaps we may more properly call them, these -“<em>Pious Opinions</em>”?),—the most eminent of English physiologists, -Prof. Burdon-Sanderson himself, edited and brought -out in 1873, the <cite>Handbook of the Physiological Laboratory</cite>, -to which he, Dr. Lauder-Brunton, Dr. Klein, and Dr. Foster -were joint contributors. This celebrated work is a Manual -of Exercises in Vivisection, intended (as the <cite>Preface</cite> says) -“for beginners in Physiological work.” The following are -observations on this book furnished to the Royal Commission -by Mr. Colam, and printed in Appendix iv., p. 379, of their -<cite>Report</cite> and <cite>Minutes</cite> of Evidence:—</p> - -<p class='c008'>“That the object of the editor and his coadjutors was to -induce young persons to perform experiments on their own -account and without adequate surveillance is manifest -throughout the work, by the supply of elementary knowledge -and elaborate data. Not only are the names and quantities -of necessary chemicals given, but the most careful description -is provided in letter-press and plates of implements for -holding animals during their struggles, so that a novice may -learn at home without a teacher. Besides, the editor’s -preface states, that the book is ‘intended for beginners,’ -and that ‘difficult and complicated’ experiments consequently -have been omitted; and that of Dr. Foster allures -the student by assurances of inexpensive as well as easy -manipulation.... Very seldom indeed is the student -told to anæsthetise, and then only during an operation. It -cannot be alleged that ‘beginners’ know when to narcotise, -and when not; but if they do then the few directions to use -chloral, &c., are unnecessary. No doubt should have been -left on this point in a Handbook designed ‘for beginners.’ -Besides, where will students find cautions against the -infliction of unnecessary pain, and wanton experimentation? -On the contrary, the student is encouraged to repeat -the torture ‘any number of times.’ These facts are -significant.”</p> - -<p class='c006'><span class='pageno' id='Page_627'>627</span>In the <cite>Minutes of Evidence</cite> of the Royal Commission we -find that the late Prof. Rolleston, of Oxford, being under -examination, was asked by Mr. Hutton: “Then I understand -that your opinion about the <cite>Handbook</cite> is, that it is a dangerous -book to society, and that it has warranted to some extent the -feeling of anxiety in the public which its publication has -created?” Prof. Rolleston: “<em>I am sorry to have to say that -I do think it is so</em>” (1351). In his own examination Prof. -Burdon-Sanderson admitted that the use of anæsthetics -whenever possible “ought to have been stated much more -distinctly at the beginning of his book” (2265), and agreed -to Lord Cardwell’s suggestion, “Then I may assume that in -any future communication with ‘beginners’ <em>greater pains will -be taken to make them distinctly understand how animals may be -saved from suffering than has been taken in this book</em>?” “Yes,” -said Dr. B.-S., “I am quite willing to say that” (2266).</p> - -<p class='c007'>Esoteric Vivisection it will be observed, as revealed in -<cite>Handbooks</cite> for “Beginners,” is a very different thing from -Exoteric Vivisection, described for the benefit of the outside -public as if regulated by the <em>Four Rules</em> above quoted!</p> - -<p class='c007'>The following year, 1874, certain experiments were performed -before a Medical Congress at Norwich. They consisted -in the injection of alcohol and of absinthe into the veins of -dogs; and were done by M. Magnan, an eminent French -physiologist, who has in recent years described sympathy for -animals as a special form of insanity. Mr. Colam, on behalf -of the R.S.P.C.A., very properly instituted a prosecution -against M. Magnan, under the Act 12 and 13 Vict., c. 92; -and brought Sir William Fergusson, and Dr. Tufnell (the -President of the Irish College of Surgeons) to swear that his -experiments were useless. M. Magnan withdrew speedily to -his own country or a conviction would certainly have been -obtained against him. But it was not merely on proof of the -<em>infliction of torture</em> that Mr. Colam’s Society relied to obtain -<span class='pageno' id='Page_628'>628</span>such conviction, but on the high scientific authority which -they were able to bring to prove that the torture was -<em>scientifically useless</em>. Failing such testimony, which would -generally be unattainable, it was recognised that the application -of the Act in question (Martin’s Act amended) to <em>scientific</em> -cruelties, which it had not been framed to meet, would always -be beset with difficulties. It became thenceforth apparent to -the friends of animals that some new legislation, calculated -to reach offenders pleading scientific purpose for barbarous -experiments was urgently needed; and the existence of the -<cite>Handbook</cite>, with minute directions for performing hundreds -of operations,—many of them of extreme severity,—proved -that the danger was not remote or theoretical; but already -present and at our doors.</p> - -<p class='c007'>A few weeks after this trial at Norwich had taken -place, and had justly gained great applause for Mr. Colam -and the R.S.P.C.A., Mrs. Luther Holden, wife of the -eminent surgeon, then Senior Surgeon of St. Bartholomew’s -Hospital, called on me in Hereford Square to talk over -the matter and take counsel as to what could be done -to strengthen the law in the desired direction. The -great and wealthy R.S.P.C.A. was obviously the body -with which it properly lay to promote the needed legislation; -and it only seemed necessary to give the Committee of that -Society proof that public opinion would strongly support -them in calling for it, to induce them to bring a suitable Bill, -into Parliament backed by their abundant influence. I -agreed to draft a <cite>Memorial</cite> to the Committee of the -R.S.P.C.A. praying it to undertake this task; after learning -from Mr. Colam that such an appeal would be altogether -welcome; and I may add that I received cordial assistance -from him in arranging for its presentation.</p> - -<p class='c007'>It was a difficult task for me to draw up that Memorial, -but, such as it was, it acted as a spark to tinder, showing -<span class='pageno' id='Page_629'>629</span>how much latent feeling existed on the subject. Many -ladies and gentlemen: notably the Countess of Camperdown, -the Countess of Portsmouth (now the Dowager Countess), -General Colin Mackenzie, Col. Wood (now Sir Evelyn) and -others, exerted themselves most earnestly to obtain influential -signatures in their circles, and distributed in all directions -copies of the <cite>Memorial</cite> and of two pamphlets I wrote to -accompany it—“<cite>Reasons for Interference</cite>” and “<cite>Need -of a Bill</cite>.” With their help in the course of about -six weeks, (without advertisements or paid agency -of any kind), we obtained 600 signatures; every -one of which represented a man or woman of some -social importance. The first to sign it was my neighbour -and friend, Rev. Gerald Blunt, rector of Chelsea. After him -came Mr. Carlyle, Tennyson, Browning, Mr. Lecky, Sir -Arthur Helps, Sir W. Fergusson, John Bright, Mr. Jowett, -the Archbishop of York (Dr. Thomson), Sir Edwin Arnold, -the Primate of Ireland (Marcus Beresford), Cardinal Manning -(then Archbishop of Westminster), the Duke and Duchess of -Northumberland, John Ruskin, James Martineau, the Duke -of Rutland, the Duke of Wellington, Lord Coleridge, Lord -Selborne, Sir Fitzroy Kelly, the Bishops of Winchester, -Exeter, Salisbury, Manchester, Bath and Wells, Hereford, -St. Asaph, and Derry, Lord Russell, and many other peers -and M.P.’s, and no less than 78 medical men, several of -whom were eminent in the profession.</p> - -<p class='c007'>I shall insert here a few of the replies, favourable and -otherwise, which I received to my invitations to sign the -Memorial.</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c009'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Bishopthorpe, York,</div> - <div class='line in12'>“Dec. 28th, 1874.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c010'>“The Archbishop of York presents his compliments to -Miss Cobbe and begs to enclose the Memorial signed by -him.</p> - -<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_630'>630</span>“‘Exception to suggestion 3rd,’ on the prohibition of -publishing, which he thinks unworkable, and therefore -(illegible) to the Memorial. If however it is too late to -alter it, he will not stand out even on that point.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“He thinks the practices in question detestable. The -Norwich case was a disgrace to the country.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“The Archbishop thanks Miss Cobbe for inviting him to -sign.”</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c009'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“A. B. Beresford-Hope to Miss F. P. C.</div> - <div class='line in12'>“Bedgebury Park, Cranbrook,</div> - <div class='line in28'>“Jan. 26th, 1875.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='lg-container-l c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Dear Madam,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c010'>“Lady Mildred and myself trust that it is not too late -to enclose to you the accompanying signatures to the -Memorial against Vivisection, although the day fixed for its -return has unfortunately been allowed to elapse. We can -assure you of our very hearty sympathy in the cause; the -delay has wholly come of oversight.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“In regard to the details of the suggestions, I must be -allowed to express my doubt as to the feasibility of the -3rd suggestion. Its stringency would I fear defeat its own -object. I sympathise too much with the question in itself -to decline signing on account of this proposal, but I must -request to be considered as a dissentient on that head.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“Believe me, dear Madam, yours very faithfully,</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“<span class='sc'>A. B. Beresford-Hope</span>.”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>“B. Jowett to Miss F. P. C.</p> - -<div class='lg-container-l c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Dear Miss Cobbe,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c010'>“I have much pleasure in signing the paper which you -kindly sent me.</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Yours very sincerely,</div> - <div class='line in12'>“<span class='sc'>B. Jowett</span>.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='lg-container-l c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Jan. 15th, Oxford.”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='lg-container-r c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'><span class='pageno' id='Page_631'>631</span>“5, Gordon Street, London, W.C.,</div> - <div class='line in16'>“January 5th, 1875.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='lg-container-l c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“My dear Miss Cobbe,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c010'>“I should have been very sorry not to join in the Protest -against this hideous offence, and am truly obliged to you -for furnishing me with the opportunity. The simultaneous -loss, from the Morals of our ‘advanced’ scientific men, of -all reverent sentiment towards beings <em>above</em> them and -towards beings <em>below</em>, is a curious and instructive phenomenon, -highly significant of the process which their nature -is undergoing at both ends.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“With truest wishes for many a happy and beneficent year</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Ever faithfully yours,</div> - <div class='line in4'>“<span class='sc'>James Martineau</span>.”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='lg-container-r c009'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Manchester,</div> - <div class='line in4'>“December 26th, 1874.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c010'>“The Bishop of Manchester” [Dr. Fraser] “presents his -compliments to Miss Cobbe, and thanks her for giving him -the opportunity of appending his name to this Memorial, -which has his most hearty concurrence.”</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c009'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Palace, Salisbury,</div> - <div class='line in8'>“11th January, 1875.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c010'>“The Bishop of Salisbury’s compliments to Miss Cobbe. -He cannot withhold his signature to her Paper after reading -the ‘reasons which she has kindly sent him.’”</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c009'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Addington Park, Croydon,</div> - <div class='line in12'>“January 2nd, 1875.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='lg-container-l c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Madam,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c010'>“I have received your letter of the 31st ult. on the -subject of the Memorial to the Society for Prevention -of Cruelty to Animals with regard to Vivisection.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“I hardly think I should be right, considering my -imperfect acquaintance with the subject, in adding my -name thereto at present.</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Believe me to be, yours faithfully,</div> - <div class='line in24'>“<span class='sc'>A. C. Cantuar</span>.”</div> - <div class='line in28'>(Archbishop Tait.)</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='lg-container-r c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'><span class='pageno' id='Page_632'>632</span>“Deanery, Carlisle,</div> - <div class='line in8'>“January 20th, 1875.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='lg-container-l c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Dear Madam,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c010'>“If I had a hundred signatures you should have them all!</p> - -<p class='c010'>“My heart has long burned with indignation against -these murderers and torturers of innocent animals.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“Was it for <em>this</em> that the great God made man the Lord -of the creation?</p> - -<p class='c010'>“It is incredible hypocrisy and folly to pretend that such -wholesale torture is necessary to enlighten these stupid -doctors!</p> - -<p class='c010'>“It seems to me peculiarly ungrateful in man, to break -forth in this wholesale <em>Animal Inquisition</em> when Providence -has so recently revealed to us several new natural powers -whereby human suffering is so much diminished.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“But I must restrain my feelings, and <em>you</em> must pardon -me. I did not know that this good work was begun.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“Only get some thoroughgoing and able friend of the -animal world to tell the tale to a British House of Parliament, -and these philosophic torturers will be stayed in their -detestable course.</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Yours,</div> - <div class='line in4'>“<span class='sc'>F. Close</span>.”</div> - <div class='line in8'>(Dean of Carlisle.)</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='lg-container-r c009'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“27, Cornwall Gardens, S.W.,</div> - <div class='line in12'>“December 30th, 1874.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='lg-container-l c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“My dear Miss Cobbe,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c010'>“I have an impression that the subject of Vivisection is -to be brought before the Senate of the University of London, -which consists mainly of great physicians and surgeons, -but of which I am a member. Hence I think I hardly -ought to sign the paper you have sent me.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“This, you see is an official answer, but I am glad to be -able to make it, for the truth is I have neither thought nor -enquired sufficiently about Vivisection to be ready with a -clear opinion.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“Even if the utmost be proved against the vivisectors, -I am inclined to think that they ought to be dealt with as -<span class='pageno' id='Page_633'>633</span>guilty of a <em>new</em> offence, and not of an old one. I do not at -all like the notion of bringing old laws such as Martin’s Act -against cruelty to animals, to bear on a class of cases never -contemplated at the time of their enactment. It has a -certain resemblance to enforcing the old law of blasphemy -against persons who discuss Christianity in the modern -philosophical spirit. Perhaps I am the more sensitive on -this point since a friend elaborately demonstrated to me -that I was liable to prosecution for what seemed to me a -very innocent passage in a book of mine!</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Believe me, very truly yours,</div> - <div class='line in20'>“<span class='sc'>H. S. Maine</span>.”</div> - <div class='line in12'>(Sir Henry Sumner Maine.)</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='lg-container-r c009'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“16, George Street, Hanover Square, W.,</div> - <div class='line in8'>“19th December, 1874.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='lg-container-l c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Dear Miss Cobbe,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c010'>“I have affixed my name with much satisfaction to this -Memorial, and I presume that you intend that men should -be in largest number on the list.</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line in12'>“Yours faithfully,</div> - <div class='line in24'>“<span class='sc'>W. Fergusson</span>.”</div> - <div class='line'>(Sir William Fergusson, F.R.S.,</div> - <div class='line in8'>Serjeant-Surgeon to the Queen.)</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<hr class='c033' /> - -<p class='c007'>This Memorial having a certain importance in the history -of our movement, I quote the principal paragraphs here:</p> - -<p class='c008'>“The practice of Vivisection has received of recent years -enormous extension. Instead of an occasional experiment, -made by a man of high scientific attainment, to determine -some important problem of physiology, or to test the -feasibility of a new surgical operation, it has now become -the everyday exercise of hundreds of physiologists and -young students of physiology throughout Europe and -<span class='pageno' id='Page_634'>634</span>America. In the latter country, lecturers in most of the -schools employ living animals instead of dead for ordinary -illustrations, and in Italy one physiologist alone has for some -years past experimented on more than 800 dogs annually. -A recent correspondence in the <cite>Spectator</cite> shows that -many English physiologists contemplate the indefinite -multiplication of such vivisections; some (as Dr. Pye-Smith) -defending them as illustrations of lectures, and -some (as Mr. Ray-Lankester) frankly avowing that -one experiment must lead to another <i><span lang="la" xml:lang="la">ad infinitum</span></i>. -Every real or supposed discovery of one physiologist -immediately causes the repetition of his experiments -by scores of students. The most numerous and important -of these researches being connected with the nervous -system, the use of complete anæsthetics is practically -prohibited. Even when employed during an operation, the -effect of the anæsthetic of course shortly ceases, and, for -the completion of the experiment, the animal is left to suffer -the pain of the laceration to which it has been subjected. -Another class of experiments consists in superinducing some -special disease; such as alcoholism (tried by M. Magnan on -dogs at Norwich), and the peculiar malady arising from -eating diseased pork (Trichiniasis), superinduced on a -number of rabbits in Germany by Dr. Virchow. How far -public opinion is becoming deadened to these practices is -proved by the frequent recurrence in the newspapers of -paragraphs simply alluding to them as matters of scientific -interest involving no moral question whatever. One such -recently appeared in a highly respectable Review, detailing -a French physiologist’s efforts, first to drench the veins of -dogs with alcohol, and then to produce spontaneous combustion. -Such experiments as these, it is needless to remark, -cannot be justified as endeavours to mitigate the sufferings -of humanity, and are rather to be characterised as gratifications -of the ‘dilettantism of discovery.’</p> - -<p class='c010'>“The recent trial at Norwich has established the fact -that, in a public Medical Congress, and sanctioned by a -majority of the members, an experiment was tried which -<span class='pageno' id='Page_635'>635</span>has since been formally pronounced by two of the most -eminent surgeons in the kingdom to have been ‘cruel and -unnecessary.’ We have, therefore, too much reason to fear -that in laboratories less exposed to public view, and among -inconsiderate young students, very much greater abuses -take place which call for repression.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“It is earnestly urged by your Memorialists that the great -and influential Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty -to Animals may see fit to undertake the task (which appears -strictly to fall within its province) of placing suitable restrictions -on this rapidly increasing evil. The vast benefit to -the cause of humanity which the Society has in the past -half century effected, would, in our humble estimation, -remain altogether one-sided and incomplete; if, while brutal -carters and ignorant costermongers are brought to punishment -for maltreating the animals under their charge, -learned and refined gentlemen should be left unquestioned -to inflict far more exquisite pain upon still more sensitive -creatures; as if the mere allegation of a scientific purpose -removed them above all legal or moral responsibility.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“We therefore beg respectfully to urge on the Committee -the immediate adoption of such measures as may approve -themselves to their judgment as most suitable to promote -the end in view, namely, the Restriction of Vivisection; -and we trust that it may not be left to others, who possess -neither the wealth or organization of the Royal Society for -the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, to make such efforts -in the same direction as might prove to be in their power.”</p> - -<p class='c006'>It was arranged that the Memorial should be presented in -Jermyn Street in a formal manner on the 25th January, 1875, -by a deputation introduced by my cousin’s husband, Mr. John -Locke, M.P., Q.C., and consisting of Sir Frederick Elliot, -Lord Jocelyn Percy, General G. Lawrence, Mr. R. H. Hutton, -Mr. Leslie Stephen, Dr. Walker, Col. Wood (now Sir Evelyn) -and several ladies.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Prince Lucian Bonaparte, who always warmly befriended -the cause, took the chair at first, and was succeeded by Lord -<span class='pageno' id='Page_636'>636</span>Harrowby, President of the R.S.P.C.A., supported by Lady -Burdett Coutts, Lord Mount-Temple (then Mr. Cowper-Temple) and others.</p> - -<p class='c007'>After some friendly discussion it was agreed that the -Committee of the R.S.P.C.A. would give the subject their -most zealous attention; and a sub-Committee to deal with -the matter was accordingly appointed immediately afterwards.</p> - -<p class='c007'>When I drove home to Hereford Square from Jermyn Street -that day, I rejoiced to think that I had accomplished a step -towards obtaining the protection of the law for the victims -of science; and I fully believed that I was free to return to -my own literary pursuits and to the journalism which then -occupied most of my time. A few days later I was requested -to attend (for the occasion only) the first Meeting of the sub-Committee -for Vivisection of the R.S.P.C.A. On entering -the room my spirits sank, for I saw round the table a number -of worthy gentlemen, mostly elderly, but not one of the more -distinguished members of their Committee or, (I think), a -single Peer or Member of Parliament. In short, they were -not the men to take the lead in such a movement and make -a bold stand against the claims of science. After a few -minutes the Chairman himself asked me: “Whether <em>I</em> could -not undertake to get a Bill into Parliament for the object we -desired?” As if all my labour with the Memorial had not -been spent to make <em>them</em> do this very thing! It was -obviously felt by others present that this suggestion was out -of place, and I soon retired, leaving the sub-Committee to send -Mr. Colam round to make enquiries among the physiologists—a -mission which might, perhaps, be represented as a -friendly request to be told frankly “whether they were really -cruel?” I understood, later, that he was shown a painless -vivisection on a cat and offered a glass of sherry; and there -(so far as I know or ever heard) the labours of that sub-Committee -ended. Mr. Colam afterwards took immense -<span class='pageno' id='Page_637'>637</span>pains to collect evidence from the published works of Vivisectors -of the extent and severity of their operations; and -this very valuable mass of materials was presented by him -some months later to the Royal Commission, and is published -in the Blue Book as an Appendix to their Minutes.</p> - -<p class='c007'>I was, of course, miserably disappointed at this stage of -affairs, but on the 2nd February, 1875, there appeared in the -<cite>Morning Post</cite> the celebrated letter from Dr. George Hoggan, -in which (without naming Claude Bernard) he described what -he had himself witnessed in his laboratory when recently -working there for several months. This letter was absolutely -invaluable to our cause, giving, as it did, reality and firsthand -testimony to all we had asserted from books and reports. In -the course of it Dr. Hoggan said:—</p> - -<p class='c008'>“I venture to record a little of my own experience in the -matter, part of which was gained as an assistant in the -laboratory of one of the greatest living experimental -physiologists. In that laboratory we sacrificed daily from -one to three dogs, besides rabbits and other animals, and -after four months’ experience I am of opinion that not one -of those experiments on animals was justified or necessary. -The idea of the good of humanity was simply out of the -question, and would be laughed at, the great aim being to -keep up with, or get ahead of, one’s contemporaries in -science, even at the price of an incalculable amount of -torture needlessly and iniquitously inflicted on the poor -animals. During three campaigns I have witnessed many -harsh sights, but I think the saddest sight I ever witnessed -was when the dogs were brought up from the cellar to the -laboratory for sacrifice. Instead of appearing pleased with -the change from darkness to light, they seemed seized with -horror as soon as they smelt the air of the place, divining, -apparently, their approaching fate. They would make -friendly advances to each of the three or four persons -present, and as far as eyes, ears, and tail could make a -mute appeal for mercy eloquent, they tried it in vain.</p> - -<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_638'>638</span>“Were the feelings of the experimental physiologists not -blunted, they could not long continue the practice of vivisection. -They are always ready to repudiate any implied -want of tender feeling, but I must say that they seldom -show much pity; on the contrary, in practice they frequently -show the reverse. Hundreds of times I have seen, when -an animal writhed with pain and thereby deranged the -tissues, during a delicate dissection, instead of being soothed, -it would receive a slap and an angry order to be quiet and -behave itself. At other times, when an animal had endured -great pain for hours without struggling or giving more than -an occasional low whine, instead of letting the poor mangled -wretch loose to crawl painfully about the place in reserve -for another day’s torture, it would receive pity so far that -it would be said to have behaved well enough to merit -death; and, as a reward, would be killed at once by -breaking up the medulla with a needle, or ‘pithing,’ as this -operation is called. I have often heard the professor say -when one side of an animal had been so mangled and the -tissues so obscured by clotted blood that it was difficult to -find the part searched for, ‘Why don’t you begin on the -other side?’ or ‘Why don’t you take another dog? What is -the use of being so economical?’ One of the most revolting -features in the laboratory was the custom of giving an -animal, on which the professor had completed his experiment, -and which had still some life left, to the assistants to -practice the finding of arteries, nerves, &c., in the living -animal, or for performing what are called fundamental -experiments upon it—in other words, repeating those which -are recommended in the laboratory hand-books. I am -inclined to look upon anæsthetics as the greatest curse to -vivisectible animals. They alter too much the normal conditions -of life to give accurate results, and they are therefore -little depended upon. They, indeed, prove far more -efficacious in lulling public feeling towards the vivisectors -than pain in the vivisected.”</p> - -<p class='c006'>I had met Dr. Hoggan one day just before this occurrence -at Mdme. Bodichon’s house, but I had no idea that he would, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_639'>639</span>or could, bear such valuable testimony; and I have never -ceased to feel that in thus nobly coming forward to offer it -spontaneously, he struck the greatest blow on our side in the -whole battle. Of course I expressed to him all the gratitude -I felt, and we thenceforth took counsel frequently as to the -policy to be pursued in opposing vivisection.</p> - -<p class='c007'>It soon became evident that if a Bill were to be presented -to Parliament that session it must be promoted by some -parties other than the Committee of the R.S.P.C.A. Indeed -in the following December <cite>The Animal World</cite>, in a leading -article, avowed that “the Royal Society (P.C.A.) is not so -entirely unanimous as to desire the passing of any special -legislative enactment on this subject” (vivisection). Feeling -convinced that some such obstacle was in the way I turned -to my friends to see if it might be possible to push on a Bill -independently, and with the most kind help of Sir William -Hart Dyke (the Conservative whip), it was arranged that a -Bill for “Regulating the Practice of Vivisection” should be -introduced with the sanction of Government into the House -of Lords by Lord Henniker (Lord Hartismere). It is -impossible to describe all the anxiety I endured during the -interval up to the 4th May, when this Bill was actually -presented. Lord Henniker was exceedingly good about it -and took much pains with the draft prepared at first by Sir -Frederick Elliot, and afterwards completed for Lord Henniker -by Mr. Fitzgerald. Lord Coleridge also took great interest -in it, and gave most valuable advice, and Mr. Lowe (who -afterwards bitterly opposed the almost identical measure of -Lord Cross in the Commons), was willing to give this earlier -Bill much consideration. I met him one day at luncheon at -Airlie Lodge, where were also Lord Henniker, Lady -Minto, Lord Airlie and others interested, and the Bill was -gone over clause by clause till adjusted to Mr. Lowe’s -counsels.</p> - -<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_640'>640</span>Lord Henniker introduced the Bill thus drafted “for -<cite>Regulating the Practice of Vivisection</cite>” into the House of -Lords on the 4th May, 1875; but on the 12th May, to our -great surprise another Bill <em>to prevent Abuse in Experiments -on Animals</em> was introduced into the House of Commons by -Dr. (now Lord) Playfair. On the appearance of this latter -Bill, which was understood to be promoted by the -physiologists themselves—notably by Dr. Burdon-Sanderson, -and by Mr. Charles Darwin—the Government, which had -sanctioned Lord Henniker’s Bill, thought it necessary to -issue a Royal Commission of Enquiry into the subject before -any legislation should be proceeded with. This was done -accordingly on the 22nd June, and both Bills were then -withdrawn.</p> - -<p class='c007'>The student of this old chapter of the history of the Anti-vivisection -Crusade will find both of the above-named Bills -(and also the ineffective sketch of what might have been the -Bill of the R.S.P.C.A.) in the Appendix to the <cite>Report of the -Royal Commission</cite>, pp. 336–8. Mr. Charles Darwin, in a -letter to the <cite>Times</cite>, April 18th, 1881, said that he “took an -active part in trying to get a Bill passed such as would have -removed all just cause of complaint, and at the same time -have left the physiologists free to pursue their researches,”—a -“<em>Bill very different from that which has since been passed</em>.” -As Mr. Darwin’s biographer, while reprinting this letter, has -not quoted my challenge to him in the <cite>Times</cite> of the 23rd to -point out “<em>in what respect the former Bill is very different -from the Act of 1876</em>,” I think it well to cite here the lucid -definition of that difference as delineated in the <cite>Spectator</cite> of -May 15th, doubtless by the editor, Mr. Hutton.</p> - -<div class='nf-center-c0'> -<div class='nf-center c009'> - <div>“<span class='sc'>The Vivisection-Restriction Bills.</span></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c010'>“On Wednesday afternoon last, Dr. Lyon Playfair laid -on the table of the House of Commons a Bill for the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_641'>641</span>Restriction of Vivisection, which has been drawn up by -physiologists, no doubt in part, in the interest of physiological -science, but also in part, no doubt in the interest of humanity. -The contents of this Bill are the best answer which it is -possible to give to the ignorant attack made in a daily -contemporary on Tuesday on Lord Henniker’s Bill, introduced -into the House of Lords last week. The two Bills -differ in principle only on one important point. Both of -them clearly have been maturely considered by men of -science as well as by humanitarians. Both of them assume -the great and increasing character of the evil which has to -be dealt with. Both of them approach that evil in the -same manner, by insisting that scientific experiments -which are painful to animals shall be tried only on the -avowed responsibility of men of the highest education, -whose right to try them may be withdrawn if it be -abused. Both of them aim at compelling the physiologists -who are permitted to try such experiments at all, to use -anæsthetics throughout the experiment, whenever the use of -anæsthetics is not fatal to the investigation itself.... -The Bills differ, however, on a most important point. It is -certain that all the contempt showered on Lord Henniker’s -Bill by the ignorant assailants of the humanitarian party -might equally have been showered on Dr. Lyon Playfair’s. -But Lord Henniker’s Bill contemplates making physiological -and pathological experiments on living animals, even under -complete anæsthesia, illegal, except under the same responsibility -and on the same conditions as those experiments -which are not, and cannot be, conducted under complete -anæsthesia,—while Dr. Lyon Playfair leaves all experiments -conducted under anæsthetics,—and will practically, though -not theoretically, leave, we fear, those which only <span class='fss'>PROFESS</span> -to be so conducted (a very different thing),—as utterly -without restriction as they now are. Indeed, it attempts -no sort of limitation upon them. If a whole hecatomb of -guinea-pigs, or even dogs, were known to be imported, and -their carcases exported daily from the private house of any -man who declared that he <em>always used anæsthetics</em>, Dr. -<span class='pageno' id='Page_642'>642</span>Playfair’s Bill provides, we believe, no sort of machinery -by which the truth of his assertion could be even -tested.... It is, however, no small matter to have -obtained this clear admission on scientific authority that the -victimisation of animals in the interest of science is an evil -of a growing and serious kind which needs legislative -interference, and calls for at least the threat of serious -penalties....”</p> - -<p class='c006'>In short, the Bill promoted by the physiologists and -Mr. Darwin, was, like the Resolutions of the Liverpool -British Association, a “Pious Opinion” or <i><span lang="la" xml:lang="la">Brutum fulmen</span></i>. -Nothing more.</p> - -<p class='c007'>The Royal Commission on Vivisection was issued, as I -have said, on the 22nd June, 1875, and the <cite>Report</cite> was -dated January 8th, 1876. The intervening months were -filled with anxiety. I heard constantly all that went on at -the Commission, and my hopes and fears rose and fell week -by week. Of the constitution of the Commission much -might be said. Writing of it in the <cite>British Friend</cite>, May, -1876, the late Mr. J. B. Firth, M.P., Q.C., remarked:—</p> - -<p class='c007'>“If it were possible for a Royal Commission to be -appointed to inquire into the practice of Thuggee, I should -have very little confidence in their report if one-third of the -Commissioners were prominent practisers of the art. On -the same principle the constitution of this Commission is -open to the observation that it included two notorious -advocates of vivisection, Dr. Erichsen and Professor Huxley, -both of whom had to ‘explain’ their writings and practices -in connection with it, in the course of the inquiry.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>Certain it is, as I heard at the time, and as anyone may -verify by looking over the <cite>Minutes of Evidence</cite>, these two -able gentlemen acted, not as Judges on the Bench examining -evidence dispassionately, but as exceedingly vigorous and -keen-eyed Counsel for the Physiologists. On the humanitarian -<span class='pageno' id='Page_643'>643</span>side there was but a single pronounced opponent of Vivisection,—Mr. -R. H. Hutton,—who nobly sacrificed his time -for half a year to doing all that was in the power of a single -Member of the Commission, and he a layman, to elicit the -truth concerning the alleged cruelty of the practice. At the -end, after receiving a mass of evidence in answer to 3,764 -questions from 53 witnesses, the Commission reported -distinctly <em>in favour of legislative interference</em>. They say:—</p> - -<p class='c008'>“Even if the weight of authority on the side of legislative -interference had been less considerable, we should have -thought ourselves called upon to recommend it by the -reason of the thing. It is manifest that the practice is, -from its very nature, liable to great abuse, and that since it -is impossible for society to entertain the idea of putting an -end to it, it ought to be subjected to due regulation and -control.... It is not to be doubted that inhumanity -may be found in persons of very high position as physiologists.... -Beside the cases in which inhumanity exists, we -are satisfied that there are others in which carelessness -and indifference prevail to an extent sufficient to form a -ground for legislative interference.”</p> - -<p class='c006'>Yet in the face of these and other weighty sentences to -the same purpose, it has been persistently asserted that the -Royal Commission <em>exonerated</em> English physiologists from all -charge of cruelty! In Mr. Darwin’s celebrated letter to -Professor Holmgren, of Upsala, published in the <cite>Times</cite>, -April, 1881, he said: “The investigation of the matter by a -Royal Commission proved that the accusations made against -our English physiologists <em>were false</em>.” Commenting on this -letter the <cite>Spectator</cite>, April 23rd, 1881 (doubtless Mr. Hutton -himself) observed:</p> - -<p class='c008'>“The Royal Commission did not report this. They came -to no such conclusion, and though that may be Mr. Darwin’s -own inference from what they did say, it is only his inference, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_644'>644</span>not theirs. In our opinion it was proved that very great -cruelty had been practised, with hardly any appreciable -results, by more than one British physiologist.”</p> - -<p class='c006'>Nor must it be left out of sight in estimating the -disingenuousness of the advocates of vivisection, that the -above quoted sentences from the <cite>Report</cite> of the Commission -were countersigned by those representatives of Science, -Prof. Huxley and Mr. Erichsen; as were, of course, also the -subsequent paragraphs, formally recommending a measure -almost identical with Lord Carnarvon’s Bill. In spite of -this the Vivisecting clique has not ceased to assert that -English physiologists were exculpated, and to protest against -the measure which we introduced in strict accordance with that -recommendation; a measure which was even still further -mitigated, (as regarded freedom to the vivisectors,) under the -pressure of their Deputation to the Home Office, till it -became the present <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">quasi</span></i> ineffectual Act.</p> - -<p class='c007'>While the Royal Commission was still sitting in the autumn, -and when it had become obvious that much would remain to -be done before any effectual check could be placed on -Vivisection, Dr. Hoggan suggested to me that we should form -a Society to carry on the work. I abhorred Societies, and -knew only too well the huge additional labour of working the -machinery of one, over and above any direct help to the -object in view. I had hitherto worked independently and -freely, taking always the advice of the eminent men who -were so good as to counsel me at every step. But I felt that -this plan could not suffice much longer, and that the -authority of a formally constituted Society was needed to -make headway against an evil which daily revealed itself as -more formidable. Accordingly I agreed with Dr. Hoggan -that we should do well to form such a Society, he and I -being the Honorary Secretaries, <em>provided</em> we could obtain the -countenance of some men of eminence to form the nucleus. -<span class='pageno' id='Page_645'>645</span>“I will write,” I said, “to Lord Shaftesbury and to the -Archbishop of York. If they will give me their names, we -can conjure with them. If <em>not</em>, I will not undertake to form -a Society.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>I wrote that night to those two eminent persons. I -received next day from Lord Shaftesbury a telegram (which -he must have dispatched <em>instantly</em> on receiving my letter) -which answered “Yes.” Next day the post brought from -him the letter which I shall here print. The next post -brought also the letter from Archbishop Thomson. Thus -the Society consisted for two days of Lord Shaftesbury, the -Archbishop, Dr. Hoggan and myself!</p> - -<p class='c008'>“Lord Shaftesbury to Miss F. P. C.</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“St. Giles’s House, Cranbourne, Salisbury,</div> - <div class='line in20'>“November 17th, 1875.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='lg-container-l c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Dear Miss Cobbe,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c010'>“It is needful I am sure, to found a Society, in order to -have unity and persistency of action.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“I judge, by the terms of the circular, that the object of -the Society will be restriction and not prohibition.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“Possibly, this end is as much as you will be able to -attain. Prohibition, I doubt not, would be evaded; but -restriction will, I am certain, be exceeded.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“Not but that a little is better than nothing.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“But you will find many who will think with much -show of reason, that, by surrendering the principle, you -have surrendered the great argument.</p> -<div class='c034'>“Faithfully yours,      <span class='sc'>Shaftesbury</span>.”</div> - -<div class='lg-container-r c009'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Bishopthorpe, York,</div> - <div class='line in4'>“November 16th, 1875.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='lg-container-l c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Dear Miss Cobbe,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c010'>“I am quite ready to join the Society for restricting -Vivisection. I agree with you; total prohibition would be -impossible.</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“I am, yours very truly,</div> - <div class='line in16'>“<span class='sc'>W. Ebor</span>.”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c006'><span class='pageno' id='Page_646'>646</span>With these names to “conjure with,” as I have said, we -found it easy to enrol a goodly company in the ranks of our -new Society. Cardinal Manning was one of the first to join -us. On the 2nd Dec., 1875, the first Committee meeting -was held in the house of Dr. and Mrs. Hoggan, 13, Granville -Place, Portman Square, Mr. Stansfeld taking the chair. -Mrs. Wedgwood, wife of Mr. Hensleigh Wedgwood and -mother of my friend Miss Julia Wedgwood, was present at -that first meeting, and (so long as her health permitted,) at -those which followed,—a worthy example of “heredity,” -since her father and mother, Sir James and Lady Mackintosh, -had been among the principal supporters of Richard Martin, -and founders of the R.S.P.C.A. At the third meeting of the -Committee, on Feb. 18th, 1876, Lord Shaftesbury took the -Chair, for the first time, and again he took it on the occasion -of a memorable meeting on the 1st of March, but vacated it -on the arrival of Archbishop Thomson, who proved to be -an admirably efficient Chairman. We had a serious job, -that day; that of discussing the “<cite>Statement</cite>” of our position -and objects. I had drafted this <cite>Statement</cite> in preparation, -as well as compiled from the <cite>Minutes of Evidence</cite>, a series of -Extracts exhibiting the extension and abuses of Vivisection; -and also evidence regarding Anæsthetics and regarding foreign -physiologists. These appendices were all accepted and appear -in the pamphlet; but my <cite>Statement</cite> was most minutely -debated, clause for clause, and at last adopted, not without -several modifications. After summarising the Report of the -Royal Commission which “has been in some respects seriously -misconstrued” (I might add, persistently misconstrued ever -since) and also Mr. Hutton’s independent <cite>Report</cite>, in which -he desired that the “Household Animals” should be exempted -from Vivisection, the Committee carefully criticise this -Report and express their confident hope that “a Bill may -be introduced immediately by Government to carry out the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_647'>647</span>recommendations of the Commission.” They observe, in -conclusion, that they find “a just summary of their sentiments -in Mr. Hutton’s expression of his view:—</p> - -<p class='c008'>“‘The measure will not at all satisfy my own conceptions -of the needs of the case, unless it result in putting an end to -all experiments involving not merely torture <em>but anything at -all approaching thereto</em>.’”</p> - -<p class='c006'>Such was our attitude at that memorable date when we -commenced the regular steady work which has now gone on -for just 18 years. On the 2nd or 3rd of March I took -possession of the offices where so large a part of my life was -henceforth to be spent. When my kind colleagues had left -me and I locked the outer door of the offices and knew -myself to be alone, I resolved very seriously to devote myself, -so long as might be needful, to this work of trying to save -God’s poor creatures from their intolerable doom; and I -resolved “never to go to bed at night leaving a stone unturned -which might help to stop Vivisection.” I believe I have kept -that resolution. I commend it to other workers.</p> - -<p class='c007'>It may interest the reader to know who were the persons -then actually aiding and supporting our movement.</p> - -<p class='c007'>There was,—first and most important,—my colleague and -friend Dr. George Hoggan, who laboured incessantly (and -wholly gratuitously) for the cause. His wife, Dr. Frances -Hoggan, who I am thankful to say, still survives, was also -a most useful member of the Committee.</p> - -<p class='c007'>The other Members of the Executive were: Sir Frederick -Elliot, K.C.M.G. who had long been Permanent Secretary at -the Colonial Office; Major-General Colin Mackenzie, a noble old -hero of the Afghan wars and the Mutiny; Mr. Leslie Stephen; -Mrs. Hensleigh Wedgwood; Dr. Vaughan (the late Master -of the Temple); the Countess of Portsmouth; the Countess -of Camperdown; my friend Miss Lloyd; my cousin, Mr. -Locke, M.P., Q.C.; Mr. William Shaen; Col. (now -<span class='pageno' id='Page_648'>648</span>Sir Evelyn) Wood; and Mr. Edward de Fonblanque. The -latter gentleman was one of the most useful members of -the Committee, whose retirement three years later after our -adoption of a more advanced policy, I have never ceased -to regret.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Beside these Members of the Committee we had then as -Vice-Presidents, the Archbishop of York, the Marquis of -Bute, Cardinal Manning, Lord Portsmouth, Mr. Cowper-Temple -(afterwards Lord Mount-Temple), Right Hon. James -Stansfeld, Lord Shaftesbury, the Bishop of Gloucester and -Bristol (Dr. Ellicott), the Bishop of Manchester (Dr. Fraser), -Lord Chief Justice Coleridge, and the Lord Chief Baron, -Sir Fitzroy Kelly.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Dr. Hoggan had invited Mr. Spurgeon to join our Society, -but received from him the following reply:—</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c009'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Rev. C. H. Spurgeon to Dr. Hoggan.</div> - <div class='line in12'>“Nightingale Lane, Clapham,</div> - <div class='line in32'>“Dec. 24th.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='lg-container-l c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Dear Sir,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c010'>“I do not like to become an officer of a Society for I have -no time to attend to the duties of such an office, and it -strikes me as a false system which is now so general, which -allows names to appear on Committees and requires no -service from the individuals.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“In all efforts to spare animals from needless pain I wish -you the utmost success. There are cases in which they -<em>must</em> suffer, as we also must, but not one pang ought to be -endured by them from which we can screen them.</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Yours heartily,</div> - <div class='line in8'>“<span class='sc'>C. H. Spurgeon</span>.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c010'>“I shall aid your effort in my own way.”</p> - -<p class='c006'>Mr. Spurgeon wrote on one occasion a letter to Lord -Shaftesbury to be read from the Chair at a Meeting; but, much -as we wished to use it, the extreme strength of the <em>expletives</em> -was considered to transgress the borders of expediency!</p> - -<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_649'>649</span>We invited Prof. Rolleston to give us his support. The -following was his reply:—</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c009'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Oxford, Nov. 28th, 1875.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='lg-container-l c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Dear Miss Cobbe,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c010'>“I would have answered your letter before had I been -able to make up my mind to do as you ask. This, however, -I think I should not, in the interests of the line of legislation -which I advocate, do well to do. I believe I speak with -greater weight from keeping an independent position. -And as I have a great desire to throw away none of the -advantages which that position gives me, I am obliged to -decline your invitation. Allow me to say that I am much -gratified by your writing to ask me to do what I decline to -do out of considerations of expediency.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“It is also a great pleasure to me to think that what I -said at Bristol has met with your approbation. The bearing -of parts at the end or towards the end of that Address upon -the future of Vivisection was, I hope, tolerably obvious.</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“I am,</div> - <div class='line in4'>“Yours very truly,</div> - <div class='line in8'>“<span class='sc'>George Rolleston</span>.”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c006'>The newly-formed Society had been clumsily named by -Dr. Hoggan: “The <em>Society for Protection of Animals liable to -Vivisection</em>,” and its aim was: “<em>to obtain the greatest possible -protection for animals liable to vivisection</em>.” I was obliged to -yield to my colleague as regarded this awkward title which -exactly defined the position he desired to take up; but it was a -constant source of worry and loss to us. As soon as possible, -however, after we had taken our offices in Victoria Street, I -called our Society, unofficially and for popular use, simply -“<em>The Victoria Street Society</em>.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>These offices are large and handsome, and so conveniently -situated that the Society has retained them ever since. They -are on the first floor of a house—formerly numbered “1,” -now numbered “20,”—in Victoria Street, ten or eleven -<span class='pageno' id='Page_650'>650</span>doors up the street from the Broad Sanctuary and the -Westminster Palace Hotel; and with Westminster Abbey and -the Towers of the Houses of Parliament in view from the -street door. The offices contain an ante-room (now piled -with our papers), a large airy room with two windows for -the clerks, a Secretary’s private room, and a spacious and -lightsome Committee-room with three windows. Out of this -last another room was accessible, which at one time was -taken for my especial use. I put up bookshelves, pictures, -curtains, and various little feminine relaxations, and thus -covered, as far as might be, the frightful character of our work, -so that friends should find our office no painful place to -visit.</p> - -<p class='c007'>We did not let the grass grow under our feet after we had -settled down in these offices. On the 20th March there went -out from them to the neighbouring Home Office a Deputation -to Mr. (now Lord) Cross to urge the Government to bring -in a Bill in accordance with the recommendations of the -Royal Commission. The Deputation was headed by Lord -Shaftesbury, and included the Earl of Minto, Cardinal -Manning, Mr. Froude, Mr. Mundella, Sir Frederick Elliot, -Col. Evelyn Wood, and Mr. Cowper-Temple. Mr. Carlyle -was to have joined the Deputation, but held back sooner than -accompany the Cardinal.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Chief Baron Kelly wrote us the following cordial expressions -of regret for non-attendance:—</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c009'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Western Circuit, Winchester,</div> - <div class='line in16'>“4th March, 1876.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c010'>“The Lord Chief Baron presents his compliments to Miss -Cobbe, and very greatly regrets that, being engaged at the -assize on the Western Circuit until nearly the middle of -April, he will be unable to accompany the deputation to -Mr. Cross on the subject of Vivisection, to which, however, -he earnestly wishes success.”</p> - -<p class='c006'><span class='pageno' id='Page_651'>651</span>We had invited Canon Liddon, who was a subscriber to -our funds from the first, to join this Deputation, but received -from him the following reply:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c009'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Amen Court, 6th March, 1876.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='lg-container-l c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“My dear Miss Cobbe,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c010'>“I should be sincerely glad to be able to obey your kind -wishes in the matter of the proposed Deputation, if I could. -But I am unable to be in London again between to-morrow -and April 1st, and this, I fear will make it impossible.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“I shall be sincerely glad to hear that the Deputation -succeeds in persuading the Home Secretary to make legislation -on the Report of the Vivisection Commission a Government -question. Mr. Hutton appeared to me to resist the —— criticisms -of the <cite>Times</cite> on the Report very admirably!</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Thanking you for your note,</div> - <div class='line in8'>“I am, my dear Miss Cobbe,</div> - <div class='line in20'>“Yours very truly,</div> - <div class='line in28'>“<span class='sc'>H. P. Liddon</span>.”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c006'>A few weeks afterwards when I invited him to attend a -meeting he wrote again a letter, to the last sentence of which -I desire to call attention as embodying the opinion of this -eminent man on the <em>human</em> moral interest involved in our -crusade.</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c009'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Christ Church, Oxford,</div> - <div class='line in12'>“May 22nd, 1876.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='lg-container-l c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“My dear Miss Cobbe,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c010'>“I sincerely wish that I could obey your summons. But, -as a professor here, I have public duties on Thursday, the -1st of June, which I cannot decline or transfer to other hands.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“I think I told you I was a useless person for these good -purposes; and so, you see, it is.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“Still you are very well off in the way of speakers, and -will not miss such a person as I. Heartily do I hope that -the meeting may reward the trouble you have taken about -it by strengthening Lord Carnarvon’s hands. The cause -<span class='pageno' id='Page_652'>652</span>you have at heart is of <em>even greater importance to human -character than to the physical comfort of those of our ‘fellow -creatures’ who are most immediately concerned</em>.</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“I am, my dear Miss Cobbe,</div> - <div class='line in16'>“Yours very truly,</div> - <div class='line in24'>“<span class='sc'>H. P. Liddon</span>.”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c006'>The Deputation of March 20th to the Home Office was most -favourably received, and our Society was invited to submit -to Government suggestions respecting the provisions of the -intended Bill. These suggestions were framed at a Committee -held at our office on the 30th March, and they were adopted -by Government after being approved by its official advisers, -and presented by Lord Carnarvon in the House of Lords. -The second reading took place on the 22nd May. On that -occasion Lord Coleridge made a most judicious speech in -defence of the Bill, and Lord Shaftesbury the long and -beautiful one reprinted in our pamphlet, “<em>In Memoriam</em>.” -The next morning all the newspapers came out with leading -articles in praise of the Bill. It is hard now to realise -that, previous to undergoing the medical pressure which -has twisted the minds—(or at least the <em>pens</em>)—of three-fourths -of the press, even the great paper which has been -our relentless opponent for 17 years was then our cordial -supporter. Everything at that time looked fair for us. The -Bill, as we had drafted it, did, practically, fulfil Mr. Hutton’s -aspiration. No experiment whatever under any circumstances -was permitted on a dog, cat, horse, ass, or mule; nor any on any -other animal except under conditions of complete anæsthesia -from beginning to end. The Bill included Licenses, but no -Certificates dispensing with the above provisions. Our hopes -of carrying this bill seemed amply justified by the reception -it received from the House of Lords and the Press; and -from a great Conference of the R.S.P.C.A. and its branches, -held on the 23rd May. We held our first General Meeting -<span class='pageno' id='Page_653'>653</span>at Westminster Palace Hotel on the 1st June and resolutions -in support of the Bill were passed enthusiastically; Lord -Shaftesbury presiding, and the Marquis of Bute, Lord -Glasgow, Cardinal Manning and others speaking with great -spirit. It only needed, to all appearance, that the Bill -should be pushed through its final stage in the Lords and -sent down to the House of Commons, to secure its passage -intact that same Session.</p> - -<p class='c007'>At this most critical moment, and through the whole month -of June, Lord Carnarvon, in whose hands the Bill lay, was -drawn away from London and occupied by the illness and -death of Lady Carnarvon. No words can tell the anxiety -and alarm this occasioned us, when we learned that a large -section of the medical profession, which had so far seemed -quiescent if not approving, had been roused by their chief -wire-puller into a state of exasperation at the supposed -“insult” of proposing to submit them to legal control in -experimenting on living animals, (as they were already -subjected to it, by the Anatomy Act, in dissecting dead bodies). -These doctors, to the number of 3,000, signed a Memorial to -the Home Secretary, calling on him to modify the Bill so as -practically to reverse its character, and make it a measure, no -longer protecting vivisected animals from torture, but -vivisectors from prosecution under Martin’s Act. This -Memorial was presented on the 10th July by a Deputation, -variously estimated at 300 and at 800 doctors, who, in either -case, were sufficiently numerous to overflow the purlieus of -the Home Office and to overawe Mr. Cross. On the 10th of -August the Bill—essentially altered in submission to the -medical memorialists—was brought by Mr. Cross into the -House of Commons, and was read a second time. On the -15th August, 1876, it received the Royal Assent and became -the Act 39–40 Vict., c. 77, commonly called the “Vivisection -Act.”</p> - -<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_654'>654</span>The world has never seemed to me quite the same since -that dreadful time. My hopes had been raised so high to be -dashed so low as even to make me fear that I had done harm -instead of good, and brought fresh danger to the hapless -brutes for whose sake, as I realised more and more their -agonies, I would have gladly died. I was baffled in an aim -nearer to my heart than any other had ever been, and for -which I had strained every nerve for many months; and of -all the hundreds of people who had seemed to sympathise -and had signed our Memorials and petitions, there were none -to say: “<em>This shall not be!</em>” Justice and Mercy seemed to -have gone from the earth.</p> - -<p class='c007'>We left London,—the Session and the summer being over, -and came as usual to Wales; but our enjoyment of the -beauty of this lovely land had in great measure vanished. -Even after twenty years my friend and I look back to our -joyous summers before that miserable one, and say, “Ah! -<em>that</em> was when we knew very little of Vivisection.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>In my despair I wrote several letters of bitter reproach to -the friends in Parliament who had allowed our Bill to be so -mutilated as that the <cite>British Medical Journal</cite> crowed over -it, as affording full liberty to “science”; and I also wrote to -several newspapers saying that after this failure to obtain a -reasonable restrictive Bill, I, for one, should labour henceforth -to obtain total prohibition. In reply to my letter -(I fear a very petulant one) Lord Shaftesbury wrote me this -full and important explanation which I commend to the -careful reading of such of our friends as desire now to rescind -the Act of 1876.</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c009'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Castle Wemyss, Wemyss Bay, N.B.,</div> - <div class='line in24'>“Aug. 16th, 1876.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='lg-container-l c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Dear Miss Cobbe,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c010'>“Until we shall have seen the Act in print we cannot -form a just estimate of the force of the amendments. Some -<span class='pageno' id='Page_655'>655</span>few, so I see by the papers, were introduced in Committee, -after my last interview with Mr. Cross; but of their -character I know nothing. I am disposed, however, to -believe that he would not have admitted anything of real -importance.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“Mr. Cross’s difficulties were very great at all times; -but they increased much as the Session was drawing to a -close. The want of time, the extreme pressure of business, -the active malignity of the Scientific men, and the -indifference of his Colleagues, left the Secretary of State in -a very weak and embarrassing position.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“Your letter, which I have just received, asks whether -‘the Bill cannot be turned out in the House of Lords?’ -The reply is that, whether advisable or unadvisable, it -cannot now be done, for the Parliament is prorogued.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“In the Bill as submitted to me, just before the second -reading at a final interview with Mr. Cross, Mr. Holt and -Lord Cardwell being present, some changes were made -which I by no means approved. But the question, then, -was simply, ‘The Bill as propounded, or no Bill,’ for Mr. -Cross stoutly maintained that, without the alterations -suggested, he had no hope of carrying anything at all. I -reverted, therefore, to my first opinion, stated at the very -commencement of my co-operation with your Committee, -that it was of great importance, nay indispensable, to obtain -a Bill, however imperfect, which should condemn the -practice, put a limit on the exercise of it, and give us a -foundation on which to build amendments hereafter as -evidence and opportunity shall be offered to us.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“The Bill is of that character. I apprehended that if -there were no Bill then, there would be none at any time. -No private Member, I believe, and I still believe, could -undertake such a measure with even a shadow of hope -and there was more than doubt, whether a Secretary of -State would, again, entangle himself with so bitter -and so wearisome a question in the face of all Science, -and the antipathies of most of his Colleagues. Public -sympathy would have declined, and would not have easily -<span class='pageno' id='Page_656'>656</span>been aroused a second time. The public sympathy -at its best, was only noisy, and not effective; and this -assertion is proved by the few signatures to petitions, -compared with the professed feeling; and by the extreme -difficulty to raise any funds in proportion to the exigency -of the case.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“The evidence, too, given to the Commission, which -was, after all, our main reliance, would have grown stale; -and, the Physiologists would have taken good care that, -for some time at least, nothing should transpire to take its -place.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“We have gained an enactment that Experiments shall -be performed by none but Licensed Persons, thereby -excluding, should the Act be well enforced, the host of -young students and their bed-chamber practices.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“We have gained an enactment that all experiments -shall be performed under the influence of Anæsthetics;<a id='r33' /><a href='#f33' class='c013'><sup>[33]</sup></a> -and, thirdly, the greatest enactment of all, that the -Secretary of State is responsible for the due execution of -all these provisions in Parliament, and in his Office, instead -of the College of Physicians, or some such unreachable, and -intangible Body, as many Secretaries of State, except -Mr. Cross, would have evasively, appointed.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“This provision under the Statutes, so unexpected, -and valuable, could have been suggested to Parliament -by a Secretary of State only, and I feel sure that no -Secretary of State in any ‘Liberal’ Administration would -listen to the proposal; and I very much doubt whether -Mr. Cross himself, had his present Bill been rejected, would -have, in the case of a new Bill, repeated his offer of making -it a measure for which the Cabinet has to answer.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“I have seen your letter to the <cite>Echo</cite> and the <cite>Daily News</cite>. -You are quite justified in your determination to agitate the -country on the subject of vivisection, and obtain, if it be -<span class='pageno' id='Page_657'>657</span>possible, the total abolition of it. Such an issue may be -within reach, and it is only by experience that we can ascertain -how far such a blessed consummation is practicable. -You will have a good deal of sympathy with your efforts, -and from no one more than from myself.</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Yours truly,</div> - <div class='line in12'>“<span class='sc'>Shaftesbury</span>.”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c006'>When we all returned to town in October, the Committee -placed on the <cite>Minutes</cite> a letter from me, saying that I could -only retain the office of Honorary Secretary if the Society -should adopt the principle of total prohibition. A circular -was sent out calling for votes on the point, and by the -22nd November, 1876, the Resolution was carried, “That the -Society would watch the existing Act with a view to the -enforcement of its restrictions and its extension to the total -prohibition of painful experiments on animals.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>In February, 1877, the Committee, to my satisfaction, -unanimously agreed to support Mr. Holt’s Bill for total -prohibition; and in aid thereof exhibited on the hoardings of -London 1,700 handbills and 300 posters, which were enlarged -reproductions of the illustrations of vivisection from the -Physiological Hand-books. These posters certainly were -more effective than as many thousands of speeches and -pamphlets; and the indignation of the scientific party -sufficiently proved that such was the case. On the 27th April -we held our second annual meeting in support of Mr. Holt’s -Bill, and had for speakers Lord Shaftesbury, the good Bishop -of Winchester Dr. Harold-Browne, (now, alas! dead), Lord -Mount-Temple, Prof. Sheldon Amos, Cardinal Manning, and -Prince Lucien Bonaparte. The last remarkable man and -erudite scholar (who most closely resembled his uncle in -person, if we could imagine Napoleon I. commanding only -armies <em>of books</em>!), was, from first to last, a warm friend of -<span class='pageno' id='Page_658'>658</span>our cause. After this meeting we elected him Vice-President -and here is his letter of acknowledgment:—</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c009'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Prince Lucien Bonaparte to Miss F. P. C.</div> - <div class='line in12'>“6, Norfolk Terrace, Bayswater,</div> - <div class='line in32'>“4th May, 1877.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='lg-container-l c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“My dear Miss Cobbe,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c010'>“I feel highly honoured at being nominated one of the -Vice-Presidents of the Society for Protection of Animals -liable to vivisection, and ask you to return the Committee -my best thanks.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“I am a great admirer of a Society which, like yours, -opposes so strongly the abominable practice of vivisection, -because for my own part, I consider it, even in its mildest -form, as a shame to Science, a dishonour to modern -civilisation, and (what I think more important) a great -offence against the law of God.</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Believe me, my dear Miss Cobbe,</div> - <div class='line in20'>“Yours very sincerely,</div> - <div class='line in28'>“<span class='sc'>L. Bonaparte</span>.”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c006'>Here are some further letters concerned with that meeting -or written to me soon afterwards:—</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c009'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Christ Church, Oxford,</div> - <div class='line'>“March 26th, 1877.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='lg-container-l c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“My dear Miss Cobbe,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c010'>“I beg to thank you sincerely for your kind letter.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“So far as I can see there is, I fear, little chance of my -being at liberty to take part in the proceedings on the -27th of April.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“However, with the names which you announce, you -will be more than able to dispense with any assistance -that I could lend to the common object. You will, I trust, -be able to strengthen Mr. Holt’s hands. If what I have -heard of his measure is at all accurate, it seems to be at -once moderate and efficient.</p> - -<p class='c010'><span class='pageno' id='Page_659'>659</span>“I was much struck by an observation which you were, -I think, said to have made the other day at Bristol, to the -effect that as matters now stand everything depends upon -the discretion, or rather, upon the moral sympathies of the -Home Secretary. Mr. Cross, I believe, would always do -well in all such matters. But it does not do to reckon -with the Roman Empire as if it were always to be governed -by a Marcus Aurelius.</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“I am, my dear Miss Cobbe,</div> - <div class='line in16'>“Yours very truly,</div> - <div class='line in24'>“<span class='sc'>H. P. Liddon</span>.”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='lg-container-r c009'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“House of Commons,</div> - <div class='line in12'>“26th March.</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Dear Miss Cobbe,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c010'>“I am sorry I cannot undertake to speak at your meeting -on the 27th April. I am not sure that I shall be in London -on that day, but request you to send me any notice of the -meeting.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“My time and strength are somewhat overtaxed owing -to an inability, and I may add indisposition, to say No when -I think I may be useful. I am, however, I can assure you, -in sympathy with you in your attempt to put down torture -in every form.</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“I am, yours very sincerely,</div> - <div class='line in16'>“<span class='sc'>S. Morley</span>.”</div> - <div class='line in14'>(Samuel Morley, M.P.)</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='lg-container-l c009'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“My dear Miss Cobbe,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c010'>“I will come in at some stage of your proceedings. I am -bound first to Convocation—and am engaged at Kingston -before 5.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“What I should like would be to thank Lord Shaftesbury; -but this must depend on the time that I come, and -<em>that</em> must depend on the exigencies of Convocation.</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Yours truly,</div> - <div class='line in8'>“<span class='sc'>A. P. Stanley</span>.</div> - <div class='line in4'>(The Dean of Westminster.)</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='lg-container-l c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“April 25th, 1877.”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='lg-container-l c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'><span class='pageno' id='Page_660'>660</span>“My dear Miss Cobbe,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c010'>“I am very sorry that through absence from home my -answer to your note has been delayed. I shall not be able -to take part in your meeting on the 27th, for I am not in a -state of health to take part in any public meeting; but if I -am at all able I should like much to attend it and hear for -myself the views of the speakers. I have not expressed -publicly any opinion on the question of Vivisection, being -anxious at first to await the determination of the -Commission, and then to see how the restrictions were -likely to work.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“I confess that my own mind is leaning very strongly to -the conclusion that there is no safe, right course other than -entire prohibition. The more I think of it the more I -dread the brutality which in spite of the influence of the -best men will inevitably be developed in our young -Experimenters, in these days of almost fanatical devotion -to scientific research. It seems to me to more than -counterbalance the physical advantages to our sick what -may grow out of the practice of vivisection.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“And I am very sceptical about these physical advantages. -I doubt whether the secrets of nature can -be successfully discovered by torture, any more than the -secrets of hearts. We have abandoned the one endeavour, -finding the results to be by no means worth the cost. I am -persuaded that we shall soon, for the same reason, have to -abandon the other.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“I am not able, as I say, to take part in a meeting, but -as soon as I am able I intend to preach on the subject, and -if you can forward to me any information which will be -useful I shall be much obliged to you. Believe me</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Ever my dear Miss Cobbe,</div> - <div class='line in8'>“Yours very faithfully,</div> - <div class='line in16'>“<span class='sc'>J. Baldwin Brown</span>.”</div> - <div class='line in20'>(Rev. J. B. Brown.)</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c006'>By this time there were two other Anti-vivisection -Societies in London, beside Mr. Jesse’s Society at Macclesfield, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_661'>661</span>all working for total prohibition; and though of course -we had various small difficulties and rivalries in the course -of time, yet practically we all helped each other and the cause. -Eventually the <em>International Society</em>, of which Mr. and Mrs. -Adlam were the spirited leaders, coalesced with ours and -added to our Committee several of its most valuable members -including our present much respected Chairman, Mr. Ernest -Bell. The <em>London Anti-vivisection Society</em>, though I expended -all my blandishments on it, has never consented to amalgamation, -but has done a great work of its own for which we -have all reason to hold it in honour.</p> - -<p class='c007'>The revolt against the cruelties of science spread also about -this time to the continent. Baron Weber read his <cite>Torture -Chamber of Science</cite> in Dresden, and created thereby a great -sensation, followed by the formation of the German League, -of which he is President, and the foundation of its organ, the -<cite><span lang="de" xml:lang="de">Thier-und-Menschen-Freund</span></cite>, edited by Dr. Paul Förster, now -a member of the Reichstag. Other Anti-vivisection Societies -were founded then or in subsequent years in Hanover, -in Berlin, and in Stockholm. In Copenhagen those devoted -friends of animals, M. and Mdme. Lembcké, had long contended -vigorously against the local vivisector, Panum. In -Italy the Florence <i><span lang="it" xml:lang="it">Società Protettrice</span></i>, of which our Queen is -Patroness and Countess Baldelli the indefatigable Hon. Sec., -has steadily worked against vivisection from its foundation; -and so has the Torinese Society of which Dr. Riboli is President -and Countess Biandrate Morelli the leading member. -In Riga there has also been a persevering movement against -Vivisection by the excellent Society of which the <cite><span lang="de" xml:lang="de">Anwalt der -Thiere</span></cite> is the (first-class) organ, and Madame V. Schilling the -presiding spirit.</p> - -<p class='c007'>In short, by the end of the decade, though we had been so -cruelly defeated, we were conscious that our movement had -extended and had become to all appearance one of those -<span class='pageno' id='Page_662'>662</span>permanent agitations, which, once begun, go on till the abuses -which aroused them are abolished. In America the movement -only took definite shape in February, 1883, when, under the -auspices of the indefatigable Mrs. White, the <em>American Anti-vivisection -Society</em> was founded at Philadelphia; to be -followed up by its most flourishing Illinois Branch, carried -on with immense spirit by Mrs. Fairchild Allen. Mr. Peabody -and Mr. Greene have since established at Boston the <em>New -England Anti-vivisection Society</em>, which has already become -one of our most powerful allies.</p> - -<p class='c007'>On the 2nd May, Mr. Holt’s Bill for total prohibition -was debated in the House of Commons, and on a division -there were 83 votes in its favour and 222 against it.</p> - -<p class='c007'>At last the Committee of the Victoria Street Society -formally adopted the thoroughgoing policy; and at a Meeting, -August 7th, 1878, resolved “to appeal henceforth to public -opinion in favour of the total prohibition of Vivisection.” -We then changed our title to that of the <em>Society for Protection -of Animals from Vivisection</em>. Dr. Hoggan and his wife, Mrs. -Hoggan, M.D., and also Mr. de Fonblanque retired from the -Committee with cordial goodwill on both sides, and the Archbishop -of York withdrew from the Vice-Presidency. But, -beside these losses, I do not believe that we had any others, -and there was soon a large batch of fresh recruits of new -Members who had long resented our previous half-hearted -policy,—as they considered it to have been.</p> - -<p class='c007'>For my own part I had accepted from the outset the -assurance I received on all hands that a Bill for the total -prohibition of Vivisection had not the remotest chance of -passing through Parliament in the present state of public -opinion; but that a Bill might be framed, which, proceeding -only on the grounds of Restriction, might effectually and -thoroughly exclude “<em>not only torture but anything at all -approaching thereto</em>”; and that such a Bill had every chance -<span class='pageno' id='Page_663'>663</span>of becoming law. To promote such a Bill had been my -single aim and hope, and when it had been prepared and -presented and received so favourably, it really appeared as -if we were on the right and reasonable tack; much as we -hated any concession whatever to the demands of the -vivisectors.</p> - -<p class='c007'>But when we found that the compromise which we proposed -had failed, and that our Bill providing the <em>minimum</em> -of protection for animals at all acceptable by their friends, -was twisted into a Bill protecting their tormentors, we were -driven to raise our demands to the total prohibition of the -practice, and to determine to work upon that basis for any -number of years till public opinion be ripe for our measure.</p> - -<p class='c007'>This was one aspect of our position; but there was -another. We had in truth gone into this crusade almost as -our forefathers had set off for the Holy Land, with scarcely -any knowledge of the Power which we were invading. -We knew that dreadful cruelties had been done; but we -fondly imagined they were abuses which were <em>separable</em> from -the <em>practice</em> of experimenting on living animals. We accepted -blindly the representation of Vivisection by its advocates as -a rare resource of baffled surgeons and physicians, intent -on some discovery for the immediate benefit of humanity or -the solution of some pressing and important physiological -problem; and we thought that with due and well considered -restrictions and safeguards on these occasional experiments, -we might effectually shut out cruelty. By slow, very slow -degrees, we learned that nothing was much further from the -truth than these fancy pictures of ideal Vivisection, and that -real Vivisection is <em>not</em> the occasional and regretfully-adopted -resource of a few, but the <em>daily employment</em> (Carl Vogt called -it his “daily bread”) of hundreds of men and students, devoted -to it as completely and professionally as butchers to cutting up -carcases. Finally we found that to extend protection by any -<span class='pageno' id='Page_664'>664</span>conceivable Act of Parliament to animals once delivered to the -physiologists in their laboratories, was chimerical. Vivisection, -we recognized at last to be a <em>Method of Research</em> which -may be either sanctioned or prohibited as a Method, but which -cannot be restricted efficiently by rules founded on humane -considerations wholly irrelevant to the scientific enquiry.</p> - -<p class='c007'>On the moral side also, we became profoundly impressed -with the truth of the principle to which Canon Liddon refers -in the letter I have quoted, viz., that the Anti-Vivisection cause -is “of even greater importance to human character than to -the physical comfort of our fellow-creatures who are most -immediately concerned.” As I wrote of it, about this time -in <cite>Bernard’s Martyrs</cite>:—</p> - -<p class='c008'>“We stand face to face with a <em>New Vice</em>, new, at least in -its vast modern development and the passion wherewith it -is pursued—the Vice of Scientific Cruelty. It is not the old -vice of <em>Cruelty for Cruelty’s sake</em>. It is not the careless -brutal cruelty of the half-savage drunken drover, the low -ruffian who skins living cats for gain, or of the classic -Roman or modern Spaniard, watching the sports of the -arena with fierce delight in the sight of blood and death. -The new vice is nothing of this kind.... It is not -like most other human vices, hot and thoughtless. The -man possessed by it is calm, cool, deliberate; perfectly -cognisant of what he is doing; understanding, as indeed no -other man understands, the full meaning and extent of the -waves and spasms of agony he deliberately creates. It does -not seize the ignorant or hunger-driven or brutalized -classes; but the cultivated, the well-fed, the well-dressed, -the civilized, and (it is said) the otherwise kindly disposed -and genial men of science, forming part of the most -intellectual circles in Europe. Sometimes it would appear -as we read of these horrors,—the baking alive of dogs, the -slow dissecting out of quivering nerves, and so on,—that it -would be a relief to picture the doer of such deeds as some -unhappy, half-witted wretch, hideous and filthy in mien or -<span class='pageno' id='Page_665'>665</span>stupified by drink, so that the full responsibility of a -rational and educated human being should not belong to -him, and that we might say of him, ‘He scarcely understands -what he does.’ But, alas! this <em>New Vice</em> has no -such palliations; and is exhibited not by such unhappy -outcasts, but by some of the very foremost men of our -time; men who would think scornfully of being asked to -share the butcher’s honest trade: men addicted to high -speculation on all the mysteries of the universe; men who -hope to found the Religion of the Future, and to leave the -impress of their minds upon their age, and upon generations -yet to be born.”</p> - -<p class='c006'>Regarding the matter from this point of view,—as our -leaders, the most eminent philanthropists of their generation, -Lord Shaftesbury, Lord Mount-Temple, Samuel Morley, and -Cardinal Manning, emphatically did,—the reasons for calling -for the total Prohibition of Vivisection rather than for its -Restriction became actually clearer in our eyes on the side of -the human moral interests than on that of the physical interests -of the poor brutes. We felt that so long as the practice -should be sanctioned at all, so long the Vice of Scientific -Cruelty would spring up in the fresh minds of students, and -be kept alive everywhere. It was therefore absolutely needful -to reach the germ of the disease, and not merely to endeavour -to allay the worst symptoms and outbreaks. It is the -<em>passion itself</em> which needs to be sternly suppressed; and this -can only be done by stopping altogether the practice which -is its outcome, and on which it feeds and grows.</p> - -<p class='c007'>But (say our opponents), “Are you prepared to relinquish -all the benefits which this practice brings to humanity at -large?”</p> - -<p class='c007'>Our answer to them, of course, is, that we question the -reality of those benefits altogether, but that, placing them at -their highest estimation, they are of no appreciable weight -compared to the certain moral injury done to the community -<span class='pageno' id='Page_666'>666</span>by the sanction of cruelty. The discovery of the <i><span lang="la" xml:lang="la">Elixir -Vitæ</span></i> itself would be too dearly purchased if the hearts of -men were to be rendered one degree more callous and selfish -than they are now. And that the practice of vivisection by -a body of men at the intellectual summit of our social system, -whose influence must dribble down through every stratum of -society, would infallibly tend to increase such callousness, -there can exist no reasonable doubt. For my own part, -though believing that little or nothing worth mentioning -has been discovered for the Healing Art through Vivisection, -and that Dr. Leffingwell is right in saying that “if agony -could be measured in money, no Mining Company in the -world would sanction prospecting in such barren regions,” -I yet deprecate the emphasis which many of our friends have -laid on this argument against vivisection. We have gone off -our rightful ground of the simple moral issues of the question -and have seemed to admit (what very few of us would -deliberately do) that <em>if</em> some important discovery <em>had been</em> -made by Vivisection, our case against it would be lost or -weakened. I have been so anxious to warn our friends -against this, as I think, very grave mistake in tactics, that I -circulated some time ago a little <em>Parable</em> which I may as -well summarize here:—</p> - -<p class='c008'>“A party of Filibusters once proposed to ravage a -neighbouring island, inhabited by poor and humble people -who had always been faithful servants and friends of our -country, and had in no way deserved ill-treatment. Some -friends of justice protested that the Filibusters ought to be -prohibited from carrying on their expedition, but unluckily -they did not simply arraign the moral lawfulness of the -project, but went on to discuss the <em>inexpediency</em> of the -invasion, arguing that the island was very poor and barren, -and would not repay the cost of conquest. Here the -Filibusters saw their advantage and broke in: ‘No such -thing! <em>We</em> are the only people who know anything about -<span class='pageno' id='Page_667'>667</span>the island, and we assure you it is full of mines of gold and -silver.’ ‘Bosh!’ replied the just men; ‘we defy you to -show us a single nugget.’ On this there was a good -deal of shuffling of feet among the Filibusters, and they -exhibited some glittering fragments as gold, but being tested -these proved to be worthless, and again other fragments -which they produced were traced to quite another part of the -district, far away from the island. Still it became evident -that the Filibusters would go on interminably bringing up -specimens, and some day might possibly produce one the -value of which could not be well disputed. Moreover the -Filibusters (who, like other pirates, were addicted to telling -fearful yarns) had the great advantage of talking all along -of things they had studied and seen, whereas the men of -the party of justice were imperfectly informed about the -resources of the island, having never gone thither, and thus -they were easily placed at a disadvantage and made to -appear foolish. It is true that the Filibusters had set them -on the wrong track by clamouring for the invasion on the -avowed ground of the spoil they should gather for the -nation, and they had only tried to nullify the effect of such -appeals to general selfishness by showing that there was -really no spoil to be had; and that the invasion was a -blunder as well as a crime. But in bandying such appeals -to expediency they had put themselves in the wrong box; -because <em>to discuss the value of the spoil was</em>, by implication -<em>to admit that, if it only were rich, it might possibly be justifiable -to go and seize it</em>!”</p> - -<p class='c006'>I have made this long explanation of our policy, because -I am painfully aware that among practical people and men of -the world, accustomed to compromise on public questions, our -adoption of the demand for total prohibition has placed us at -a great disadvantage as “irreconcilables;” and our movement -has appeared as the “fad” of enthusiasts and fanatics. For -the reasons I have given above I think it will appear that -while compromise offered any hope of protecting our poor -<span class='pageno' id='Page_668'>668</span>clients from the very worst cruelties, we tried it frankly and -in earnest; first in Lord Henniker’s and secondly in Lord -Carnarvon’s Bill. When this last effort failed we were left -no choice but either to abandon our dumb friends to their -fate, or demand for them the removal of the source of their -danger.</p> - -<p class='c006'>It will not be necessary for me to recount further with as -much detail the history of the Victoria Street Society, of -which I continued to act as Hon. Secretary till I finally left -London in 1884. Abundance of other friends of animals, -active and energetic, were in the field, and our movement, in -spite of a score of checks and defeats, continued to spread -and deepen. Campbell’s familiar line often occurred to me -(with a variation)—</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c018'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“The cause of <em>Mercy</em> once begun,</div> - <div class='line'>Though often lost is always won!”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c019'>On July 15th, 1879, Lord Truro brought into the House of -Lords a Bill for the Prohibition of Vivisection. It was not -promoted by us, and was in many respects unfortunately -managed, but our Society, of course, supported it, Lord -Shaftesbury made in defence of it one of his longest speeches. -I was in the House of Lords at the time, and thought that -there could never be a much more affecting sight than that of -the noble old man, who had pleaded so often in that “gilded -chamber” for men, women and children, standing there at -last in his venerable age, urging with all his simple eloquence -the claims of dumb animals to mercy. Against him rose and -spoke Lord Aberdare, actually (as he took pains to explain) -<em>as President</em> of the Society for Prevention of Cruelty to -Animals! The Bishop of Peterborough, Dr. Magee, afterwards -Archbishop of York, also made then his unhappy -speech about the rabbits and the surgical operation; (with -<span class='pageno' id='Page_669'>669</span>which the inventor of that operation, Dr. Clay, said they -had “no more to do than the Pope of Rome”). Only -16 Peers voted for the Bill, 97 against it.</p> - -<p class='c007'>On the 16th March, 1880, Mr. Holt’s Bill for total -prohibition was down for second reading in the House of -Commons, but was stopped by notice of dissolution. From -that time our friend, Sir Eardley Wilmot, took charge of a -similar Bill promoted by our Society. Notice of it was given -by Mr. Firth on the 3rd February, 1881. The second -reading was postponed, first to July 13th, next to July 27th, -and then that day was taken by government. In October of -that year (1881) Mr. R. T. Reid took charge of our Bill, on -the resignation of Sir Eardley Wilmot. The second reading -was postponed on June 28th, 1882, and not till the 4th of -April, 1883, after all these heart-breaking postponements and -failures, there was at last a Debate. Mr. Reid and Mr. -George Russell spoke admirably in favour of the Bill, but -they were talked out without a division by a whole series of -advocates of vivisection, of whom Sir William Harcourt, Mr. -Cartwright, and Lord Playfair, were most eminent. This -was the last occasion on which we have been able to obtain -a debate in either House. Mr. Reid brought in his Bill again -in 1884, but could obtain no day for a second reading.</p> - -<p class='c007'>One touching incident of these earlier years I must not -omit. Our Hon. Correspondent at the Hague, Madame van -Manen-Thesingh, had written me several letters exhibiting -remarkable good sense as well as ardent feeling. One day I -received a short note from her telling me that she was dying; -and begging me to send over some trustworthy agent at once -to the Hague, if, (as she feared) I could not go to her myself. -I telegraphed that I would be with her next day, and -accordingly sailed that night to Flushing. When I reached -her house M. van Manen received me very kindly; but as a -man half bewildered with grief. His wife’s disease was -<span class='pageno' id='Page_670'>670</span>cancer of the tongue, and she could no longer speak. She -was waiting for me in her drawing-room. It may be -imagined how affecting was our half-speechless interview. -After a time M. van Manen, at a sign from his wife, unlocked -a bureau and took out a large packet of papers. These he -placed before her on the table and then left the room. Of -course I understood this proceeding was intended to satisfy -me that it was with her husband’s entire consent that -Madame van Manen gave these papers to me. There were a -great many of them, Dutch, Russian, and American -securities of one sort or another, and she marked them off -one by one on a list which she had prepared. Then she -wrote down that she gave me all these, and also some laces -and jewellery, to further the Anti-vivisection cause in whatever -way I thought best; reserving a donation for the -<em>London Anti-vivisection Society</em>. A few efforts to convey -my gratitude and sympathy were all I could make. The -dear, noble woman stood calm and brave in the immediate -prospect of death in its most painful form, and all her -anxiety seemed to be that the poor brutes should be -effectually aided by her gifts. I left her sorrowfully, and -carried her parcel in my travelling bag, first to Amsterdam -for a day or two, and then to London, where having -summoned our Finance Committee, I placed it in their hands. -The contents (duly estimated and sold through the <em>Army and -Navy Society</em>) realised (over and above the legacy to the -<em>London Society</em>) about £1,350. With this sum we started -the <cite>Zoophilist</cite>.</p> - -<p class='c007'>The <cite>Zoophilist</cite> thus founded (May 2nd, 1881) under the -editorship of Mr. Adams, then our Secretary, has of course -been of enormous value to our cause. A new series began -on the 1st January, 1883, which I edited till my resignation -of the Hon. Secretaryship June, 1884. I also started and -edited a French journal of the same size and character, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_671'>671</span><cite><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Le Zoophile</span></cite>, from November 1st, 1883, to April, 1884, when -the undertaking was abandoned, French readers having -obviously found the paper too dry for their taste. Some of -them also remonstrated with me against the occasional -references in it to religious considerations, and I was frankly -counselled by a very influential French gentleman to <em>cease -altogether to mention God</em>,—a piece of advice which I distinctly -declined to take! The late celebrated Mdlle. Deraismes sent -me a beautiful article for <cite><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Le Zoophile</span></cite>, of which I should -have gladly availed myself if she would have allowed me the -editorial privilege of dropping about half a page of aggressive -atheism; but this, after a pretty sharp correspondence, -she refused peremptorily to do. Altogether I was evidently -out of touch both with my French staff and French readers.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Beside these two periodicals our Society from the first -issued an almost incredible multitude of pamphlets and -leaflets. I should be afraid to make any calculation of the -number of them and of the thousands of copies sent into -circulation. My own share must have exceeded four -hundred. Beside these and those of our successive -Secretaries (some extremely able) we printed valuable -pamphlets, Sermons and Speeches by Lord Shaftesbury, -Cardinal Manning, the Lord Chief Justice, the Dean of -Llandaff, Professor Ruskin, Bishop Barry, Mr. R. T. Reid, -Hon. B. Coleridge, Lady Paget, Canon Wilberforce, Mr. -Mark Thornhill, Mr. Leslie Stephen, the Bishop of Oxford -(Dr. Mackarness), Rev. F. O. Morris, Dr. Arnold, George -Macdonald, Mr. Ernest Bell, Baron Weber, and (above all -for scientific importance) Mr. Lawson Tait, Dr. Bell Taylor, -Dr. Berdoe, and Dr. Clarke.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Some of my own Anti-vivisection pamphlets were collected -a few years ago and published by Messrs. Sonnenschein in a -volume (crown 8vo., pp. 272) entitled the <cite>Modern Rack</cite>. -Several very useful books of reference were compiled by our -<span class='pageno' id='Page_672'>672</span>Secretary, Mr. Bryan, and published by the Society; notably -the <cite>Vivisectors’ Directory</cite>, the <cite>English Vivisectors’ Directory</cite>, -and <cite>Anti-vivisection Evidences</cite>. Of the <cite>Nine Circles</cite>, compiled -for me and printed (first edition) at my expense, I shall -speak presently.</p> - -<p class='c007'>I must here be allowed to say that the spirited letters, -pamphlets and articles by our medical allies, Dr. Berdoe, Dr. -Clarke, Dr. Bowie and Dr. Arnold,—above all Dr. Berdoe’s -contributions to our scientific literature, have been an immeasurable -value to our cause. The day of Dr. Berdoe’s -accession to our party at one of our annual meetings must -ever be remembered by me with gratitude. His ability, -courage and disinterestedness have been far beyond any -praise I can give them. Mr. Mark Thornhill also (a distinguished -Indian Civil Servant, author of <cite>The Indian Mutiny</cite>, -etc.), has done us invaluable service by his calm, lucid and -most convincing writings, notably “<cite>The Case against Vivisection</cite>,” -and “<cite>Experiments on Hospital Patients</cite>.” Mr. -Pirkis, R.N., has been for many years not only by his steady -attendance at the Committee but by his unwearied exertions -in preparing and disseminating anti-Pasteur literature, one of -the chief benefactors of the Society.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Among our undertakings on behalf of the victims of -science was the prosecution of Prof. Ferrier at Bow Street -on the 17th November, 1881, on the strength of certain -reports in the two leading Medical Journals. We had -ascertained that he had no license for Vivisection and yet -we read as follows in a report of the proceedings at the -International Medical Congress of 1881:—</p> - -<p class='c007'>“The members were shown two of the monkeys, a portion -of whose cortex had been removed by Professor Ferrier.”—<cite>British -Medical Journal</cite>, 20th August, 1881.</p> - -<p class='c007'>“The interest attaching to the discussion was greatly -enhanced by the fact that Professor Ferrier was willing to -<span class='pageno' id='Page_673'>673</span>exhibit two monkeys which he had operated upon some -months previously....</p> - -<p class='c007'>“In startling contrast to the dog were two monkeys -exhibited by Professor Ferrier. One of them had been -operated upon in the middle of January, the left motor area -having been destroyed.”—<cite>Lancet</cite>, October 8th, 1881.</p> - -<p class='c007'>When the reporters who had sent in their reports to the two -journals were produced, the following ludicrous examination -took place in court:—</p> - -<p class='c008'>Dr. Charles Smart Roy (the Reporter for the <cite>British -Medical Journal</cite>) was asked—</p> - -<p class='c010'>“<em>Q.</em> Did Professor Ferrier offer to exhibit two of the -monkeys upon which he had so operated?</p> - -<p class='c010'>“<em>A.</em> At the Congress, no.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“<em>Q.</em> Did he subsequently?</p> - -<p class='c010'>“<em>A.</em> No; he showed certain of the members of the -Congress two monkeys at King’s College.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“<em>Q.</em> What two monkeys?</p> - -<p class='c010'>“<em>A.</em> Two monkeys upon which an operation had been -performed.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“<em>Q.</em> By whom?</p> - -<p class='c010'>“<em>A.</em> <span class='sc'>By Professor Yeo</span>” (!!)</p> - -<p class='c010'>The Editor of the <cite>Lancet</cite>, Dr. Wakeley, was next -examined:—</p> - -<p class='c010'>Dr. Wakeley, <em>sworn, examined by Mr. Waddy</em>:—</p> - -<p class='c010'>“<cite>Q.</cite> Are you the Editor of the <cite>Lancet</cite>?</p> - -<p class='c010'>“<em>A.</em> I am.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“<em>Q.</em> Can you tell me who it was furnished his Report?</p> - -<p class='c010'>“<em>A.</em> I have the permission of the gentleman to give his -name, Professor Gamgee, of Owen’s College, Manchester.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“Mr. Waddy: What I should ask is that one might have -an opportunity of calling Professor Gamgee.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“Mr. Gully (Counsel for the defendant): We have -communicated with Professor Gamgee, and I know very -well he will say precisely what was said by Dr. Roy.”</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>—<cite>Report of Trial</cite>, November 17th, 1881.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c006'><span class='pageno' id='Page_674'>674</span>The position of the Anti-vivisectionists on the occasion -was, it must be confessed, like that of the simple countryman -in the fair. “You lay your money that Professor -Ferrier is under that cup?” “Yes, certainly! I saw -both Professor Roy and Professor Gamgee put him there -about five minutes ago.” “Here then, see! Hay Presto! -Hocus-pocus! There is only Professor Yeo!”</p> - -<p class='c007'>The group of Vivisectors and their allies, Dr. Michael -Foster, Dr. Burdon-Sanderson, Dr. Ernest Hart, Prof. -Ferrier, Dr. Roy and many more who filled the court, all -evinced the utmost hilarity at the success of the device -whereby (as a matter of necessity) the Anti-vivisection case -collapsed.</p> - -<p class='c007'>At last, in the <cite>Philosophical Transactions</cite> of the Royal -Society for 1884, the truth came to light. In the Prefatory -Note to a record of Experiments by David Ferrier and Gerald -F. Yeo, M.D., occurs the statement:—</p> - -<p class='c008'>“The facts recorded in this paper are partly the results -of a research made conjointly by Drs. Ferrier and Yeo, -aided by a grant from the British Medical Association, and -partly of a research made by Dr. Ferrier alone, aided by -a grant from the Royal Society.”</p> - -<p class='c006'>The conjoint experiences are distinguished by an asterisk; -and among them we find those of the two monkeys which -formed the subject of the trial. Thus it stands confessed,—actually -in the <cite>Transactions of the Royal Society</cite>,—that Professor -Ferrier <em>had</em> the leading share (his name always appears -first) in the experiments; and that, conjointly with Professor -Yeo, he received a grant from the British Medical Association -for performing the same!</p> - -<p class='c007'>If after this experience we have ceased to hope much from -proceedings in Courts of Justice against our antagonists, it will -not be thought surprising. The Society has been frequently -<span class='pageno' id='Page_675'>675</span>twitted with the failure of this prosecution, “for which” -our opponents say, we “had not a tittle of evidence.” -Elaborate reports in the two leading Medical journals do -not, it appears, afford even “a tittle of evidence!”<a id='r34' /><a href='#f34' class='c013'><sup>[34]</sup></a></p> - -<p class='c007'>Among other modes in which we endeavoured to push -forward our cause, have been special appeals to win over -particular churches or other bodies to adopt our principles. -Enormous numbers of circulars have been addressed in this -manner by our Society to the Clergy of the Church of -England, and it is believed that at least 4,000 are on our -side in the controversy; more than 2,000 had signed our -Memorial several years ago.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Another appeal was addressed by me personally to the -Society of Friends through the Clerks of the Monthly and -Quarterly Meetings in England and Ireland.</p> - -<p class='c007'>It has proved eminently successful, and has led to the -formation of a powerful “<em>Friends’ Anti-vivisection Society</em>,” -which lately issued an appeal to other members of their body -signed by 2,000 friends, many of them being among the most -eminent in England. This has again formed the ground of a -fresh appeal on an immense scale in Pennsylvania. Another -recent appeal to the Congregationalists has, I hear, been very -well received. On one occasion a special Petition to the -House of Lords was signed by every Unitarian Minister in -London. It was presented by the Archbishop of York, who -<span class='pageno' id='Page_676'>676</span>also presented a Memorial (for Restriction) in 1876 signed by -all the heads of Colleges in Oxford.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Another appeal which I ventured to make (printed as a large -pamphlet) to “<em>the Humane Jews of England</em>,” entreating them -to remonstrate with the 40 German Jews who are the worst -vivisectors in Europe, was, unfortunately, a deplorable -failure. Four of my own private friends, Jewesses, all -expressed their sympathy warmly, and sent handsome contributions -to our funds; but <em>not one</em> other Jew or Jewess, high -or low, rallied to us, albeit I presented pamphlets to nearly -200 recommended to me as specially well disposed. I shall -never be tempted to address the “<i><span lang="la" xml:lang="la">Humane</span></i>” Jews of England -again!</p> - -<p class='c007'>One other circular I may mention as more successful. -I sent to seven hundred Head Schoolmasters the following -Letter, with which were enclosed the pamphlets mentioned -therein:—</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c009'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Hengwrt, Dolgelly,</div> - <div class='line in8'>“September, 1886.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='lg-container-l c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Dear Sir,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c010'>“Permit me respectfully to ask your perusal of the -accompanying little paper on ‘Physiology as a Branch of -Education.’ I have written it under a strong sense of the -necessity which at present exists for some similar caution.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“The leaflet describing a ‘Specimen of Modern Physiological -Instruction,’ refers to a scene in Paris which could -not be precisely paralleled in an English school, so far as -concerns the actual torture of the animals used for -exhibition, since the Vivisection Act of 1876 provided that -anæsthetics must be used in all cases of Vivisection for -Illustration of Lectures.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“It is, however, to be seriously questioned whether even -painless, (and therefore not <em>shocking</em>), operations on living -animals, performed before boys and girls, by the enthusiastic -English admirers of Claude Bernard and Paul Bert, may -not excite in the minds of the young witnesses a curiosity -<span class='pageno' id='Page_677'>677</span>unmingled with pity, such as may subsequently prompt -them to become the most merciless experimenters; or, at -least, advocates and apologists of scientific cruelty.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“Trusting, Sir, that you will pardon the trespass of this -letter,</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“I am, sincerely yours,</div> - <div class='line in4'>“<span class='sc'>Frances Power Cobbe</span>.”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c006'>Twelve of these Head Masters, including some of the most -eminent, <em>e.g.</em>, Mr. Welldon, of Harrow; Dr. Haig, of the -Charterhouse; and the lamented Mr. Thring, of Uppingham, -wrote me most interesting letters in reply expressing approval -of my views. I shall here insert that of Mr. Thring as in -many respects noteworthy.</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c009'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Rev. Edward Thring to Miss F. P. C.</div> - <div class='line in16'>“Pitlochry, Perthshire, N.B.,</div> - <div class='line in24'>“September 6th, 1889.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='lg-container-l c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“My dear Madam,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c010'>“I received your little pamphlet on physiology, but I -hardly know what you expect me to do. My writings on -Education sufficiently show how strongly I feel on the -subject of a Literary Education; or rather how confident -I am in the judgment that there can be no worthy education -which is not based on the study of the highest thoughts of -the highest men, in the best shape.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“As for Science (most of it falsely so called) if a few -leading minds are excepted, it simply amounts, to the -average dull worker, to no more than a kind of upper shopwork, -weighing out, and labelling, and learning alphabetical -formulæ; a superior Grocery-assistant’s work; and has not -a single element of higher mental training in it. Not to -mention that it leaves out all knowledge of man and life, -and <em>therefore</em> is eminently fitted to train men for life and -its struggles! Physiology, in its worser sense adds to this -a brutalising of the average practitioner, or rather a devilish -combination of intellect-worship and cruelty at the expense -of feeling and character. For my part, if it were true that -<span class='pageno' id='Page_678'>678</span>vivisection had wonderfully relieved bodily disease for men, -if it were at the cost of lost spirits, then I should say, Let -the body perish! And it <em>is</em> at the cost of lost spirits! I do -not say that under no circumstances should an experiment -take place, but I do say that under no circumstance should -an experiment take place for teaching purposes. You will -see how decided my judgment is on this matter. I send -you three Addresses on Education, which in smaller space -than my books, will illustrate the positive side of my -experience and beliefs.</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Yours faithfully,</div> - <div class='line in8'>“<span class='sc'>Edward Thring</span>.”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c006'>Our Committee was, in all the years in which I had to do -with it, the most harmonious and friendly of which I have -ever heard. Lord Shaftesbury, who presided 49 times, and -never once failed us when he was expected, was, of course, -as all the world knows, a first-rate Chairman, getting -through an immense amount of business, while allowing every -member his, or her, legitimate rights of speech and voting. He -never showed himself, (I have been told,) anywhere more -genial and zealous than with us. Lord Mount-Temple -attended very frequently, and Lady Mount-Temple from first -to last has been one of our warmest and wisest friends. -General Colin Mackenzie, a devout and noble old soldier, -spoke little, but what he did say was always straight to the -mark, and the affectionate respect we all felt for him made -his presence delightful. Lady Portsmouth (now the -Dowager Countess) attended in those days very regularly -and Lady Camperdown has given us her unwearied help from -that time to this. I have spoken of the very valuable -services of Mr. E. de Fonblanque. In later years my friend -Rev. William Henry Channing was a great support to me. -The Cardinal was, perhaps, a little reserved, but always -carefully kind and courteous, and whatever he said bore great -<span class='pageno' id='Page_679'>679</span>weight. Lord Bute’s advice was very valuable and full of -good sense. Mr. Shaen’s legal knowledge served us often. -In brief, each member was useful. There never were any -parties or cabals in the Committee. It was my business as -Hon. Sec. (especially after my colleague, Dr. Hoggan, -retired) to lay proposals for action before the Committee. -They were sometimes rejected and often completely modified; -but we all felt that the one thing we desired was simply to -find the best way of forwarding our cause, and we were -thankful for the guidance of the wise and experienced men -who were our leaders. In short, the feelings which inspired -us round that long oak office-table were not ill befitting our -work; and now that so many of those who sat there beside -me in the earlier years have passed from earth, I find myself -pondering whether they have met “<em>Elsewhere</em>;” where, ere -long I may join them. They must form a blessed company -in any world. May my place be with <em>them</em>, please God! -rather than with the votaries of Science, in the “secular -to be.”</p> - -<p class='c007'>In later years the <em>personnel</em> of the Committee has of -course been largely renewed. Lady Mount-Temple, Lady -Camperdown and Mrs. Frank Morrison almost alone remain -from the earlier body. Miss Marston also, who originally -founded the <em>London Anti-vivisection Society</em>, has been for many -years one of the firmest and wisest friends of the Victoria -Street Society also. I have spoken above of all that we owe -to Capt. Pirkis’ unfailing help at the Committee, even while -residing far out of town; and of the zeal wherewith he and -his gifted wife founded the first of our Branches, and have -laboured in circulating our literature. Miss Monro, Miss Rees, -Miss Bryant, and Mrs. Arthur Arnold have never wearied -through many years in patiently and vigorously aiding our -work. Of our excellent chairman, Mr. Ernest Bell’s services -to the Anti-vivisection cause it is needless for me to speak -<span class='pageno' id='Page_680'>680</span>as they must be recognised gratefully by the whole party -throughout England.</p> - -<p class='c007'>We have had several successive Secretaries who sometimes -took the work much off my hands, sometimes left it to fall -very heavily on me and Miss Lloyd. On one occasion, we -two, having also lost the clerk, did the entire work of the -office for many weeks, inclusive of writing, editing, folding, -addressing, and actually <em>posting</em> an issue of the <cite>Zoophilist</cite>! -But my toils and many of my anxieties ended when I was -fortunate enough to obtain the services, as Secretary, of Mr. -Benjamin Bryan, who had long shown his genuine interest in -the cause as editor of a Northern newspaper; and, after a year -or two of work in concert with him, I felt free to leave the -whole burden on his shoulders and tendered my resignation. -The constant presence on the Committee of my long-tried -and most valued allies Mr. Ernest Bell, Capt. Pirkis, and -Miss Marston left me entirely at rest respecting the course of -our future policy in the straight direction of Prohibition.</p> - -<p class='c007'>The last event which I need record is a disagreeable incident -which occurred in the autumn of 1892. I had been seriously -ill with acute sciatica, and had been only partially relieved by a -large subcutaneous dose of morphia given me by my country -doctor. In this state, with my head still swimming and scarcely -able to sit at a table, I found myself involved in the most -acrimonious newspaper controversy which I ever remember -to have seen in any respectable journal. It will be best that -another pen than mine should tell the story, so I will quote -the calm and lucid statement of the author of the excellent -pamphlet, “<cite>Vivisection at the Folkestone Church Congress</cite>” -(page 6).</p> - -<p class='c007'>After a <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">résumé</span></i> of the notorious debate at Folkestone the -writer says:—</p> - -<p class='c008'>“The main point of attack in Mr. Victor Horsley’s paper -was a book called the <cite>Nine Circles</cite> which had been published -<span class='pageno' id='Page_681'>681</span>some months before, and contained reports of different -classes of cruel experiments on animals, both in England -and on the Continent. To this book Miss Cobbe had given -the sanction of her name, but she was not personally -responsible for any of the quotations, having intrusted the -compilation of the book to friends living in London, and -who had access to the journals and papers in which the -experiments were recorded. Mr. Horsley’s indignation -was roused because in a certain number of cases—22 out of -the 170 narratives of different classes of experiments, many -of them involving a <em>series</em>, and the use of large numbers -of animals in each—the mention of the use of morphia or -chloroform was omitted. Miss Cobbe, in a letter to the -<cite>Times</cite> of October 11th, while acknowledging that the compilers -were bound to quote the fact if stated, expressed -her conviction that such statements are misleading, because -insensibility is not and cannot be complete during the -whole period of the experiment. Dr. Berdoe also wrote in -several papers defending Miss Cobbe against Mr. Horsley’s -imputations of fraud and intent to deceive, &c., and -explaining that the compilers of the book were alone responsible -for the omissions. He added, however, a further -explanation that, as it was often the painful results, and -not the operations which caused them, that it was desired -to illustrate, and as these results lasted sometimes for -many days or weeks or months and to maintain insensibility -during that period was impossible, the omissions -were not so important after all.”...</p> - -<p class='c010'>“... The assailant, however, returned to the charge -and in a more violent style than before. His letter to the -<cite>Times</cite> of October 17th, was a tirade against Miss Cobbe, -worthy, as the <cite>Spectator</cite> remarked, only of the fifteenth -century, in which the words ‘false’ and ‘lie’ were freely -used. It was a letter of so libellous a character that it is -a matter for wonder that it obtained publication. Miss -Cobbe very naturally and properly at once retired from a -controversy conducted, as she expressed it in a letter to the -<cite>Times</cite>, ‘outside of all my experience of civilised journalism.’ -<span class='pageno' id='Page_682'>682</span>She concluded with these words: ‘I need scarcely say that -I maintain the veracity of every word of the letter which -you did me the honour to publish of the 15th inst., as well -as the <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">bona fides</span></i> of all I have spoken or written on this -or other subjects during my three-score years and ten.’”</p> - -<p class='c006'>After a week or two I went to Bath to recruit my health -after the attack of sciatica; and the first newspaper I took -up at the York Hotel, contained a still more violent attack -on me than those which had preceded it. On reading it I -walked into the telegraph office next door, wired for rooms -at my favourite South Kensington Hotel and went up to -town with my maid, presenting myself at once to our Committee, -which happened to be sitting and arranging for the -impending meeting in St. James’s Hall. “Shall I attend,” -said I, “and speak, or not? I will do exactly what you -wish.” The Committee were unanimously of opinion that -I should go to the meeting and take part in the proceedings, -and I have ever since rejoiced that I did so. It was on the -evening of October 27th. My ever kind friend, Canon Basil -Wilberforce took the chair, Col. Lockwood, Bishop Barry, -Dr. Berdoe, Mr. Bell, and Captain Pirkis were on the -platform supporting me, but above all Mr. George W. E. -Russell (then Under Secretary of State for India) made a -speech on my behalf for which I shall feel grateful to him so -long as I live. We had but slight acquaintance previously, -and I shall always feel that it was a most generous and -chivalrous action on his part to stand forth in so public a -manner as my champion on such an occasion. The audience -was more than sympathetic. There was a storm of genuine -feeling when I rose to make my explanation, and I found -it, for once, hard to command my voice. This is what I -said, as reported in the <cite>Zoophilist</cite>, November 1st, 1892:</p> - -<p class='c008'>“Now to come to the story of the <cite>Nine Circles</cite>, which I -will tell as quickly as possible. When I gave up the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_683'>683</span>Honorary Secretaryship of the Victoria Street Society six -years ago, I retired to live among the mountains in Wales; -and the chief thing which remained for me to do was to -publish as many pamphlets and papers as seemed likely to -help the cause. I have just got here my printer’s list of -the papers which I have printed in those six years. I have -made up the totals, and I find that the number in the six -years of books, pamphlets, and leaflets has been 320—that -is about one a week—and that 271,350 copies of them were -printed; 173 papers having been written by myself. (Cheers.) -Some of these were adopted by the Society and honoured -by coming out under its auspices; and others I issued quite -independently. Amongst those which I issued ‘on my own -hook,’ I am happy to say, was this book called the <cite>Nine -Circles</cite>. Therefore our dear and honoured Society is not -responsible for that book. I am alone responsible; it was -printed at my expense, and Messrs. Sonnenschein published -it for me. Therefore, I am the only person concerned with -it, and the Society has nothing to do with it. I am thankful -to hear that the revised edition will come out under the -auspices of the Society. My only privilege will be to pay -for it, and that I shall most thankfully do, in order to wipe -out the wrong I have done as concerns the present edition. -When the present book was got up, I sketched a plan of it, -and asked a lady often employed by us who was living -in London, and is a good German scholar, to make -extracts for me. She knows a great deal about the subject; -she also knows German (which I do not do sufficiently for -the purpose), and she was living in London while I was 200 -miles away. Therefore I asked her to make the extracts -of which this book is compiled, and it was afterwards -revised,—as Dr. Berdoe has told us,—by him. The book -came out; and it appears now that there are some mistakes -in it. My assistant had left out certain things which -ought to have been stated. I took it for granted,—I was -quite wrong to do so,—that all my directions had been -carried out, and I made myself responsible for the book. -Therefore, whatever error there is in the matter is mine, -<span class='pageno' id='Page_684'>684</span>and I beg that that will be quite understood. (Cheers.) -But what is all this tremendous storm which has been -raised, and this pulling of the house down about these -mistakes? Do they wish us to understand that there -are no such things as painful experiments in England? -Apparently that is what they are trying to make us think—that -there never has been anything of the kind; that they -are perfectly incapable of putting any animal to pain. Do -they really mean that? Is that what they wish us to -understand? If they do <em>not</em> mean that, I do not know what -it is they mean. It seems to me that they are raising this -tremendous storm very much as if the old slave-holders were -to have danced a war-dance round Mrs. Stowe and scalped -her for having said that Legree had flogged Uncle Tom with -a thousand lashes, when really there were only nine hundred -and ninety-nine. (Laughter.) That seems to me to be the -case in a nutshell.”—<cite>Zoophilist</cite>, November 1st, 1892.</p> - -<p class='c006'>I had the gratification to receive soon after the following -most kind Address and expression of confidence from the -leading Members of the Victoria Street Society:—</p> - -<div class='nf-center-c0'> -<div class='nf-center c003'> - <div><span class='large'>ADDRESS.</span></div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='lg-container-l c009'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'><em>To Miss Frances Power Cobbe</em>,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c010'>We, the undersigned, being supporters of the Victoria -Street Society, and others interested in the movement -against Vivisection, wish to express the strong feeling of -indignation with which we have seen your integrity called -in question by men who seem unable to conceive of the -pure unselfish devotion of high intellectual gifts to the -service of God’s humbler creatures.</p> - -<p class='c010'>It is impossible for those who know anything of the -early history of this movement to forget the great personal -sacrifice at which you undertook to make it the chief work -of your life.</p> - -<p class='c010'>It is equally impossible for us who have watched its -progress, to say how highly we have esteemed the -<span class='pageno' id='Page_685'>685</span>indomitable courage and forcible eloquence with which you -have exposed the evils inseparable from experiments on -living animals.</p> - -<p class='c010'>Further, we wish to record our firm conviction that -you have, throughout, recognised the wisdom and the duty -of founding your attack on Vivisection upon the truth, -and nothing but the truth, so far as you have been able -to arrive at it.</p> - -<p class='c010'>We wish, in conclusion, to assure you not only of our -special sympathy with you at a time when you have been -subjected to a personal attack of an unusually coarse and -violent character, but also of our determination to give still -more earnest support to the Cause to which you have, at -so great a cost, devoted yourself:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Strafford (<em>Earl of Strafford</em>)</div> - <div class='line'>Coleridge (<em>Lord Chief Justice</em>)</div> - <div class='line'>Worcester (<em>Marquis of Worcester</em>)</div> - <div class='line'>Haddington (<em>Earl of Haddington</em>)</div> - <div class='line'>Arthur, Bath and Wells (<em>Bishop of Bath and Wells</em>)</div> - <div class='line'>J., Manchester (<em>Bishop of Manchester</em>)</div> - <div class='line'>W. Walsham, Wakefield (<em>Bishop of Wakefield</em>)</div> - <div class='line'>H. B., Coventry (<em>Bishop of Coventry</em>)</div> - <div class='line'>John Mitchinson (<em>Bishop</em>)</div> - <div class='line'>F. Cramer-Roberts (<em>Bishop</em>)</div> - <div class='line'>Edward G. Bagshawe (<em>R. C. Bishop of Nottingham</em>)</div> - <div class='line'>Sidmouth (<em>Viscount Sidmouth</em>)</div> - <div class='line'>Pollington (<em>Viscount Pollington</em>)</div> - <div class='line'>Colville of Culross (<em>Lord Colville of Culross</em>)</div> - <div class='line'>Cardross (<em>Lord Cardross</em>)</div> - <div class='line'>H. Abinger (<em>Lady Abinger</em>)</div> - <div class='line'>Robartes (<em>Lord Robartes</em>)</div> - <div class='line'>Leigh (<em>Lord Leigh</em>)</div> - <div class='line'>C. Buchan (<em>Dow. Countess of Buchan</em>)</div> - <div class='line'>Harriet de Clifford (<em>Dow. Lady de Clifford</em>)</div> - <div class='line'>F. Camperdown (<em>Countess of Camperdown</em>)</div> - <div class='line'>Kinnaird (<em>Lord Kinnaird</em>)</div> - <div class='line'>Alma Kinnaird (<em>Lady Kinnaird</em>)</div> - <div class='line'>Clementine Mitford (<em>Lady Clementine Mitford</em>)</div> - <div class='line'>Eveline Portsmouth (<em>Dowager Countess of Portsmouth</em>)</div> - <div class='line'>Georgina Mount-Temple (<em>Lady Mount-Temple</em>)</div> - <div class='line'><span class='pageno' id='Page_686'>686</span>H. Kemball (<em>Lady Kemball</em>)</div> - <div class='line'>J. Brotherton (<em>Lady Brotherton</em>)</div> - <div class='line'>Evelyn Ashley (<em>Hon. Evelyn Ashley</em>)</div> - <div class='line'>Bernard Coleridge (<em>Hon. B. Coleridge, M.P.</em>)</div> - <div class='line'>Geraldine Coleridge (<em>Hon. Mrs. S. Coleridge</em>)</div> - <div class='line'>Stephen Coleridge (<em>Hon. Stephen Coleridge</em>)</div> - <div class='line'>George Duckett (<em>Sir George Duckett, Bt.</em>)</div> - <div class='line'>Henry A. Hoare (<em>Sir Henry Hoare, Bt.</em>)</div> - <div class='line'>Geo. F. Shaw, LL.D.</div> - <div class='line'>Samuel Smith, M.P.</div> - <div class='line'>Theodore Fry, M.P.</div> - <div class='line'>George W. E. Russell, M.P.</div> - <div class='line'>Jacob Bright, M.P.</div> - <div class='line'>Th. Burt, M.P.</div> - <div class='line'>Julius Barras (Colonel)</div> - <div class='line'>Richard H. Hutton</div> - <div class='line'>R. Payne Smith</div> - <div class='line'>H. Wilson White, D.D., LL.D.</div> - <div class='line'>Edward Whately (<em>Archdeacon Whately</em>)</div> - <div class='line'>George W. Cox (<em>Revd. Sir George Cox, Bart.</em>)</div> - <div class='line'>R. M. Grier (<em>Prebendary Grier</em>)</div> - <div class='line'>Eleanor Vere C. Boyle (<em>Hon. Mrs. R. C. Boyle</em>)</div> - <div class='line'>E. G. Deane Morgan (<em>Hon. Mrs. Deane Morgan</em>)</div> - <div class='line'>Charles Bell Taylor, M.D.</div> - <div class='line'>Edward Berdoe, M.R.C.S.</div> - <div class='line'>Alex. Bowie, M.D., C.M.</div> - <div class='line'>John H. Clarke, M.D.</div> - <div class='line'>Henry Downes, M.D.</div> - <div class='line'>Henry M. Duncalfe</div> - <div class='line'>William Adamson, D.D.</div> - <div class='line'>William Adlam</div> - <div class='line'>Amelia E. Arnold</div> - <div class='line'>Ernest Bell</div> - <div class='line'>Rhoda Broughton</div> - <div class='line'>Olive S. Bryant</div> - <div class='line'>W. K. Burford</div> - <div class='line'>A. Gallenga and Mrs. Gallenga</div> - <div class='line'>Maria G. Grey</div> - <div class='line'>Emily A. E. Shirreff</div> - <div class='line'>Frances Holden</div> - <div class='line'>Eleanor Mary James</div> - <div class='line'>Francis Griffith Jones</div> - <div class='line'>E. J. Kennedy</div> - <div class='line'>Edith Leycester</div> - <div class='line'>W. S. Lilly</div> - <div class='line'>Mary Charlotte Lloyd</div> - <div class='line'>Ann Marston</div> - <div class='line'>Mary J. Martin</div> - <div class='line'>S. S. Munro</div> - <div class='line'>Frank Morrison</div> - <div class='line'>Harriet Morrison</div> - <div class='line'>Josiah Oldfield</div> - <div class='line'>Rose Pender</div> - <div class='line'>Fred. Pennington</div> - <div class='line'>Herbert Philips</div> - <div class='line'>Fred. E. Pirkis and Mrs. Pirkis</div> - <div class='line'>R. Ll. Price</div> - <div class='line'>Evelyn Price</div> - <div class='line'>R. M. Price</div> - <div class='line'>Lester Reed</div> - <div class='line'>Ellen Elcum Rees</div> - <div class='line'>J. Herbert Satchell</div> - <div class='line'>Mark Thornhill, J.P.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c006'><span class='pageno' id='Page_687'>687</span>Looking back on this long struggle of twenty years, in -which so much of my happiness and the happiness of others -dearer than myself, has been engulfed, I can see that, -starting from the apparently small and subordinate question -of Scientific Cruelty, the controversy has been growing and -widening till the whole department of ethics dealing with -man’s relation to the lower animals has gradually been -included in it. That this department is an obscure one, and -that neither the Christian Churches nor yet philosophic -moralists have hitherto paid it sufficient attention, is now -admitted. That it is time that it should be carefully studied -and worked out, is also clear.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Sometimes I have thought (as by a law of our being we -seem driven to do whenever our hearts are deeply concerned) -that a Divine guidance may have presided over all the heart-breaking -delays and disappointments of this weary movement; -and that it has not been allowed to terminate, as it would -certainly have done, had we carried our Bill of 1876 in its -original form through Parliament. <em>Then</em> our Society would -have dissolved at once; and, after a time, perhaps, the Act, -however well designed, would have become more or less a -dead letter; and the hydra-heads of Vivisection would have -reared themselves once more. But, as it has actually -happened, the delay and failure of our earlier efforts and our -consequent persistence in them, have fixed attention on this -culminating sin against the lower animals, and through it -on all other sins against them. A great revision of opinion -on the subject is undoubtedly taking place; and while some -(especially Roman Catholic) Zoophilists have diligently -sought in decrees and manuals and treatises of casuistry -for some authority defining Cruelty to animals to be a Sin, -the poverty of the results of all such investigations, and -of the anxious collation of Biblical texts by Protestants, -is gradually revealing the fact that, in this whole department -<span class='pageno' id='Page_688'>688</span>of human duty, we must look to the God-enlightened -consciences of <em>living</em> men rather than to the <i><span lang="la" xml:lang="la">dicta</span></i> of -departed saints, or casuists, whose attention was directed exclusively -to the relations of human beings with each other and -with God, and who obviously never contemplated those which -we hold to the brutes with adequate seriousness,—if at all. -Of course we are here met, just as the first anti-Slavery -apostles were met, and as the advocates of every fresh -development of morality will be met for many a day to come, -by the fundamental fallacy of the Christian Churches (in that -respect resembling Islam) that there is a finality in Divine -teaching, and that they have been for two thousand years in -possession of the last word of God to man. Protestants are -certainly not bound in any way to occupy such a position, or -to assume that a final revise has ever been issued, or ever will -be issued by Divine authority, of a <em>Whole Duty of Man</em>. -Rather are they called on piously and gratefully to look for fresh -light to come down, age after age, from the Father of lights: -or (if they please rather so to consider it) further development -of the Christian Spirit to be manifested as men learn -better to incarnate it in their minds and lives. As for Theists -like myself, it is natural for us and in accordance with all -our opinions, to believe that such a movement as is now -taking place over the civilised world on behalf of dumb animals, -is a fresh Divine impulse of Mercy, stirring in thousands -of human hearts, and deserving of reverent cherishing and -thankful acceptance.</p> - -<p class='c007'>It is my supreme hope that when, with God’s help, our Anti-vivisection -controversy ends in years to come, long after I -have passed away, mankind will have attained <em>through it</em> -a recognition of our duties towards the lower animals far -in advance of that which we now commonly hold. If the -beautiful dream of the later Isaiah can never be perfectly -realised on this planet and none may ever find that thrice “Holy -<span class='pageno' id='Page_689'>689</span>Mountain” whereon they “shall not hurt nor destroy”—yet -at least the time will come when no man worthy of the -name will take <em>pleasure</em> in killing; and he who would torture -an animal will be looked upon as (in the truest sense) -“<em>inhuman</em>”; unworthy of the friendship of man or love of -woman. The long-oppressed and suffering brutes will then -be spared many a pang and their innocent lives made far -happier; while the hearts of men will grow more tender to -their own kind by cultivating pity and tenderness to the -beasts and birds. The earth will at last cease to be “full of -violence and cruel habitations.”</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c003'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>September, 1898.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c007'>The too confident expectations which I entertained of my -permanent connection till death with the Society which I -had founded and which I designed to make my heir, have -alas! been disappointed. It was perhaps natural that in -my long exile from London and consequent absence from the -Committee, my continual letters of enquiry, advice, and (as -I fondly and foolishly imagined) assistance in the work were -felt to be obtrusive,—especially by the newer members. One -change after another in the Constitution and in the Name of the -Society, left me more or less in opposition to the ruling spirits; -and before long a much more serious difference arose. The -very able and energetic Hon. Sec., Hon. Stephen Coleridge, -(who had entered on his office in April, 1897), after making -the changes to which I have referred, proposed that we -should introduce a Bill into Parliament, no longer on the old -lines, asking for the Total Prohibition of Vivisection, but -on quite a different basis; demanding certain “Lesser -Measures,” not yet distinctly formulated, but intended to -supply checks to the practical lawlessness of licensed -Vivisectors. Mr. Coleridge and his brother (now Lord -Coleridge), had, twelve or fourteen years before, urged me -<span class='pageno' id='Page_690'>690</span>to abandon the demand for Total Prohibition, and to adopt -the policy of Restriction and bring in a bill accordingly. -But to this proposal I had made the most strenuous resistance, -writing a long pamphlet on the <cite>Fallacy of Restriction</cite> for the -purpose; and it had been (as I thought), altogether given up -and forgotten. It would appear, however, that the idea -remained in Mr. Coleridge’s mind,—with the modification -that he now regarded “Lesser Measures” not as final -Restriction, but as steps to Prohibition; and for this policy -he obtained the suffrage of the majority of the Council, -though not of the oldest members.</p> - -<p class='c007'>The reader who will kindly glance back over the preceding -pages (300–306), will see the exceeding importance I attach -to the maintenance of the strict principle of Abolition,—whereby -our party renounces all compromise with the -“abominable sin,” and refuses to be again cheated by the -hocus-pocus of Vivisectors and their deceptive anæsthetics. -But an over-estimate (as it seems to me) of the importance of -Parliamentary action, and certainly an under-estimate of that -of the great popular propaganda whereon our hopes must ultimately -rest,—a propaganda which would be paralyzed by the -advocacy of half measures,—caused Mr. Coleridge and his -friends to take an opposite view. After a long and, to me, -heart-breaking struggle, I was finally defeated by a vote of -29 to 23, at a Council Meeting on the 9th February, 1898. -The policy of Lesser Measures was adopted by the newly-christened -<em>National Society</em>; and I and all the oldest members -and founders of the Victoria Street Society sorrowfully -withdrew from what we had proudly, but very mistakenly, -called “our” Society. Amongst us were Mr. Mark Thornhill, -Miss Marston, Mr. and Mrs. Adlam, Lady Mount-Temple, -Mr. and Mrs. Frank Morrison, Lady Paget, Madame Van -Eys, and Countess Baldelli. To all workers in the cause -these names will stand as representing the very nucleus of -<span class='pageno' id='Page_691'>691</span>the whole party since it began its life 23 years ago. The -oldest and most faithful worker of all, Lady Camperdown, -who had aided me with the first memorial in 1874, and -who had attended the Committee from first to last, had risen -from her death-bed to write a letter imploring the Chairman -not to support the demand for Lesser Measures. She died -before the decision was reached, and her touching letter, in -spite of my entreaties, was not read to the Congress.</p> - -<p class='c007'>After leaving the old Society with unspeakable pain and -mortification I felt it incumbent on me, while I yet had a -little strength left for work and was not wholly “played -out” (as I believe I was supposed to be by the new spirits -at the office) to establish some centre where the only principle -on which the cause can, in my opinion, be safely maintained -should be permanently established, and to which I could -transfer the legacy of £10,000 which then stood in my Will -bequeathed unconditionally to the Committee of the National -Society. My first effort was to request the Committee of -the <em>London Anti-vivisection Society</em> to give me such pledge as -it was competent to afford that it would not promote any -measure in Parliament short of Abolition. This pledge being -formally refused, there remained for me no resource but to -attempt once more in my old age to create a new Anti-Vivisection -Society; and I resolved to call it <span class='sc'>The British Union -for the Abolition of Vivisection</span>, and to make it a Federation -of Branch Societies, having its centre in Bristol where my -staunch old fellow-workers had had their office for many years -established and in first-rate order. I invited as many friends -as seemed desirous of joining in my undertaking, to a -private Conference here at Hengwrt; and I had the pleasure -of receiving and entertaining them for three days while we -quietly arranged the constitution of the new Union with the -invaluable help of our Chairman, Mr. Norris, K.C., late one -of the Justices of the Supreme Court, Calcutta.</p> - -<p class='c007'><span class='pageno' id='Page_692'>692</span>The <em>British Union</em> was, in the following month, (June, -1898), formally constituted at a public conference in Bristol; -and it is at present working vigorously in Bristol and in its -various Branches in Wales, Liverpool, York, Macclesfield, -Sheffield, Yarmouth and London. All information concerning -it and its special constitution (whereby the Branches will -all profit by bequests to the Union) may be obtained by -enquiry from either our admirable Hon. Sec., Mrs. Roscoe -(Crete Hill, Westbury-on-Trym, Bristol); our zealous -Secretary, Miss Baker, 20, Triangle, Bristol; or our Hon. -Treasurer, John Norris, Esq., K.C., Devonshire Club, -London.</p> - -<p class='c007'>To those of my readers who may desire to contribute to the -Anti-Vivisection Cause, and who have shared my views on it -as set forth in my numberless pamphlets and letters, and to -those specially who, like myself, intend to bequeath money -to carry on the war against Scientific Cruelty, I now -earnestly say as my final Counsel: SUPPORT THE -BRITISH UNION!</p> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_693'>693</span> - <h2 class='c005'>CHAPTER<br /> XXI.<br /> <span class='large'><em>MY HOME IN WALES.</em></span></h2> -</div> -<div class='figcenter id003'> -<span class='pageno' id='Page_694'>694</span> -<img src='images/i_695.jpg' alt='' class='ig001' /> -<div class='ic001'> -<p><em>Hengwrt.</em></p> -</div> -</div> - -<p class='c006'><span class='pageno' id='Page_695'>695</span>In April, 1884, my friend and I quitted London, having -permanently let our house in South Kensington to Mrs. -Kemble. The strain of London life had become too great for -me, and advancing years and narrowed income together -counselled retreat in good time. I continued then and ever -since, of course, to work for the Anti-vivisection cause; but -I resigned my Honorary Secretaryship, June 26th, 1884, -and left the entire charge of the office and of editing the -<cite>Zoophilist</cite> to Mr. Bryan.<a id='r35' /><a href='#f35' class='c013'><sup>[35]</sup></a></p> - -<p class='c007'>A few months later I was disturbed to hear that the Hon. -Stephen Coleridge (Lord Coleridge’s second son) who had -always been particularly kind and considerate towards me, -had started a fund to form a farewell testimonial to me from -my fellow-workers. Mr. Coleridge addressed our leading -members and friends in the following letter:—</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c009'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“12, Ovington Gardens, S.W.,</div> - <div class='line in24'>“August, 1884.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='lg-container-l c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Sir or Madam,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c010'>“At the general meeting of the Victoria Street and -International Societies for the Total Abolition of Vivisection, -on the 26th June, Miss Frances Power Cobbe, for reasons -set forth in the annual report, gave in her resignation of -<span class='pageno' id='Page_696'>696</span>the post of Honorary Secretary, and it was accepted with -deep reluctance.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“The executive committee, meeting shortly afterwards -unanimously passed a resolution to the effect that the -occasion ought not to be passed over by the Society -unrecognised, and a list of subscribers to a testimonial for -Miss Cobbe has been opened. The object of this letter is -to acquaint you of these facts and to afford you the opportunity -of adding your name to the list should you desire to -do so.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“Year after year from the foundation of the Societies -and before, Miss Cobbe has fought against the practice of -the torture of animals with constant earnestness, conspicuous -power, and enthusiasm born of a noble cause.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“That testimonials are too plentiful it may perhaps be -urged with truth; but many of us who deprecate the -practice of Vivisection feel that such a life as this, of -honour and devotion, were it to stand unrecognised and -unacknowledged, would mark us as entirely ungrateful.</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line in12'>“I remain,</div> - <div class='line in16'>“Your faithful servant,</div> - <div class='line in20'>“<span class='sc'>Stephen Coleridge</span>.”</div> - <div class='line'>(Honorary Secretary and Treasurer to the fund.)</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c006'>In a short space of time, I was told, a thousand pounds -was collected; and it was kindly and thoughtfully expended in -buying me an annuity of £100 a year. The amount of labour -and trouble which all these arrangements must have cost Mr. -Stephen Coleridge must have been very great indeed, and -only most genuine kindness of heart and regard for me could -have induced him to undertake them. I was very much -startled when I heard of this gift and very unwilling to accept -it, as in some degree taking away the pleasurable sense I -had had of working all along gratuitously for the poor -beasts, and of having sacrificed for some years nearly all my -literary earnings to devote myself to their cause. My -<span class='pageno' id='Page_697'>697</span>objections were over-ruled by friendly insistence, and Lord -Shaftesbury presented the Testimonial to me in the following -letter:—</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c009'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“24, Grosvenor Square, W.,</div> - <div class='line in16'>“February 26th, 1885.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='lg-container-l c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“My dear Miss Cobbe,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c010'>“The Committee of the Anti-vivisection Society, and -other contributors, have assigned to me the agreeable duty -of requesting you to do them the kindness and the honour, -to accept the accompanying Testimonial.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“It expresses, I can assure you, their deep and real -sense of the vast services you have rendered to the world, -by the devotion of your time, your talents and indefatigable -zeal, to the assertion of principles which, though primarily -brought into action for the benefit and protection of the -inferior orders of the Creation, are of paramount importance -to the honour and security of the whole Human Race.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“We heartily pray that you may enjoy all health and -happiness in your retirement, which, we trust, will be but -temporary. We shall frequently ask the aid of your -counsels and live in hope of your speedy return to active -exertion, in the career in which you have laboured so -vigorously, and which you so sincerely love.</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Believe me to be,</div> - <div class='line in8'>“Very truly yours,</div> - <div class='line in20'>“<span class='sc'>Shaftesbury</span>.”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c006'>I acknowledged Lord Shaftesbury’s letter as follows:—</p> - -<div class='lg-container-l c009'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Hengwrt, Dolgelly, N. Wales,</div> - <div class='line in16'>“February 27th.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<div class='lg-container-l c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Dear Lord Shaftesbury,</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c010'>“I find it very difficult to express to you the feelings -with which I have just read your letter, and received the -noble gift which accompanied it. You and all the good -friends and fellow-workers who have thus done me honour -and kindness will have added much to the material comfort -<span class='pageno' id='Page_698'>698</span>and enjoyment of such years as may remain to me; but -you have done still more for me, by filling my heart with -the happy sense of being cared for.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“That you should estimate such work as I have been -able to do so highly as your letter expresses, while it far -surpasses anything I can myself think I have accomplished, -yet makes me very proud and very thankful to God.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“Whatever has been done by me in the way of raising -up opposition to scientific cruelty has been attained only -because I had the inestimable advantage of being supported -and guided by you from first to last, and aided step by step -by the unwearied sympathy and co-operation of my dear -and generous fellow-labourers.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“These words are very inadequate to convey my thanks -to you for this gift and all your past goodness towards me, -and those which I would fain offer through you to the -Committee and all the Subscribers to this splendid -Testimonial; especially to the Hon. Secretary, who has -undertaken the great trouble which the collection of it -must have involved. I can but repeat, I thank you and -them with my whole heart.</p> - -<div class='lg-container-r c011'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Most sincerely, dear Lord Shaftesbury, and</div> - <div class='line in16'>“Gratefully yours,</div> - <div class='line in24'>“<span class='sc'>Frances Power Cobbe</span>.”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c006'>This addition to my little income made up for certain -losses which I had incurred, and raised it to about its original -moderate level, enabling me to share the expenses of our -Welsh cottage. I was, however, of course, a poor woman, -and not in a position to help my friend to live (as we both -earnestly desired to do) in her larger house in Hengwrt. We -made an effort to arrange it so, loving the place and -enjoying the beauty of the woods and gardens exceedingly. -But we knew it could not be our permanent home; and a -suitable tenant having come on the field, offering to take it -for a term of years which would naturally reach beyond our -<span class='pageno' id='Page_699'>699</span>lives, we felt that the end of our possession was drawing -near. I was very sorrowful for my own sake, and still -more for that of my friend who had always had peculiar -attachment to the place. I reflected painfully that if I had -been only a little better off, she might not have been obliged -to relinquish her proper home.</p> - -<p class='c007'>All this was occupying me much. It was a Thursday -morning, and the gentleman who proposed to become the -tenant of Hengwrt was to come on Monday to make a -definite offer which,—once accepted,—would have been held -to bind my friend.</p> - -<p class='c007'>I went downstairs into the old oak hall in the morning -and opened the post-bag. Among the large packet of letters -which usually awaits me there was one from a solicitor in -Liverpool. I knew that my kind old friend Mrs. Yates had -died the week before, and I had been informed that she had -left me her residuary legatee; but I imagined her to be in -narrow circumstances, and that a few hundreds would be -the uttermost of my possible inheritance; not sufficient, at all -events, to affect appreciably my available income. I opened -the Solicitor’s letter very coolly and found myself to be,—so -far as all my wants and wishes extend,—a rich woman.</p> - -<p class='c007'>The story of this legacy is a very touching one. I never -saw or heard of Mrs. Yates till a few years before her death, -and when she was already very aged. She began by -sending large and generous donations of £50, and £80, at a -time to our Society. Later, she came up from Liverpool to -London when I was managing affairs without a Secretary, -and, finding me at the office, she gave me a still larger -donation, actually in bank-notes. She was an Unitarian, or -rather a Theist, like myself; and having taken very warm -interest in my books, she seemed to be drawn to me by a -double sympathy, both on account of religious sympathies, -and those we shared on behalf of the vivisected animals. Of -<span class='pageno' id='Page_700'>700</span>course I explained to her the details of my work, and she -took the warmest interest in it. After I resigned my office -of Honorary Secretary, she seemed to prefer to give her -principal contributions personally to me to expend for -the cause according to my judgment, and twice she sent me -large sums, with strictest injunction to keep her name, and -even the locality of the donor, secret. I called these gifts my -<em>Trust Fund</em>, and made grants from it to working allies all -over the world. I also spent a great deal of it in printing large -quantities of papers. Of course I began by sending her a -balance sheet of my expenditure; but this she forbade me to -repeat, so I could only from time to time write her long -letters (copied for me by my friend as my writing taxed her -sight), telling her all we were doing. At last she came to see -us here in answer to our repeated invitations, but could not -be persuaded to stop more than one night. Talking to me -out walking, she asked me: “Would I take charge of some -money she wished to leave for protection of animals <em>in -Liverpool</em>?” I answered that I could not engage to do this, -and begged her to entrust it (as she eventually did) to some -friend resident in the place. Then she said shyly: “Well, -you do not object to my leaving you something for yourself—to -my making you my residuary legatee?” adding to the -question some words of affection. Of course I could only -press her hand and say I was grateful for her kind thought. -She did it all so simply, that, being prepossessed with the -idea that she was in rather narrow circumstances, and that -she had already given me the savings of her lifetime in the -Trust Fund, it never even occurred to me that this residuary -legateeship could be an important matter, after she had -provided (as she was sure to do) for all legitimate claims upon -her. Nothing could exceed my astonishment when I found -how large was the sum bequeathed in this unpretending way. -My friend thought I must be ill from the difficulty I -<span class='pageno' id='Page_701'>701</span>seem to have found in commanding my voice to tell her the -strange news when she came into the hall, a quarter of an -hour after I had read that epoch-making letter!</p> - -<p class='c007'>Certainly never was a great gift made with such perfect -delicacy. Mrs. Yates had taken care that I should have no -reason, so long as she lived, to suppose myself under any -personal obligation to her. Since then, it may be believed -that my heart has never ceased to cherish her memory with -tender gratitude, and to associate the thought of her with -all the comforts of the home which her wealth has secured -for me.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Mrs. Yates, at the time I knew her, had been for thirty -or forty years the widow of Mr. Richard Vaughan Yates, a -Liverpool Merchant. The following obituary notice of her -appeared in the <cite>Zoophilist</cite>, November 2nd, 1891. I may -add that beside her personal legacy to me (given simply by -her will to “her friend Miss Frances Power Cobbe,” -without comment of any kind) Mrs. Yates gave £1,000 to -the Victoria Street Society, as well as £1,000 to the -Liverpool Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals; -both bequests being over and above legacies to her executors, -relatives and dependents:—</p> - -<div class='nf-center-c0'> -<div class='nf-center c009'> - <div><span class='large'>“OBITUARY.</span></div> - <div class='c004'>“<span class='sc'>The Late Mrs. Yates.</span></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c010'>“The Victoria Street Society and the cause of Anti-vivisection -have lost their most generous supporter in Mrs. -Richard Yates, of Liverpool; a good and noble woman if -ever there were one. Born in humble circumstances, she -was one of the truest gentlewomen who ever lived. Her -wide cultivation of mind, broadly liberal but deeply -religious spirit and sound, clear judgment, remained -conspicuous even in extreme old age. The hearts of those -whom she aided in their toil for the poor brutes, with a -<span class='pageno' id='Page_702'>702</span>generosity only equalled by the delicacy of its manifestations, -will ever keep her memory in tender and grateful -respect.”</p> - -<p class='c006'>A warmly-feeling article in the <cite>Inquirer</cite>, October 10th, -1891, known to be by her friend and pastor, Rev. Valentine -Davies, gave the following sketch of her life. It is due to -her whose generosity has so brightened my later years, that -my autobiography should contain some such record of her -goodness and usefulness.</p> - -<div class='nf-center-c0'> -<div class='nf-center c003'> - <div>“<span class='sc'>Mrs. Richard Vaughan Yates.</span></div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c008'>“On Thursday evening, October 1st, there passed peacefully -away one who was the last of her generation; bearing a -name honoured in Liverpool since the Rev. John Yates, in -the latter part of last century and the early years of this, -ministered in Paradise Street Chapel, and his sons took -their places in the first rank of the merchants and -philanthropic citizens of the town. Anne Simpson was -born November 10th, 1805, and to the last retained happy -recollections of her childhood’s home, a simple cottage in -the pleasant Cheshire country. She married, in the midsummer -of 1832, Mr. Richard Vaughan Yates, having first -spent a year (for purposes of education) in the household -of Dr. Lant Carpenter, at Bristol, of whom she always -spoke with great veneration. Richly endowed with -natural grace and delicacy of feeling, true nobility of heart, -and great simplicity, sustained by earnest religious feeling -and a strong sense of duty, there was never happier choice -than this, which gave to Mrs. Yates the larger opportunities -of wealth and freedom in society. She shared her -husband’s interest in many philanthropic labours, his care -for the Harrington Schools, founded by his father, and for -the Liverpool Institute, his pleasure and his anxieties in -the making of the Prince’s Park, opened in 1849, as his gift -to the town. She shared also to the full his delight in -works of art and in foreign travel. The late Rev. Charles -Wicksteed published some charming reminiscences of one -<span class='pageno' id='Page_703'>703</span>of their Italian journeys; and still more notable was that -journey through Egypt, Sinai, and Palestine, recorded by -Miss Harriet Martineau in her <cite>Eastern Travel</cite>.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“Since her husband’s death, in 1856, Mrs. Yates has -stood bravely alone, living very quietly, but keenly -alive to all the interests of the world, with ardent -sympathy for every righteous cause, and generous help -ever ready for public needs as for private charity. No one -will ever know the full measure of her acts of kindness, -her care for the least defended, her many quiet ways of -doing good. She was a great lover of dumb creatures, and -felt a passionate indignation at every kind of cruelty. -Four-footed waifs and strays often found a pleasant refuge -in her house, and for many years she was an active worker -for the local branch of the Society for the Prevention of -Cruelty to Animals. The cabmen and donkey-boys of -Liverpool at their annual suppers have long been familiar -with her kindly face and gracious word, and many a time -has her intrepid protest checked an act of cruelty in the -public streets. The friend of Frances Power Cobbe, she -took a deep and painful interest in the work of the -Victoria Street Society for the Suppression of Vivisection, -and sustained its work through many years by generous -gifts. Herself a solitary woman in these later years, it was -to the solitary and defenceless that her sympathies most -quickly went. She desired for women larger powers to -defend their own helplessness, to share in government for -the amelioration of society, and to share also in the world’s -work. She had a surprising energy and persistence of will -in attending to her own affairs and doing the unselfish work -she had most at heart. With a plain tenacity to the duty -that was clear, she went out to the last, whenever it was -possible, to vote at every election where she had a vote to -give, and to attend meetings of a political and useful social -character. Hers was a life of great unselfishness and true -humility. Suffering most of all through sympathy with -others, she longed for more light to dissipate the darker -shadows of the world. And she herself, wherever it was -<span class='pageno' id='Page_704'>704</span>possible to her patient faithfulness and generous kindness, -drove away the darkness, praying thus the best of prayers, -and making light and gladness in innumerable hearts.</p> - -<p class='c010'>“After only a few days of illness she fell asleep. A -memorial service was held on Sunday last in the Ancient -Chapel of Toxteth, where for many years she regularly -worshipped. The Rev. V. D. Davis preached the sermon, -and also on the following day, at the Birkenhead Flaybrick -Hill Cemetery, spoke the words of faith at her grave.”—<cite>Inquirer</cite>, -October 10th.</p> - -<p class='c006'>I have erected over her last resting-place (as I learned -that she disliked heavy horizontal tombstones), a large -upright slab of polished red Aberdeen granite. After her -name and the dates of her birth and death, Shakespeare’s -singularly appropriate line is inscribed on the stone:—</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c018'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“<span class='sc'>Sweet Mercy is Nobility’s True Badge.</span>”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c006'>On receiving that eventful Thursday morning the news of -the unlooked-for riches which had fallen to my lot, our first -act was naturally to telegraph to the would-be tenant that -“another offer” (to wit mine!) “had been accepted for -Hengwrt.” The miseries of house-letting and home-leaving -were over for us, we trust, so long as our lives may last.</p> - -<p class='c006'>There is not much more to be told in this last chapter of -my story. The expansion of life in many directions -which wealth brings with it, is as easy and pleasant as the -contraction of it by poverty is the reverse. Yet I have not -altered the opinion I formed long ago when I became poor -after my father’s death, that the importance we commonly -attach to pecuniary conditions is somewhat exaggerated, (so -long as a competence is left) and that other things,—for -<span class='pageno' id='Page_705'>705</span>example, the possession of good walking powers, or of strong -eyesight or of good hearing, not to speak of the still more -precious things of the affections and spirit,—are larger -elements, by far, in human happiness than that which riches -contributes thereto. Of course I have been very glad of this -unlooked-for wealth in my old age. I have felt, first and -before all things else, the immense satisfaction of being able -to help the Anti-vivisection cause in all parts of the world -while I live, and to provide for some further continuance of -such help after I die. And next to this I have rejoiced that -the comfort and repose of our beautiful and beloved home -is secured to my friend and myself.</p> - -<p class='c006'>The friendly reader who has travelled with me through -the journey of my three-score years and ten, from my -singularly happy childhood in my old home at Newbridge to -this far bourne on the road, will now, I hope, leave me -with kindly wishes for a peaceful evening, and a not-too-distant -curfew bell; in this dear old house, and with my -beloved friend for companion.</p> - -<p class='c006'>The photograph of Hengwrt, which will be inserted in -these last pages, gives a good idea of the house itself, but can -convey none of the beauty of the rivers, woods and -mountains all round. No spot in the kingdom I think, not -even in the lovely Lake country, unites so many elements of -beauty as this part of Wales. The mountains are not very -lofty,—even glorious Cader where the giant Idris, (so -says the legend) sat in the rocky “chair” (<em>Cader</em>) on -the summit and studied the stars,—is trifling compared to -Alpine height, and a molehill to Andes and Himalayas; yet -is its form, and that of all these Cambrian rocks, so majestic, -and their <em>tilt</em> so great, that no one could treat them as -<span class='pageno' id='Page_706'>706</span>merely hills, or liken them to Irish mountains which resemble -banks of rainclouds on the horizon. The deep, true, purple -heather and the emerald-green fern robe these Welsh -mountains in summer in regal splendour of colouring; and -in autumn wrap them in rich russet brown cloaks. Down -between every chain and ridge rush brooks, always bright -and clear, and in many places leaping into lovely waterfalls. -The “broad and brawling Mawddach” runs through all the -valley from heights far out of sight, till, just below Hengwrt, -it meets the almost equally beautiful stream of the Wnion, -and the two together wind their way through the tidal -estuary out into the sea at “Aber-mawddach” or “Abermaw,”—in -English “Barmouth,” eight miles to the west. On -both north and south of the valley and on the sides of the -mountains, are woods, endless woods, of oak and larch -and Scotch fir, interspersed with sycamore, wild cherry, -horse-chestnut, elm, holly, and an occasional beech. Never -was there a country in which were to be found growing -freely and almost wild, so many different kinds of -trees, creating of course the loveliest wood-scenery and -variety of colouring. The oaks and elms and sycamores -which grow in Hengwrt itself, are the oldest and some of -the finest in this part of Wales; and here also flourish the -largest laurels and rhododendrons I have ever seen anywhere. -The luxuriance of their growth, towering high on each side -of the avenue and in the shrubberies is a constant subject of -astonishment to our visitors. The blossoms of the rhodos -are sometimes twenty or twenty-five feet from the ground; -and the laurels almost resemble forest trees. It has been -one of my chief pleasures here to prune and clip and clear the -way for these beautiful shrubs. Through the midst of them -all, from one end of the place to the other, rushes the dearest -little brook in the world, singing away constantly in so human -a tone that over and over again I have paused in my labours -<span class='pageno' id='Page_707'>707</span>of saw and clippers, and said to myself: “There <em>must</em> be -some one talking in that walk! It is a lady’s voice, too! It -<em>can’t</em> be only the brook this time!” But the brook it has -always proved to be on further investigation.</p> - -<p class='c007'>Of the interior of this dear old home I shall not write now. -It is interesting from its age,—one of the oak-panelled -rooms contains a bed placed there at the dissolution of the -neighbouring monastery of Cymmer Abbey,—but it is not in -the least a gloomy house; altogether the reverse. The -drawing-room commands a view to right and left of almost -the whole valley of the Mawddach for nine or ten miles; -and just opposite lies the pretty village of Llanelltyd, at the -foot of the wooded hills which rise up behind it to the -heights of Moel Ispry and Cefn Cam. It is a panorama -of splendid scenery, not darkening the room, but making -one side of it into a great picture full of exquisite -details of old stone bridge and ruined abbey, rivers, woods, -and rocks.</p> - -<p class='c006'>Among the objects in that wide view, and also in the still -more extensive one from my bedroom above, is the little -ivy-covered church of Llanelltyd; and below it a bit of -ground sloping to the westering sun, dotted over with grey -and white stones where “the rude forefathers of the hamlet -sleep,” together with a few others who have been our -friends and neighbours. There, in that quiet enclosure, -will, in all probability, be the bourne of my long journey -of life, with a grey headstone for the “<i><span lang="la" xml:lang="la">Finis</span></i>” of the last -chapter of the Book which I have first lived, and now -have written.</p> - -<p class='c006'>I hope that the reader, who perhaps may drive some -day along the road below, in the enjoyment of an autumn -<span class='pageno' id='Page_708'>708</span>holiday in this lovely land, will cast a glance upon that -churchyard, and give a kindly thought to me when I have -gone to rest.</p> - -<hr class='c022' /> - -<div class='lg-container-r'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>September, 1898.</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c007'>The grey granite stone is standing already in Llanelltyd -burying ground, though my place beneath it still waits for -me. The friend who made my life so happy when I wrote -the last pages of this book, and who had then done so for -thirty-four blessed years,—lies there, under the rose trees -and the mignonette; alone, till I may be laid beside her.</p> - -<p class='c007'>It would be some poor comfort to me in my loneliness to -write here some little account of Mary Charlotte Lloyd, and -to describe her keen, highly-cultivated intellect, her quick -sense of humour, her gifts as sculptor and painter (the pupil -and friend of John Gibson and of Rosa Bonheur); her practical -ability and strict justice in the administration of her estate; -above all to speak of her character, “cast”—as one who -knew her from childhood said,—“in an heroic mould,” of -fortitude and loftiness; her absolute unselfishness in all things -large and small. But the reticence which belonged to the -greatness of her nature made her always refuse to allow -me to lead her into the more public life whereto my work -necessarily brought me, and in her last sacred directions she -forbids me to commemorate her by any written record. Only, -then, in the hearts of the few who really knew her must her -noble memory live.</p> - -<p class='c007'>I wrote the following lines to her some twenty-five years -ago when spending a few days away from her and our home -in London. I found them again after her death among her -<span class='pageno' id='Page_709'>709</span>papers. They have a doubled meaning for me now, when the -time has come for me to need her most of all.</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c018'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line in8'>TO MARY C. LLOYD.</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'><em>Written in Hartley Combe, Liss, about 1873.</em></div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line in2'>Friend of my life! Whene’er my eyes</div> - <div class='line in2'>Beat with sudden, glad surprise</div> - <div class='line in2'>On Nature’s scenes of earth and air</div> - <div class='line in2'>Sublimely grand, or sweetly fair,</div> - <div class='line in28'>I want you—Mary.</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line in2'>When men and women, gifted, free,</div> - <div class='line in2'>Speak their fresh thoughts ungrudgingly,</div> - <div class='line in2'>And springing forth, each kindling mind</div> - <div class='line in2'>Streams like a meteor in the wind,</div> - <div class='line in28'>I want you—Mary.</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line in2'>When soft the summer evenings close,</div> - <div class='line in2'>And crimson in the sunset rose,</div> - <div class='line in2'>Our Cader glows, majestic, grand,</div> - <div class='line in2'>The crown of all your lovely land,</div> - <div class='line in28'>I want you—Mary.</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line in2'>And when the winter nights come round,</div> - <div class='line in2'>To our “ain fireside,” cheerly bound,</div> - <div class='line in2'>With our dear Rembrandt Girl, so brown,</div> - <div class='line in2'>Smiling serenely on us down,</div> - <div class='line in28'>I want you—Mary.</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line in2'><em>Now</em>,—while the vigorous pulses leap</div> - <div class='line in2'>Still strong within my spirit’s deep,</div> - <div class='line in2'><em>Now</em>, while my yet unwearied brain</div> - <div class='line in2'>Weaves its thick web of thoughts amain,</div> - <div class='line in28'>I want you—Mary.</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line in2'><em>Hereafter</em>, when slow ebbs the tide,</div> - <div class='line in2'>And age drains out my strength and pride,</div> - <div class='line in2'>And dim-grown eyes and trembling hand</div> - <div class='line in2'>No longer list my soul’s command,</div> - <div class='line in28'>I’ll want you—Mary.</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line in2'><span class='pageno' id='Page_710'>710</span>In joy and grief, in good and ill,</div> - <div class='line in2'>Friend of my heart! I need you still;</div> - <div class='line in2'>My Playmate, Friend, Companion, Love,</div> - <div class='line in2'>To dwell with here, to clasp above,</div> - <div class='line in28'>I want you—Mary.</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line in2'>For O! if past the gates of Death</div> - <div class='line in2'>To me the Unseen openeth</div> - <div class='line in2'>Immortal joys to angels given,</div> - <div class='line in2'>Upon the holy heights of Heaven</div> - <div class='line in28'>I’ll want you—Mary!</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<hr class='c022' /> - -<p class='c007'>God has given me two priceless benedictions in life;—in -my youth a perfect Mother; in my later years, a perfect -Friend. No other gifts, had I possessed them, Genius, or -beauty, or fame, or the wealth of the Indies, would have been -worthy to compare with the joy of those affections. To live -in companionship, almost unbroken by separation and never -marred by a doubt or a rough word, with a mind in whose -workings my own found inexhaustible interest, and my heart -its rest; a friend who knew me better than any one beside -could ever know me, and yet,—strange to think!—could love -me better than any other,—this was happiness for which, even -now that it is over, I thank God from the depths of my soul. -I thank Him that I have <em>had</em> such a Friend. And I thank -Him that she died without prolonged suffering or distress, -with her head resting on my breast and her hand pressing -mine; calm and courageous to the last. Her old physician -said when all was over: “I have seen many, a <em>great</em> many, -men and women die; but I never saw one die so bravely.”</p> - -<p class='c006'>It has been possible for me through the kindness of my -friend’s sister, to whom Hengwrt now belongs, to obtain for my -<span class='pageno' id='Page_711'>711</span>remaining months or years a lease of this dear old house and -beautiful grounds; and my winters of entire solitude, and -summers, when a few friends and relations gather round me, -glide rapidly away. I am still struggling on, as my friend bade -me (literally with her dying breath), working for the cause -of the science-tortured brutes, and I have even spoken again -in public, and written many pamphlets and letters for the -press. I hope, as Tennyson told me to do, to “fight the -good fight” quite to the end. But there is a price which -every aged heart perforce must pay for the long enjoyment -of one soul-satisfying affection. When that affection is lost, -it must be evermore lonely.</p> - -<hr class='c022' /> - -<div class='chapter'> - <span class='pageno' id='Page_713'>713</span> - <h2 class='c005'>INDEX</h2> -</div> - -<ul class='index c003'> - <li class='center'>A</li> - <li class='c035'>Abengo, <a href='#Page_243'>243</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Adams, Mr., <a href='#Page_670'>670</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Adelsburg, Cave of, <a href='#Page_265'>265</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Adlam, Mr. and Mrs., <a href='#Page_661'>661</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Airlie, Lord, <a href='#Page_639'>639</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Aitken, Mary Carlyle, <a href='#Page_539'>539</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Ajalon, Valley of, <a href='#Page_243'>243</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Aldobrandini, <a href='#Page_623'>623</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Alexandria, <a href='#Page_229'>229</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Alfort, <a href='#Page_620'>620</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Alger, Rev. W., <a href='#Page_499'>499</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Allbut, Dr. Clifford, <a href='#Page_600'>600</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Allen, Mrs. Fairchild, <a href='#Page_662'>662</a></li> - <li class='c035'>“Alone, to the Alone,” <a href='#Page_408'>408</a></li> - <li class='c035'>American Visitors, <a href='#Page_499'>499</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Amos, Sheldon, <a href='#Page_461'>461</a>, <a href='#Page_657'>657</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Amphlett, Mr. Justice, <a href='#Page_593'>593</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Amsterdam, <a href='#Page_670'>670</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Ansano, <a href='#Page_376'>376</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Apennines, <a href='#Page_268'>268</a>, <a href='#Page_375'>375</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Appleton, Dr., <a href='#Page_373'>373</a>, <a href='#Page_624'>624</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Apthorp, Mr. and Mrs., <a href='#Page_225'>225</a>, <a href='#Page_269'>269</a>, <a href='#Page_499'>499</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Archer, Mrs., <a href='#Page_337'>337</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Archibald, Mr. Justice, <a href='#Page_593'>593</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Ardgillan, <a href='#Page_12'>12</a>, <a href='#Page_197'>197</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Argaum, <a href='#Page_20'>20</a>, <a href='#Page_210'>210</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Armstrong, Rev. R., <a href='#Page_421'>421</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Arnold, Mr. Arthur, <a href='#Page_430'>430</a>, <a href='#Page_436'>436</a> - <ul> - <li>Mrs., <a href='#Page_679'>679</a></li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c035'>Arnold, Sir Edwin, <a href='#Page_629'>629</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Arnold, Matthew, <a href='#Page_180'>180</a>, <a href='#Page_390'>390</a>, <a href='#Page_469'>469</a>, <a href='#Page_486'>486</a>, <a href='#Page_497'>497</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Arnold, Dr., <a href='#Page_672'>672</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Ashburton, Lord, <a href='#Page_7'>7</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Assaye, <a href='#Page_20'>20</a>, <a href='#Page_210'>210</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Assisi, <a href='#Page_365'>365</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Athens, <a href='#Page_254'>254</a>, <a href='#Page_256'>256</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Ayrton, Mr., <a href='#Page_464'>464</a></li> - <li class='c035'>d’Azeglio, Massimo, <a href='#Page_365'>365</a>, <a href='#Page_369'>369</a>, <a href='#Page_395'>395</a>, <a href='#Page_444'>444</a></li> - <li class='center'>B</li> - <li class='c035'>Baalbec, <a href='#Page_243'>243</a>, <a href='#Page_246'>246</a>, <a href='#Page_248'>248</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Babbage, Mr., <a href='#Page_458'>458</a>, <a href='#Page_559'>559</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Bacon, <a href='#Page_94'>94</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Bagehot, Mr., <a href='#Page_468'>468</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Baldelli, Countess of, <a href='#Page_661'>661</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Balfour, J. H., <a href='#Page_625'>625</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Ballard, Mrs. Laura Curtis, <a href='#Page_592'>592</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Balisk, <a href='#Page_137'>137</a>, <a href='#Page_144'>144</a>, <a href='#Page_147'>147</a>, <a href='#Page_156'>156</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Barbauld, Mrs., <a href='#Page_37'>37</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Barmouth, <a href='#Page_706'>706</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Barnum, <a href='#Page_565'>565</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Barry, Bishop, <a href='#Page_671'>671</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Baths (Introduction of into England), <a href='#Page_169'>169</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Bath, <a href='#Page_16'>16</a>, <a href='#Page_20'>20</a>, <a href='#Page_24'>24</a>, <a href='#Page_40'>40</a>, <a href='#Page_682'>682</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Bath and Wells, Bishop of, <a href='#Page_629'>629</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Bathurst, Miss, <a href='#Page_275'>275</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Beard, Rev. C., <a href='#Page_421'>421</a>, <a href='#Page_524'>524</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Becker, Miss, <a href='#Page_586'>586</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Beddoe, Mrs., <a href='#Page_607'>607</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Beddoe, Dr. John, <a href='#Page_607'>607</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Bell, Sir C., <a href='#Page_538'>538</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Bell, Mr. E., <a href='#Page_661'>661</a>, <a href='#Page_677'>677</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Belloc, Madame, <a href='#Page_586'>586</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Bellosguardo, <a href='#Page_269'>269</a>, <a href='#Page_375'>375</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Bennett, Sir Sterndale, <a href='#Page_532'>532</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Bentley, Mr., <a href='#Page_575'>575</a>–576</li> - <li class='c035'>Berchet, <a href='#Page_66'>66</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Berdoe, Dr., <a href='#Page_671'>671</a>, <a href='#Page_672'>672</a>, <a href='#Page_681'>681</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Beresford, Marcus, Primate of Ireland, <a href='#Page_11'>11</a>, <a href='#Page_629'>629</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Beresford, Lady, <a href='#Page_11'>11</a></li> - <li class='c035'><span class='pageno' id='Page_714'>714</span>Beresford, Sir Tristram, <a href='#Page_11'>11</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Berkeley, Bishop, <a href='#Page_19'>19</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Berlin, <a href='#Page_661'>661</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Bernard, Claude, <a href='#Page_637'>637</a>, <a href='#Page_676'>676</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Bert, Paul, <a href='#Page_676'>676</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Bethany, <a href='#Page_243'>243</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Bethlehem, <a href='#Page_236'>236</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Bewick, <a href='#Page_179'>179</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Beyrout, <a href='#Page_243'>243</a>, <a href='#Page_250'>250</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Bhagvat-Gita, <a href='#Page_495'>495</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Biedermann, Rev. W. and Mrs., <a href='#Page_269'>269</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Bilson, Bishop, <a href='#Page_7'>7</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Bishop, Mr., <a href='#Page_379'>379</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Bishop, Mrs., <a href='#Page_496'>496</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Blackburn, Justice, <a href='#Page_593'>593</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Black Forest, (Poem composed in), <a href='#Page_270'>270</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Blagden, Miss, <a href='#Page_269'>269</a>, <a href='#Page_352'>352</a>, <a href='#Page_375'>375</a>, <a href='#Page_376'>376</a>, <a href='#Page_622'>622</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Blunt, Rev. Gerard, <a href='#Page_629'>629</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Bodichon, Madame, <a href='#Page_171'>171</a>, <a href='#Page_466'>466</a>, <a href='#Page_577'>577</a>, <a href='#Page_638'>638</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Boehmen, Jacob, <a href='#Page_17'>17</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Bologna, <a href='#Page_365'>365</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Bombay Parsee Society, <a href='#Page_421'>421</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Bonheur, Rosa, <a href='#Page_393'>393</a>, <em>seq.</em>, <a href='#Page_708'>708</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Bonaparte, Prince Lucien, <a href='#Page_635'>635</a>, <a href='#Page_657'>657</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Borrow, George, <a href='#Page_479'>479</a>, <em>seq.</em></li> - <li class='c035'>Boston, <a href='#Page_113'>113</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Bost, M. Theodore, <a href='#Page_496'>496</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Botticelli, <a href='#Page_225'>225</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Bowie, Dr., <a href='#Page_672'>672</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Bowen, Lord Justice, <a href='#Page_383'>383</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Bowring, Sir John, <a href='#Page_480'>480</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Boxall, Sir W., <a href='#Page_560'>560</a>, <em>seq.</em></li> - <li class='c035'>Brabant, Dr., <a href='#Page_352'>352</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Brahmos of Bengal, <a href='#Page_491'>491</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Bramwell, Baron, <a href='#Page_593'>593</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Bray, Mr. and Mrs., <a href='#Page_92'>92</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Bright, John, <a href='#Page_461'>461</a>, <a href='#Page_589'>589</a>, <a href='#Page_629'>629</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Bright, Mrs. Jacob, <a href='#Page_587'>587</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Brighton, <a href='#Page_57'>57</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Bristol, <a href='#Page_57'>57</a>, chapter x. 617</li> - <li class='c035'>British Union, <a href='#Page_691'>691</a></li> - <li class='c035'>“Broken Lights,” <a href='#Page_400'>400</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Brooke, Stopford, <a href='#Page_93'>93</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Brookfield, Mrs., <a href='#Page_478'>478</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Brown, Baldwin, <a href='#Page_660'>660</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Brown, Dr. J., <a href='#Page_9'>9</a>, <a href='#Page_224'>224</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Browne, Mrs. Woolcott, <a href='#Page_360'>360</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Browning, Robert and Mrs., <a href='#Page_263'>263</a>, <a href='#Page_269'>269</a>, <a href='#Page_365'>365</a>, <a href='#Page_374'>374</a>, <a href='#Page_378'>378</a>, <em>seq.</em>, <a href='#Page_457'>457</a>, <a href='#Page_466'>466</a>, <a href='#Page_556'>556</a>, <a href='#Page_575'>575</a>, <a href='#Page_577'>577</a>, <a href='#Page_629'>629</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Brunton, Dr. Lauder, <a href='#Page_626'>626</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Bryan, Mr., <a href='#Page_672'>672</a>, <a href='#Page_680'>680</a>, <a href='#Page_695'>695</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Bryant, Miss, <a href='#Page_679'>679</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Buckley, Mrs., <a href='#Page_308'>308</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Burleigh, Celia, <a href='#Page_592'>592</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Bunsen, <a href='#Page_365'>365</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Bunting, Mr., <a href='#Page_421'>421</a>, <a href='#Page_595'>595</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Burntisland, <a href='#Page_387'>387</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Bute, Marquis of, <a href='#Page_653'>653</a>, <a href='#Page_679'>679</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Butler, Mrs. J., <a href='#Page_577'>577</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Buxton, Mr., <a href='#Page_461'>461</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Byfleet, <a href='#Page_471'>471</a>, <a href='#Page_446'>446</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Byron, <a href='#Page_257'>257</a>, <a href='#Page_258'>258</a>, <a href='#Page_383'>383</a>, <a href='#Page_475'>475</a>, <a href='#Page_616'>616</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Byron, Lady, <a href='#Page_275'>275</a>, <a href='#Page_291'>291</a>, <a href='#Page_475'>475</a>, <em>seq.</em></li> - <li class='center'>C</li> - <li class='c035'>Cader, Idris, <a href='#Page_346'>346</a>, <a href='#Page_705'>705</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Cahir, Lady, <a href='#Page_167'>167</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Cairo, <a href='#Page_231'>231</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Cairnes, Professor, <a href='#Page_461'>461</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Calmet (Dictionary), <a href='#Page_82'>82</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Campbell, <a href='#Page_668'>668</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Camperdown, Countess of, <a href='#Page_629'>629</a>, <a href='#Page_647'>647</a>, <a href='#Page_679'>679</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Canary, <a href='#Page_311'>311</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Cardwell, Lord, <a href='#Page_627'>627</a>, <a href='#Page_655'>655</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Carlow, <a href='#Page_8'>8</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Carlyle, Thomas, <a href='#Page_538'>538</a>, <em>seq.</em>, <a href='#Page_558'>558</a>, <a href='#Page_629'>629</a>, <a href='#Page_650'>650</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Carnarvon, Lord, <a href='#Page_653'>653</a>, <a href='#Page_668'>668</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Caramania, <a href='#Page_240'>240</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Carpenter, Mary, <a href='#Page_275'>275</a>, <em>seq.</em>, <a href='#Page_475'>475</a>, <a href='#Page_577'>577</a>, <a href='#Page_583'>583</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Carpenter, Professor Estlin, <a href='#Page_287'>287</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Carpenter, Philip, <a href='#Page_287'>287</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Carpenter, Dr., <a href='#Page_452'>452</a>, <a href='#Page_454'>454</a>, <a href='#Page_482'>482</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Cartwright, Mr., <a href='#Page_669'>669</a>, <a href='#Page_675'>675</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Castlemaine, Lady, <a href='#Page_192'>192</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Cavour, <a href='#Page_366'>366</a>, <a href='#Page_389'>389</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Cellini, <a href='#Page_391'>391</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Cervantes, <a href='#Page_179'>179</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Chambers, Robert, <a href='#Page_195'>195</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Champion, Colonel and Mrs., <a href='#Page_23'>23</a>, <a href='#Page_24'>24</a></li> - <li class='c035'><span class='pageno' id='Page_715'>715</span>Channing, Rev. W. H., <a href='#Page_492'>492</a>, <a href='#Page_499'>499</a>, <a href='#Page_524'>524</a>, <a href='#Page_678'>678</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Charles, Justice, <a href='#Page_593'>593</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Charley, <a href='#Page_40'>40</a>, <em>seq.</em></li> - <li class='c035'>Chaloner, James, <a href='#Page_7'>7</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Charcot, Dr., <a href='#Page_321'>321</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Churchill, Lord R., <a href='#Page_15'>15</a></li> - <li class='c035'>“Cities of the Past,” <a href='#Page_399'>399</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Clarke, Rev. J. Freeman, <a href='#Page_499'>499</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Clarke, Dr., <a href='#Page_671'>671</a>, <a href='#Page_672'>672</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Clay, Dr., <a href='#Page_669'>669</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Clewer, <a href='#Page_322'>322</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Clerk, Miss, <a href='#Page_337'>337</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Clifton, <a href='#Page_338'>338</a>, <a href='#Page_352'>352</a>, <a href='#Page_360'>360</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Close, Dean of Carlisle, <a href='#Page_632'>632</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Clough, Arthur, <a href='#Page_90'>90</a>, <a href='#Page_374'>374</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Cobbe, Frances Power, Birth, <a href='#Page_31'>31</a>; - <ul> - <li>School, <a href='#Page_57'>57</a>;</li> - <li>Mother’s death, <a href='#Page_99'>99</a>;</li> - <li>First book, <a href='#Page_110'>110</a>;</li> - <li>Leaves Newbridge, <a href='#Page_213'>213</a>;</li> - <li>in Bristol, <a href='#Page_275'>275</a>;</li> - <li>Settles in London, <a href='#Page_395'>395</a>;</li> - <li>Leaves London, <a href='#Page_580'>580</a></li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c035'>Cobbe, Lady Betty, <a href='#Page_11'>11</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Cobbe, Frances Conway, <a href='#Page_388'>388</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Cobbe, Rev. Henry, <a href='#Page_13'>13</a>, <a href='#Page_44'>44</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Cobbe, George, <a href='#Page_43'>43</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Cobbe, William, <a href='#Page_41'>41</a>, <a href='#Page_43'>43</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Cobbe, Thomas, <a href='#Page_10'>10</a>, <a href='#Page_43'>43</a>, <a href='#Page_578'>578</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Cobbe, Charles, <a href='#Page_20'>20</a>, <em>seq.</em>, <a href='#Page_100'>100</a>, <em>seq.</em>, <a href='#Page_206'>206</a>, <em>seq.</em>, <a href='#Page_212'>212</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Cobbe, Sophia and Eliza, <a href='#Page_464'>464</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Cobbe, Helen, <a href='#Page_204'>204</a>, <a href='#Page_212'>212</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Cockburn, Lord, Chief Justice, <a href='#Page_593'>593</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Colam, Mr., <a href='#Page_626'>626</a>, <em>seq.</em>, <a href='#Page_636'>636</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Colenso, Bishop, <a href='#Page_97'>97</a>, <a href='#Page_400'>400</a>, <a href='#Page_404'>404</a>, <a href='#Page_451'>451</a>, <a href='#Page_540'>540</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Colenso, Mrs., <a href='#Page_453'>453</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Coleridge, Hon. Bernard, <a href='#Page_671'>671</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Coleridge, Lord, <a href='#Page_549'>549</a>, <a href='#Page_560'>560</a>, <a href='#Page_561'>561</a>, <a href='#Page_593'>593</a>, <a href='#Page_629'>629</a>, <a href='#Page_648'>648</a>, <a href='#Page_695'>695</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Coleridge, Hon. Stephen, <a href='#Page_689'>689</a>, <a href='#Page_690'>690</a>, <a href='#Page_695'>695</a>, <a href='#Page_696'>696</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Collins, Wilkie, <a href='#Page_558'>558</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Combe, George, <a href='#Page_576'>576</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Comet (of 1835), <a href='#Page_52'>52</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Condorcet, <a href='#Page_187'>187</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Constantinople, <a href='#Page_261'>261</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Conversion, <a href='#Page_88'>88</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Conway, Captain T., <a href='#Page_7'>7</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Conway, Adjutant General, <a href='#Page_43'>43</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Copenhagen, <a href='#Page_661'>661</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Corsi, <a href='#Page_623'>623</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Corsini, <a href='#Page_623'>623</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Corfu, <a href='#Page_264'>264</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Coutts, Lady Burdett, <a href='#Page_636'>636</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Cowie, Mr. James, <a href='#Page_621'>621</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Cowper-Temple, Hon. W., <a href='#Page_318'>318</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Cox, Sir G. W., <a href='#Page_452'>452</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Crabbe, <a href='#Page_11'>11</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Craig, Isa, <a href='#Page_316'>316</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Crampton, Sir Philip, <a href='#Page_46'>46</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Crawford, Mr. Oswald, <a href='#Page_421'>421</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Crimean War, <a href='#Page_173'>173</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Crofton, Sir Walter, <a href='#Page_291'>291</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Crosby & Nichols, <a href='#Page_113'>113</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Cross, Lord, <a href='#Page_639'>639</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Cross, Mr., <a href='#Page_653'>653</a>, <em>seq.</em></li> - <li class='c035'>Cunningham, Rev. W., <a href='#Page_373'>373</a>, <a href='#Page_374'>374</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Curtis, Mr. George, <a href='#Page_499'>499</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Curraghmore, <a href='#Page_12'>12</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Cushman, Charlotte, <a href='#Page_365'>365</a>, <a href='#Page_391'>391</a>, <a href='#Page_392'>392</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Cyon, <a href='#Page_553'>553</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Cyclades, <a href='#Page_240'>240</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Cyprus, <a href='#Page_252'>252</a></li> - <li class='center'>D</li> - <li class='c035'>Dall, Mr., <a href='#Page_496'>496</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Daly, Miss, <a href='#Page_50'>50</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Damascus, <a href='#Page_243'>243</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Darwin, Charles, <a href='#Page_180'>180</a>, <a href='#Page_423'>423</a>, <a href='#Page_485'>485</a>, <em>seq.</em>, <a href='#Page_540'>540</a>, <a href='#Page_618'>618</a>, <a href='#Page_640'>640</a>, <a href='#Page_643'>643</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Darwin, Erasmus, <a href='#Page_485'>485</a>, <a href='#Page_490'>490</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Davies, Rev. V., <a href='#Page_702'>702</a></li> - <li class='c035'>“Dawning Lights,” <a href='#Page_483'>483</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Dead Sea, <a href='#Page_240'>240</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Dean, Rev. Peter, <a href='#Page_375'>375</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Decies, Lord, <a href='#Page_22'>22</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Denison, Archdeacon, <a href='#Page_542'>542</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Denman, Mr. Justice, <a href='#Page_593'>593</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Deraismes, Mademoiselle, <a href='#Page_671'>671</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Devis, Mrs., <a href='#Page_23'>23</a>, <a href='#Page_58'>58</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Devon, Lord, <a href='#Page_194'>194</a></li> - <li class='c035'>De Wette, <a href='#Page_452'>452</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Dicey, Mrs., <a href='#Page_478'>478</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Djinns, <a href='#Page_247'>247</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Donabate, <a href='#Page_100'>100</a>, <a href='#Page_137'>137</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Donegal, <a href='#Page_101'>101</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Donne, W., <a href='#Page_576'>576</a></li> - <li class='c035'><span class='pageno' id='Page_716'>716</span>Donnelly, Mr. William, <a href='#Page_141'>141</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Dorchester House, <a href='#Page_26'>26</a>, <a href='#Page_143'>143</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Downshire, Marquis of, <a href='#Page_193'>193</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Drumcar, <a href='#Page_169'>169</a>, <a href='#Page_192'>192</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Dublin, <a href='#Page_8'>8</a>, <a href='#Page_104'>104</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Durdham Down, <a href='#Page_303'>303</a></li> - <li class='c035'>“Duties of Women,” <a href='#Page_570'>570</a>, <a href='#Page_601'>601</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Dyke, Sir W. Hart, <a href='#Page_639'>639</a></li> - <li class='center'>E</li> - <li class='c035'>Eastlake, Lady, <a href='#Page_391'>391</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Easton Lyss, <a href='#Page_445'>445</a>, <a href='#Page_578'>578</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Edgeworth, Miss, <a href='#Page_44'>44</a>, <a href='#Page_179'>179</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Edwards, The Misses Betham, <a href='#Page_558'>558</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Edwards, Passmore, <a href='#Page_436'>436</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Egypt, <a href='#Page_219'>219</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Eliot, George, <a href='#Page_92'>92</a>, <a href='#Page_444'>444</a>, <a href='#Page_578'>578</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Elliot, Dean, <a href='#Page_359'>359</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Elliot, Miss, <a href='#Page_277'>277</a>, <a href='#Page_307'>307</a>, <em>seq.</em>, <a href='#Page_333'>333</a>, <a href='#Page_359'>359</a>, <a href='#Page_385'>385</a>, <a href='#Page_387'>387</a>, <a href='#Page_448'>448</a>, <a href='#Page_458'>458</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Elliot, Sir Frederick, <a href='#Page_635'>635</a>, <a href='#Page_639'>639</a>, <a href='#Page_647'>647</a>, <a href='#Page_650'>650</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Ellicott, Bishop, <a href='#Page_648'>648</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Emigration, <a href='#Page_157'>157</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Empson, Mr., <a href='#Page_300'>300</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Enniskillen, Lord, <a href='#Page_194'>194</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Erichsen, Dr., <a href='#Page_642'>642</a>, <a href='#Page_644'>644</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Escott, Mr., <a href='#Page_380'>380</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Essays and Reviews, <a href='#Page_89'>89</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Euphrates, <a href='#Page_40'>40</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Evans, Mrs., <a href='#Page_186'>186</a>, <em>seq.</em></li> - <li class='c035'>Evans, George H., <a href='#Page_186'>186</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Exeter, Bishop of, <a href='#Page_629'>629</a></li> - <li class='center'>F</li> - <li class='c035'>Fairfax, Ursula, <a href='#Page_7'>7</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Fairfax, Sir William, <a href='#Page_385'>385</a>, <a href='#Page_387'>387</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Fauveau, Mademoiselle F., <a href='#Page_222'>222</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Fawcett, Mr. and Mrs., <a href='#Page_459'>459</a>, <a href='#Page_466'>466</a>, <a href='#Page_467'>467</a>, <a href='#Page_578'>578</a>, <a href='#Page_586'>586</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Ferguson, Mr., <a href='#Page_423'>423</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Ferguson, Mr. J., <a href='#Page_559'>559</a>, <a href='#Page_560'>560</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Fergusson, Sir W., <a href='#Page_345'>345</a>, <a href='#Page_627'>627</a>, <a href='#Page_629'>629</a>, <a href='#Page_633'>633</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Ferrier, Professor, <a href='#Page_672'>672</a>, <em>seq.</em></li> - <li class='c035'>Ferrars, Selina, Countess of, <a href='#Page_17'>17</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Ffoulkes, Edmund, <a href='#Page_178'>178</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Fiésolé, <a href='#Page_375'>375</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Finlay, Mr., <a href='#Page_254'>254</a>, <em>seq.</em></li> - <li class='c035'>Firth, Mr. J. B., <a href='#Page_642'>642</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Fisherman of Loch Neagh, <a href='#Page_48'>48</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Fitzgerald, Edward, <a href='#Page_576'>576</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Fitzgerald, Mr., <a href='#Page_639'>639</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Flood, <a href='#Page_15'>15</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Florence, <a href='#Page_221'>221</a>, <a href='#Page_268'>268</a>, <a href='#Page_320'>320</a>, <a href='#Page_365'>365</a>, <a href='#Page_375'>375</a>, <a href='#Page_388'>388</a>, <a href='#Page_389'>389</a>, <a href='#Page_622'>622</a>, <em>seq.</em>, <a href='#Page_661'>661</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Flower, William, <a href='#Page_625'>625</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Fonblanque, Mr. E. de, <a href='#Page_648'>648</a>, <a href='#Page_662'>662</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Fontanés, M., <a href='#Page_496'>496</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Förster, Dr. Paul, <a href='#Page_661'>661</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Foster, Dr. Michael, <a href='#Page_626'>626</a>, <a href='#Page_674'>674</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Francis, Saint, <a href='#Page_536'>536</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Froude, J. A., <a href='#Page_8'>8</a>, <a href='#Page_421'>421</a>, <a href='#Page_478'>478</a>, <a href='#Page_510'>510</a>, <em>seq.</em>, <a href='#Page_621'>621</a>, <a href='#Page_650'>650</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Furdoonjee, Nowrosjee, <a href='#Page_421'>421</a>, <a href='#Page_491'>491</a></li> - <li class='center'>G</li> - <li class='c035'>Galton, <a href='#Page_423'>423</a>, <a href='#Page_466'>466</a>, <a href='#Page_483'>483</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Gamgee, Professor A., <a href='#Page_625'>625</a>, <a href='#Page_673'>673</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Garbally, <a href='#Page_16'>16</a>, <a href='#Page_193'>193</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Garibaldi, <a href='#Page_366'>366</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Garrett, Miss E., <a href='#Page_467'>467</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Gaskell, Mrs., <a href='#Page_577'>577</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Geist, <a href='#Page_470'>470</a>, <a href='#Page_471'>471</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Genoa, <a href='#Page_365'>365</a>, <a href='#Page_384'>384</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Germany, <a href='#Page_46'>46</a></li> - <li class='c035'>George IV., <a href='#Page_16'>16</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Ghiza, <a href='#Page_232'>232</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Ghosts, <a href='#Page_13'>13</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Greene, Mr., <a href='#Page_662'>662</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Gibbon, <a href='#Page_52'>52</a>, <a href='#Page_74'>74</a>, <a href='#Page_89'>89</a>, <a href='#Page_97'>97</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Gibson, John, <a href='#Page_268'>268</a>, <a href='#Page_365'>365</a>, <a href='#Page_390'>390</a>, <a href='#Page_708'>708</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Gladstone, W. E., <a href='#Page_446'>446</a>, <a href='#Page_504'>504</a>, <em>seq.</em>, <a href='#Page_551'>551</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Glasgow, Lord, <a href='#Page_653'>653</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Godwin, William, <a href='#Page_257'>257</a>, <a href='#Page_466'>466</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Goethe, <a href='#Page_555'>555</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Goldschmidts, <a href='#Page_237'>237</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Goodeve, Dr., <a href='#Page_338'>338</a>, <a href='#Page_361'>361</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Gothard, <a href='#Page_269'>269</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Grana Uaile, <a href='#Page_139'>139</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Granard, Lady, <a href='#Page_14'>14</a>, <a href='#Page_44'>44</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Grant, Isabel, <a href='#Page_435'>435</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Grant, Baron, <a href='#Page_436'>436</a></li> - <li class='c035'><span class='pageno' id='Page_717'>717</span>Grant Duff, Sir M., <a href='#Page_536'>536</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Granville, Lord, <a href='#Page_587'>587</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Grattan, <a href='#Page_15'>15</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Green, Miss, <a href='#Page_195'>195</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Greg, Mr. W. R., <a href='#Page_524'>524</a>, <em>seq.</em></li> - <li class='c035'>Grey, Mrs. William, <a href='#Page_578'>578</a>, <a href='#Page_586'>586</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Greville, Henry, <a href='#Page_576'>576</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Grisanowski, Dr., <a href='#Page_383'>383</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Grove, Sir W., <a href='#Page_482'>482</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Guillotine (Nuns chanting at), <a href='#Page_293'>293</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Gully, Mr., <a href='#Page_673'>673</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Gurney, Mr. Russell, <a href='#Page_589'>589</a>, <a href='#Page_595'>595</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Guthrie, Canon, <a href='#Page_359'>359</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Guyon, Madame, <a href='#Page_17'>17</a></li> - <li class='center'>H</li> - <li class='c035'>Hague, The, <a href='#Page_669'>669</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Hajjin, <a href='#Page_278'>278</a>, <a href='#Page_617'>617</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Hall, Mrs., <a href='#Page_482'>482</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Hallam, Arthur, <a href='#Page_553'>553</a>, <a href='#Page_555'>555</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Hamilton, Nichola, <a href='#Page_11'>11</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Handel, <a href='#Page_8'>8</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Hanover, <a href='#Page_661'>661</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Harcourt, Sir W., <a href='#Page_669'>669</a></li> - <li class='c035'>“Hard Church,” <a href='#Page_196'>196</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Harris, Mr., <a href='#Page_401'>401</a>, <a href='#Page_501'>501</a> <em>seq.</em></li> - <li class='c035'>Harrison, Frederic, <a href='#Page_377'>377</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Harrowby, Lord, <a href='#Page_636'>636</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Hart, Dr. Ernest, <a href='#Page_674'>674</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Harvey, <a href='#Page_538'>538</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Hastings, Lady Selina, <a href='#Page_13'>13</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Hastings, Lord, <a href='#Page_43'>43</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Haweis, Mr., <a href='#Page_430'>430</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Hazard, Mr., <a href='#Page_499'>499</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Headfort, Marquis of, <a href='#Page_264'>264</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Hebron, <a href='#Page_236'>236</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Heidelburg, <a href='#Page_270'>270</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Helps, Sir A., <a href='#Page_629'>629</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Hemans, Mrs., <a href='#Page_258'>258</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Hengwrt, <a href='#Page_392'>392</a>, <a href='#Page_485'>485</a>, <a href='#Page_699'>699</a>, <a href='#Page_704'>704</a>, <a href='#Page_706'>706</a>, <a href='#Page_710'>710</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Henniker, Lord, <a href='#Page_639'>639</a>, <em>seq.</em>, <a href='#Page_668'>668</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Hereford, Bishop of, <a href='#Page_629'>629</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Herodotus, <a href='#Page_588'>588</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Herschell, Mr., <a href='#Page_596'>596</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Higginson, Colonel, <a href='#Page_499'>499</a>, <a href='#Page_592'>592</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Hill, Alfred, <a href='#Page_595'>595</a>, <em>seq.</em></li> - <li class='c035'>Hill, Frederick, <a href='#Page_586'>586</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Hill, Sir Rowland, <a href='#Page_586'>586</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Hill, Matthew D., <a href='#Page_285'>285</a>, <a href='#Page_347'>347</a>, <a href='#Page_586'>586</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Hill, F. D., <a href='#Page_327'>327</a>, <a href='#Page_337'>337</a>, <a href='#Page_347'>347</a>, <a href='#Page_578'>578</a>, <a href='#Page_586'>586</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Hill, Miss, <a href='#Page_347'>347</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Hill, Miss Octavia, <a href='#Page_578'>578</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Hobbema, <a href='#Page_26'>26</a>, <a href='#Page_143'>143</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Hoggan, Dr. and Mrs., <a href='#Page_468'>468</a>, <a href='#Page_538'>538</a>, <a href='#Page_545'>545</a>, <a href='#Page_617'>617</a>, <a href='#Page_637'>637</a>, <em>seq.</em>, <a href='#Page_647'>647</a>, <em>seq.</em></li> - <li class='c035'>Holden, Mrs. Luther, <a href='#Page_628'>628</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Holland, Sir H., <a href='#Page_596'>596</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Holloway, Mr., <a href='#Page_322'>322</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Holmes, Dr. O. W., <a href='#Page_499'>499</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Holmgren, Professor, <a href='#Page_491'>491</a>, <a href='#Page_643'>643</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Holt, Mr., <a href='#Page_655'>655</a>, <a href='#Page_657'>657</a>, <a href='#Page_662'>662</a>, <a href='#Page_669'>669</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Holyhead, <a href='#Page_40'>40</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Holyrood, <a href='#Page_9'>9</a></li> - <li class='c035'>“Holy Griddle,” The, <a href='#Page_147'>147</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Hooker, <a href='#Page_113'>113</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Hooker, Mrs., <a href='#Page_457'>457</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Hooper, Mr. G., <a href='#Page_207'>207</a>, <a href='#Page_208'>208</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Hopwood, Mr., <a href='#Page_595'>595</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Hope, Mr. (“Anastasius”), <a href='#Page_22'>22</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Horsley, Mr. Victor, <a href='#Page_680'>680</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Hosmer, Harriet, <a href='#Page_289'>289</a>, <a href='#Page_392'>392</a>, <a href='#Page_499'>499</a>, <a href='#Page_577'>577</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Houghton, Lord, <a href='#Page_537'>537</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Hough, Bishop, <a href='#Page_14'>14</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Howe, Mrs., <a href='#Page_499'>499</a>, <a href='#Page_591'>591</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Howard, John, <a href='#Page_495'>495</a>, <a href='#Page_564'>564</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Howth, <a href='#Page_139'>139</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Hume, <a href='#Page_97'>97</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Humphry, Sir G., <a href='#Page_625'>625</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Huntingdon, Earl of, <a href='#Page_10'>10</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Huntingdon, Lady, <a href='#Page_81'>81</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Hutton, Richard, <a href='#Page_469'>469</a>, <a href='#Page_627'>627</a>, <a href='#Page_635'>635</a>, <a href='#Page_643'>643</a>, <a href='#Page_647'>647</a>, <a href='#Page_652'>652</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Huxley, Professor, <a href='#Page_642'>642</a>, <a href='#Page_644'>644</a></li> - <li class='center'>I</li> - <li class='c035'>Isle of Man, <a href='#Page_7'>7</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Italy, <a href='#Page_222'>222</a></li> - <li class='center'>J</li> - <li class='c035'>Jaffa, <a href='#Page_234'>234</a>, <a href='#Page_243'>243</a></li> - <li class='c035'>James, Mr. H., <a href='#Page_575'>575</a></li> - <li class='c035'><span class='pageno' id='Page_718'>718</span>Jameson, Mrs., <a href='#Page_576'>576</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Jericho, <a href='#Page_242'>242</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Jerusalem, <a href='#Page_220'>220</a>, <a href='#Page_234'>234</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Jesse, Mr., <a href='#Page_660'>660</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Jewsbury, Miss, <a href='#Page_558'>558</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Jones, Martha, <a href='#Page_37'>37</a>, <a href='#Page_268'>268</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Jordan, <a href='#Page_242'>242</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Jowett, Benjamin, <a href='#Page_316'>316</a>, <a href='#Page_318'>318</a>, <a href='#Page_349'>349</a>, <a href='#Page_351'>351</a>, <a href='#Page_402'>402</a>, <a href='#Page_540'>540</a>, <a href='#Page_629'>629</a></li> - <li class='center'>K</li> - <li class='c035'>Kant, <a href='#Page_115'>115</a>, <a href='#Page_122'>122</a>, <a href='#Page_487'>487</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Keats, <a href='#Page_555'>555</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Keating, Justice, <a href='#Page_593'>593</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Keeley, Mr., <a href='#Page_173'>173</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Kelly, Chief Baron, <a href='#Page_593'>593</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Kelly, Sir Fitzroy, <a href='#Page_629'>629</a>, <a href='#Page_648'>648</a>, <a href='#Page_650'>650</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Kemble, Fanny, <a href='#Page_4'>4</a>, <a href='#Page_197'>197</a>, <em>seq.</em>, <a href='#Page_257'>257</a>, <a href='#Page_360'>360</a>, <a href='#Page_439'>439</a>, <a href='#Page_446'>446</a>, <a href='#Page_553'>553</a>, <a href='#Page_555'>555</a>, <a href='#Page_575'>575</a>, <a href='#Page_580'>580</a>, <a href='#Page_695'>695</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Kemble, John, <a href='#Page_553'>553</a>, <a href='#Page_555'>555</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Kempis, Thomas à, <a href='#Page_149'>149</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Keshub Chunder Sen, <a href='#Page_455'>455</a>, <a href='#Page_491'>491</a>, <em>seq.</em></li> - <li class='c035'>Kilmainham, <a href='#Page_25'>25</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Kingsley, Charles, <a href='#Page_401'>401</a>, <a href='#Page_454'>454</a>, <em>seq.</em></li> - <li class='c035'>Kingsland, Lord, <a href='#Page_9'>9</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Kinnear, Miss, <a href='#Page_39'>39</a>, <a href='#Page_50'>50</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Kitty, <a href='#Page_290'>290</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Klein, Professor, <a href='#Page_626'>626</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Kozzaris, Lady Emily, <a href='#Page_264'>264</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Kubla Khan, <a href='#Page_47'>47</a></li> - <li class='center'>L</li> - <li class='c035'>Lamartine, <a href='#Page_90'>90</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Landsdown, Lord, <a href='#Page_359'>359</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Landor, W. S., <a href='#Page_257'>257</a>, <a href='#Page_269'>269</a>, <a href='#Page_382'>382</a>, <a href='#Page_622'>622</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Landseer, Sir E., <a href='#Page_394'>394</a>, <a href='#Page_561'>561</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Langton, Anna Gore, <a href='#Page_586'>586</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Lankester, Mr. Ray, <a href='#Page_634'>634</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Lawrence, Lord, <a href='#Page_493'>493</a>, <em>seq.</em></li> - <li class='c035'>Lawrence, General, <a href='#Page_635'>635</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Lawson, M. A., <a href='#Page_625'>625</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Lebanon, <a href='#Page_243'>243</a>, <a href='#Page_250'>250</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Leblois, Mons., <a href='#Page_496'>496</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Lecky, Mr., <a href='#Page_179'>179</a>, <a href='#Page_478'>478</a>, <a href='#Page_629'>629</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Lee, Miss, <a href='#Page_13'>13</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Leffingwell, Dr., <a href='#Page_502'>502</a>, <a href='#Page_666'>666</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Le Hunt, Colonel, <a href='#Page_155'>155</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Leigh, Colonel, <a href='#Page_593'>593</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Leitrim, Lord, <a href='#Page_194'>194</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Lembcké, M. and Mdme., <a href='#Page_661'>661</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Le Poer, John, <a href='#Page_11'>11</a></li> - <li class='c035'>L’Estrange, Alice, <a href='#Page_500'>500</a>, <em>seq.</em></li> - <li class='c035'>Levinge, Dorothy, <a href='#Page_17'>17</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Lewes, George H., <a href='#Page_63'>63</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Lewis, Sir George, <a href='#Page_528'>528</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Liddon, Canon, <a href='#Page_651'>651</a>, <em>seq.</em>, <a href='#Page_659'>659</a>, <a href='#Page_664'>664</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Lindsay, Lady Charlotte, <a href='#Page_44'>44</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Livermore, Mrs., <a href='#Page_591'>591</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Liverpool, <a href='#Page_51'>51</a>, <a href='#Page_52'>52</a>, <a href='#Page_624'>624</a>, <a href='#Page_625'>625</a>, <a href='#Page_701'>701</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Llandaff, Dean of, <a href='#Page_671'>671</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Llanelltyd, <a href='#Page_707'>707</a>, <a href='#Page_708'>708</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Llangollen (Ladies of), <a href='#Page_197'>197</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Lloyd, Miss, <a href='#Page_200'>200</a>, <a href='#Page_392'>392</a>, <a href='#Page_395'>395</a>, <a href='#Page_471'>471</a>, <a href='#Page_438'>438</a>, <a href='#Page_574'>574</a>, <a href='#Page_647'>647</a>, <a href='#Page_680'>680</a>, <a href='#Page_708'>708</a>, <em>seq.</em></li> - <li class='c035'>Locke, <a href='#Page_94'>94</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Locke, John, M.P., <a href='#Page_463'>463</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Lockwood, Mrs., <a href='#Page_499'>499</a></li> - <li class='c035'>London, <a href='#Page_40'>40</a>, chapters xvi., xvii., xviii.</li> - <li class='c035'>Longfellow, <a href='#Page_500'>500</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Longley, Bishop, <a href='#Page_184'>184</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Longman, Mr. W., <a href='#Page_111'>111</a>, <a href='#Page_579'>579</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Loring-Brace, Mr. and Mrs., <a href='#Page_499'>499</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Louth, <a href='#Page_8'>8</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Louis Philippe, <a href='#Page_222'>222</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Lowell, J. R., <a href='#Page_234'>234</a>, <a href='#Page_392'>392</a>, <a href='#Page_551'>551</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Lush, Justice, <a href='#Page_593'>593</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Lux Mundi, <a href='#Page_89'>89</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Lydda, <a href='#Page_234'>234</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Lyell, Sir Charles and Lady, <a href='#Page_446'>446</a>, <em>seq.</em>, <a href='#Page_481'>481</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Lyell, Colonel and Mrs., <a href='#Page_446'>446</a>, <a href='#Page_447'>447</a></li> - <li class='center'>M</li> - <li class='c035'>Macdonald, George, <a href='#Page_145'>145</a>, <a href='#Page_671'>671</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Machpelah, <a href='#Page_237'>237</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Macintosh, Sir James, <a href='#Page_646'>646</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Mackenzie, General Colin, <a href='#Page_629'>629</a>, <a href='#Page_647'>647</a>, <a href='#Page_678'>678</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Mackarness, Bishop, <a href='#Page_671'>671</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Mackay, R. W., <a href='#Page_472'>472</a>, <em>seq.</em></li> - <li class='c035'>Madiai (Family of), <a href='#Page_565'>565</a></li> - <li class='c035'><span class='pageno' id='Page_719'>719</span>Madras, <a href='#Page_7'>7</a>, <a href='#Page_20'>20</a>, <a href='#Page_282'>282</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Magee, Bishop, <a href='#Page_668'>668</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Magnan, M., <a href='#Page_627'>627</a>, <a href='#Page_634'>634</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Maine, Sir H., <a href='#Page_478'>478</a>, <a href='#Page_633'>633</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Majendie, <a href='#Page_538'>538</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Malabari, <a href='#Page_611'>611</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Malone, Mary, <a href='#Page_32'>32</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Malta, <a href='#Page_228'>228</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Mamre, <a href='#Page_236'>236</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Manchester, Bishop of 629, <a href='#Page_631'>631</a>, <a href='#Page_648'>648</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Manen, Madame von, <a href='#Page_669'>669</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Manning, Mrs., <a href='#Page_423'>423</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Manning, Archbishop, <a href='#Page_540'>540</a>, <em>seq.</em>, <a href='#Page_629'>629</a>, <a href='#Page_657'>657</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Manzoni, <a href='#Page_66'>66</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Mario, Madame Alberto, <a href='#Page_383'>383</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Marsh, Archbishop, <a href='#Page_112'>112</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Marston, Miss, <a href='#Page_690'>690</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Martin, Richard, <a href='#Page_178'>178</a>, <a href='#Page_646'>646</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Martineau, Dr., <a href='#Page_93'>93</a>, <a href='#Page_412'>412</a>, <a href='#Page_446'>446</a>, <a href='#Page_519'>519</a>, <em>seq.</em>, <a href='#Page_629'>629</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Martineau, Harriet, <a href='#Page_577'>577</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Mar Saba, <a href='#Page_238'>238</a>, <a href='#Page_247'>247</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Masson, David, <a href='#Page_314'>314</a>, <a href='#Page_421'>421</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Matthew, Father, <a href='#Page_147'>147</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Maulden Rectory, <a href='#Page_445'>445</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Maurice, F. D., <a href='#Page_401'>401</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Mawddach, <a href='#Page_706'>706</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Maxwell, Colonel, <a href='#Page_209'>209</a></li> - <li class='c035'>May, Rev. Samuel J., <a href='#Page_282'>282</a>, <a href='#Page_583'>583</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Mazzini, <a href='#Page_257'>257</a>, <a href='#Page_366'>366</a>, <a href='#Page_367'>367</a></li> - <li class='c035'>M‘Clintock, Lady E., <a href='#Page_160'>160</a>, <a href='#Page_169'>169</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Mellor, Mr. Justice, <a href='#Page_593'>593</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Merivale, Mr. Herman, <a href='#Page_446'>446</a>, <a href='#Page_478'>478</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Messina, <a href='#Page_228'>228</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Michaud, Madame, <a href='#Page_65'>65</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Michel, Louise, <a href='#Page_498'>498</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Mill, J. S.,411, <a href='#Page_457'>457</a>, <a href='#Page_486'>486</a>, <a href='#Page_540'>540</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Milan, <a href='#Page_269'>269</a>, <a href='#Page_365'>365</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Minto, Lord 369, <a href='#Page_650'>650</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Minto, Lady, <a href='#Page_639'>639</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Mischna, The, <a href='#Page_473'>473</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Mitchell, Professor Maria, <a href='#Page_591'>591</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Moira, Lady, <a href='#Page_14'>14</a>, <a href='#Page_174'>174</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Moncks, <a href='#Page_17'>17</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Monsell, Hon. Mrs., <a href='#Page_155'>155</a>, <a href='#Page_322'>322</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Monro, Miss, <a href='#Page_679'>679</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Monteagle, Lady, <a href='#Page_478'>478</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Montefiores, <a href='#Page_237'>237</a>; - <ul> - <li>Sir Moses, <a href='#Page_475'>475</a></li> - </ul> - </li> - <li class='c035'>Montriou, Mademoiselle, <a href='#Page_52'>52</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Montreux, <a href='#Page_269'>269</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Moore, <a href='#Page_37'>37</a>, <a href='#Page_48'>48</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Morelli, Countess, <a href='#Page_661'>661</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Morgan, Mrs. de, <a href='#Page_478'>478</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Morley, John, <a href='#Page_421'>421</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Morley, Samuel, <a href='#Page_659'>659</a>, <a href='#Page_665'>665</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Morris, Rev. F. O., <a href='#Page_671'>671</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Morris, Lewis, <a href='#Page_558'>558</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Morrison, Mrs. Frank, <a href='#Page_679'>679</a>, <a href='#Page_690'>690</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Moth, Mrs., <a href='#Page_14'>14</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Mount of Olives, <a href='#Page_243'>243</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Mount-Temple, Lord and Lady, <a href='#Page_318'>318</a>, <a href='#Page_561'>561</a>, <a href='#Page_578'>578</a>, <a href='#Page_636'>636</a>, <a href='#Page_648'>648</a>, <a href='#Page_657'>657</a>, <a href='#Page_665'>665</a>, <a href='#Page_679'>679</a>, <a href='#Page_690'>690</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Moydrum Castle, <a href='#Page_192'>192</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Mozoomdar, <a href='#Page_493'>493</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Müller, Max, <a href='#Page_423'>423</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Mundella, Mr., <a href='#Page_650'>650</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Murray, <a href='#Page_112'>112</a></li> - <li class='center'>N</li> - <li class='c035'>Naples, <a href='#Page_226'>226</a>, <a href='#Page_365'>365</a>, <a href='#Page_384'>384</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Napoleon, <a href='#Page_368'>368</a>, <a href='#Page_621'>621</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Newbridge, <a href='#Page_9'>9</a>, <a href='#Page_20'>20</a>, <a href='#Page_25'>25</a>, <a href='#Page_46'>46</a>, <a href='#Page_75'>75</a>, <a href='#Page_154'>154</a>, <a href='#Page_169'>169</a>, <a href='#Page_203'>203</a>, <a href='#Page_209'>209</a>, <a href='#Page_264'>264</a>, <a href='#Page_304'>304</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Newman, Cardinal, <a href='#Page_97'>97</a>, <a href='#Page_371'>371</a>, <a href='#Page_530'>530</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Newman, Francis, <a href='#Page_95'>95</a>, <a href='#Page_97'>97</a>, <a href='#Page_103'>103</a>, <a href='#Page_406'>406</a>, <a href='#Page_415'>415</a>, <a href='#Page_530'>530</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Newspapers, <a href='#Page_169'>169</a></li> - <li class='c035'>New York, <a href='#Page_157'>157</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Nightingale, Miss, <a href='#Page_262'>262</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Nile, <a href='#Page_234'>234</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Noel, Major, <a href='#Page_4'>4</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Norris, Mr. John, <a href='#Page_691'>691</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Norton, Sir Richard, <a href='#Page_7'>7</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Northumberland, Duke of, <a href='#Page_629'>629</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Norwich, <a href='#Page_627'>627</a>, <a href='#Page_634'>634</a></li> - <li class='center'>O</li> - <li class='c003'>O’Brien, Smith, <a href='#Page_153'>153</a>, <em>seq.</em></li> - <li class='c035'>O’Connell, <a href='#Page_182'>182</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Oliphant, Laurence, <a href='#Page_500'>500</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Ormonde, Marchioness of, <a href='#Page_194'>194</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Owen, Sir John, <a href='#Page_7'>7</a></li> - <li class='c003'><span class='pageno' id='Page_720'>720</span>%center%P</li> - <li class='c035'>Padua, <a href='#Page_268'>268</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Paley, <a href='#Page_94'>94</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Palestine, <a href='#Page_234'>234</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Palmer, Susannah, <a href='#Page_432'>432</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Palmerston, Lord, <a href='#Page_563'>563</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Paris, <a href='#Page_224'>224</a>, <a href='#Page_320'>320</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Parkes, Miss Bessie, <a href='#Page_586'>586</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Parker, Theodore, <a href='#Page_97'>97</a>, <a href='#Page_103'>103</a>, <a href='#Page_225'>225</a>, <a href='#Page_351'>351</a>, <a href='#Page_353'>353</a>, <a href='#Page_371'>371</a>, <a href='#Page_502'>502</a>, <a href='#Page_622'>622</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Parnell, Sophia, <a href='#Page_186'>186</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Parnell, C. S., <a href='#Page_186'>186</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Parnell, Sir Henry, <a href='#Page_189'>189</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Parnell, Thomas, <a href='#Page_189'>189</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Parsonstown, <a href='#Page_194'>194</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Parthenon, <a href='#Page_255'>255</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Pays de Vaud, <a href='#Page_269'>269</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Peabody, Mr., <a href='#Page_499'>499</a>, <a href='#Page_662'>662</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Pécaut, M. Felix, <a href='#Page_496'>496</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Pelham, Mrs. H., <a href='#Page_11'>11</a>, <a href='#Page_16'>16</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Pennington, Frederick, <a href='#Page_595'>595</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Penzance, Lord, <a href='#Page_596'>596</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Percy, Lord Jocelyn, <a href='#Page_635'>635</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Perugia, <a href='#Page_365'>365</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Pfeiffer, Mrs., <a href='#Page_577'>577</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Philæ, <a href='#Page_234'>234</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Pigott, Baron, <a href='#Page_593'>593</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Pilgrim’s Progress, <a href='#Page_84'>84</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Pirkis, Mr., <a href='#Page_672'>672</a>, <a href='#Page_679'>679</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Pisa, <a href='#Page_365'>365</a>, <a href='#Page_369'>369</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Playfair, Lord, <a href='#Page_640'>640</a>, <a href='#Page_669'>669</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Plutarch, <a href='#Page_52'>52</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Poggi, Miss, <a href='#Page_60'>60</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Pollock, Baron, <a href='#Page_593'>593</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Portrane, <a href='#Page_8'>8</a>, <a href='#Page_189'>189</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Portsmouth, Countess of, <a href='#Page_629'>629</a>, <a href='#Page_647'>647</a>, <a href='#Page_678'>678</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Poussin, Gaspar, <a href='#Page_26'>26</a>, <a href='#Page_143'>143</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Powers, <a href='#Page_42'>42</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Primrose, (in Bonny Glen), <a href='#Page_101'>101</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Probyn, Miss Letitia, <a href='#Page_435'>435</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Putnam, Messrs., <a href='#Page_457'>457</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Pye-Smith, Dr., <a href='#Page_634'>634</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Pyramids, <a href='#Page_231'>231</a></li> - <li class='center'>Q</li> - <li class='c035'>Quain, Mr. Justice, <a href='#Page_593'>593</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Quarantania, Mountains of, <a href='#Page_242'>242</a></li> - <li class='center'>R</li> - <li class='c035'>Ragged Schools, <a href='#Page_286'>286</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Ramabai, <a href='#Page_495'>495</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Ramleh, <a href='#Page_234'>234</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Rawdon, Colonel, <a href='#Page_14'>14</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Red Lodge, <a href='#Page_275'>275</a>, <em>seq.</em></li> - <li class='c035'>Remond, Miss, <a href='#Page_283'>283</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Renan, Ernest, <a href='#Page_400'>400</a>, <a href='#Page_404'>404</a>, <a href='#Page_535'>535</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Reville, Albert, <a href='#Page_371'>371</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Reid, Mrs., <a href='#Page_485'>485</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Reid, Mr. R. T., <a href='#Page_669'>669</a>, <a href='#Page_671'>671</a>, <a href='#Page_675'>675</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Rees, Miss, <a href='#Page_679'>679</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Rhine, <a href='#Page_269'>269</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Rhodes, <a href='#Page_252'>252</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Rhone, <a href='#Page_269'>269</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Riboli, Dr., <a href='#Page_661'>661</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Riga, <a href='#Page_661'>661</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Ritchie, Mrs. Richmond, <a href='#Page_478'>478</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Roberts, Lord, <a href='#Page_7'>7</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Roberts, Miss, <a href='#Page_60'>60</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Robertson, Frederick, <a href='#Page_93'>93</a>, <a href='#Page_423'>423</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Rolleston, George, <a href='#Page_625'>625</a>, <a href='#Page_627'>627</a>, <a href='#Page_649'>649</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Rollin, <a href='#Page_52'>52</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Rome, <a href='#Page_224'>224</a>, <a href='#Page_365'>365</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Roscoe, Mrs., <a href='#Page_692'>692</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Rosse, Lord and Lady, <a href='#Page_194'>194</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Rothkirch, Countess, <a href='#Page_359'>359</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Roy, Dr. C. S., <a href='#Page_673'>673</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Runciman, Miss, <a href='#Page_60'>60</a>, <a href='#Page_74'>74</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Ruskin, John, <a href='#Page_629'>629</a>, <a href='#Page_671'>671</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Russell, Mr. Patrick, <a href='#Page_147'>147</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Russell, Lord Arthur, <a href='#Page_460'>460</a>, <a href='#Page_545'>545</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Russell, Lord John, <a href='#Page_369'>369</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Russell, Lord Odo, <a href='#Page_534'>534</a>, <a href='#Page_544'>544</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Russell, Mr. George, <a href='#Page_669'>669</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Rutland, Duke of, <a href='#Page_629'>629</a></li> - <li class='center'>S</li> - <li class='c035'>Salisbury, Bishop of, <a href='#Page_629'>629</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Sanderson, Burdon, Dr., <a href='#Page_625'>625</a>, <a href='#Page_626'>626</a>, <a href='#Page_640'>640</a>, <a href='#Page_674'>674</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Schœlcher, M. le Sénateur V., <a href='#Page_497'>497</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Schiff, Professor, <a href='#Page_383'>383</a>, <a href='#Page_622'>622</a>, <em>seq.</em></li> - <li class='c035'>Schilling, Madame V., <a href='#Page_661'>661</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Schuyler, Misses, <a href='#Page_499'>499</a>, <a href='#Page_577'>577</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Scott, Sir Walter, <a href='#Page_11'>11</a>, <a href='#Page_47'>47</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Scutari, <a href='#Page_262'>262</a></li> - <li class='c035'><span class='pageno' id='Page_721'>721</span>Sedan, <a href='#Page_621'>621</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Selborne, Lord, <a href='#Page_629'>629</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Sesostris, <a href='#Page_39'>39</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Shaftesbury, Lord, <a href='#Page_81'>81</a>, <a href='#Page_294'>294</a>, <a href='#Page_561'>561</a>, <em>seq.</em>, <a href='#Page_645'>645</a>, <em>seq.</em>, <a href='#Page_657'>657</a>, <a href='#Page_671'>671</a>, <a href='#Page_697'>697</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Shaen, Mr. W., <a href='#Page_647'>647</a>, <a href='#Page_679'>679</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Shaen, Emily, <a href='#Page_579'>579</a>, <a href='#Page_606'>606</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Shelley, <a href='#Page_50'>50</a>, <a href='#Page_92'>92</a>, <a href='#Page_225'>225</a>, <a href='#Page_383'>383</a>, <a href='#Page_466'>466</a>, <a href='#Page_555'>555</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Shelley, Sir Percy, <a href='#Page_466'>466</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Shirreff, Miss, <a href='#Page_578'>578</a>, <a href='#Page_586'>586</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Shore, Augusta, <a href='#Page_594'>594</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Simpson, Mrs., <a href='#Page_478'>478</a>, <a href='#Page_535'>535</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Skene, Miss Felicia, <a href='#Page_26'>26</a>, <a href='#Page_27'>27</a>, <a href='#Page_109'>109</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Sleeman, Mrs., <a href='#Page_224'>224</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Smith, Horace, <a href='#Page_63'>63</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Smith, Sydney, <a href='#Page_179'>179</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Smith, Joseph, <a href='#Page_401'>401</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Smith, Sir W., <a href='#Page_421'>421</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Smyrna, <a href='#Page_253'>253</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Somerville, Mrs., <a href='#Page_172'>172</a>, <a href='#Page_263'>263</a>, <a href='#Page_269'>269</a>, <a href='#Page_365'>365</a>, <a href='#Page_383'>383</a>, <a href='#Page_446'>446</a>, <a href='#Page_575'>575</a>, <a href='#Page_622'>622</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Somerset, Lady Henry, <a href='#Page_496'>496</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Sonnenschein, Messrs. Swan, <a href='#Page_671'>671</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Southey, <a href='#Page_13'>13</a>, <a href='#Page_47'>47</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Spedding, James, <a href='#Page_559'>559</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Spencer, Herbert, <a href='#Page_485'>485</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Spezzia, <a href='#Page_384'>384</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Spurgeon, Rev. C. H., <a href='#Page_648'>648</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Stael, Madame de, <a href='#Page_187'>187</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Stanley, Dean, <a href='#Page_97'>97</a>, <a href='#Page_237'>237</a>, <a href='#Page_385'>385</a>, <a href='#Page_402'>402</a>, <a href='#Page_465'>465</a>, <a href='#Page_496'>496</a>, <a href='#Page_529'>529</a>, <em>seq.</em>, <a href='#Page_563'>563</a>, <a href='#Page_659'>659</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Stanley, Lady Augusta, <a href='#Page_534'>534</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Stanley, Miss, <a href='#Page_541'>541</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Stanley, Lady, of Alderley, <a href='#Page_587'>587</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Stansfeld, Mr. and Mrs., <a href='#Page_367'>367</a>, <a href='#Page_646'>646</a>, <a href='#Page_648'>648</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Stebbins, Miss, <a href='#Page_391'>391</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Stephen, Miss Sarah, <a href='#Page_328'>328</a>, <a href='#Page_333'>333</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Stephen, Leslie, <a href='#Page_421'>421</a>, <a href='#Page_478'>478</a>, <a href='#Page_618'>618</a>, <a href='#Page_635'>635</a>, <a href='#Page_671'>671</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Stephen, Miss Caroline, <a href='#Page_578'>578</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Stephens, Sir Fitzjames, <a href='#Page_419'>419</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Stewart, Delia, <a href='#Page_186'>186</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Stockholm, <a href='#Page_661'>661</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Story, W. W., <a href='#Page_365'>365</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Stowe, Mrs., <a href='#Page_365'>365</a>, <a href='#Page_382'>382</a>, <a href='#Page_457'>457</a>, <a href='#Page_575'>575</a>, <a href='#Page_577'>577</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Strozzi, <a href='#Page_623'>623</a></li> - <li class='c035'>St. Asaph, Bishop of, <a href='#Page_629'>629</a></li> - <li class='c035'>St. Sophia, <a href='#Page_262'>262</a></li> - <li class='c035'>St. Leger, Harriet, <a href='#Page_4'>4</a>, <a href='#Page_111'>111</a>, <a href='#Page_180'>180</a>, <a href='#Page_197'>197</a>, <a href='#Page_205'>205</a>, <a href='#Page_211'>211</a>, <a href='#Page_214'>214</a>, <a href='#Page_275'>275</a>, <a href='#Page_298'>298</a>, <a href='#Page_384'>384</a>, <a href='#Page_388'>388</a>, <a href='#Page_576'>576</a>, <a href='#Page_579'>579</a></li> - <li class='c035'>St. Paul’s, <a href='#Page_112'>112</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Sunday, (at Newbridge), <a href='#Page_82'>82</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Swanwick, Anna, <a href='#Page_577'>577</a>, <a href='#Page_607'>607</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Swarraton, <a href='#Page_7'>7</a>, <a href='#Page_20'>20</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Swedenborg, <a href='#Page_401'>401</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Switzerland, <a href='#Page_222'>222</a>, <a href='#Page_269'>269</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Symonds, Dr., <a href='#Page_286'>286</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Syra, <a href='#Page_264'>264</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Syracuse, <a href='#Page_282'>282</a></li> - <li class='center'>T</li> - <li class='c035'>Tait, Archbishop, <a href='#Page_631'>631</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Tait, Mrs., <a href='#Page_318'>318</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Tait, Lawson, <a href='#Page_671'>671</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Tayler, Rev. J. J., <a href='#Page_375'>375</a>, <a href='#Page_524'>524</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Taylor, Rev. Edward, <a href='#Page_12'>12</a>, <a href='#Page_197'>197</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Taylor, Jane, <a href='#Page_37'>37</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Taylor, Mr. and Mrs. P. A., <a href='#Page_283'>283</a>, <a href='#Page_457'>457</a>, <a href='#Page_459'>459</a>, <a href='#Page_461'>461</a>, <a href='#Page_586'>586</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Taylor, Sir Henry, <a href='#Page_557'>557</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Taylor, Miss, <a href='#Page_199'>199</a>, <a href='#Page_411'>411</a>, <a href='#Page_456'>456</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Taylor, Dr. Bell, <a href='#Page_671'>671</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Templeton, <a href='#Page_13'>13</a>, <a href='#Page_44'>44</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Tennyson, Alfred, <a href='#Page_551'>551</a>, <em>seq.</em>, <a href='#Page_611'>611</a>, <a href='#Page_629'>629</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Tennyson, Emily, <a href='#Page_556'>556</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Tennyson, Frederick, <a href='#Page_383'>383</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Tennyson, Hallam, <a href='#Page_555'>555</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Thebes, <a href='#Page_234'>234</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Theism, <a href='#Page_93'>93</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Themistocles, Tomb of, <a href='#Page_261'>261</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Thompson, Archbishop, <a href='#Page_629'>629</a>, <a href='#Page_645'>645</a>, <a href='#Page_662'>662</a>, <a href='#Page_675'>675</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Thornhill, Mark, <a href='#Page_671'>671</a>, <a href='#Page_672'>672</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Thring, Mr., <a href='#Page_677'>677</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Trelawney, Mr., <a href='#Page_258'>258</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Trench, Anne Power, <a href='#Page_16'>16</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Trench, Jane Power, <a href='#Page_176'>176</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Trench, Archdeacon, <a href='#Page_177'>177</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Trench, Archbishop, <a href='#Page_553'>553</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Trevelyan, Sir C., <a href='#Page_541'>541</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Trieste, <a href='#Page_264'>264</a>, <a href='#Page_267'>267</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Trimleston, Lord, <a href='#Page_8'>8</a>, <a href='#Page_137'>137</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Trimmer, Mrs., <a href='#Page_38'>38</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Trollope, Adolphus, <a href='#Page_263'>263</a>, <a href='#Page_269'>269</a>, <a href='#Page_365'>365</a>, <a href='#Page_381'>381</a></li> - <li class='c035'><span class='pageno' id='Page_722'>722</span>Trollope, Anthony, <a href='#Page_558'>558</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Trübner, <a href='#Page_113'>113</a>, <a href='#Page_400'>400</a>, <a href='#Page_421'>421</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Truro, Lord, <a href='#Page_668'>668</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Tufnell, Dr., <a href='#Page_627'>627</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Tuam, Archbishop of, <a href='#Page_12'>12</a>, <a href='#Page_22'>22</a>, <a href='#Page_177'>177</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Turin, <a href='#Page_365'>365</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Turner, Mr., <a href='#Page_210'>210</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Turvey, <a href='#Page_8'>8</a>, <a href='#Page_9'>9</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Twining, Louisa, <a href='#Page_318'>318</a>, <a href='#Page_327'>327</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Tyndall, Professor, <a href='#Page_482'>482</a>, <em>seq.</em></li> - <li class='c035'>Tyrone, Lord, <a href='#Page_12'>12</a></li> - <li class='center'>U</li> - <li class='c035'>Umberto, <a href='#Page_368'>368</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Unwin, Fisher, Messrs., <a href='#Page_205'>205</a>, <a href='#Page_422'>422</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Upsala, <a href='#Page_643'>643</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Usedom, Count Guido, <a href='#Page_365'>365</a>, <a href='#Page_368'>368</a>, <a href='#Page_371'>371</a></li> - <li class='center'>V</li> - <li class='c035'>Vambéry, Mons., <a href='#Page_484'>484</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Vaughan, Rev. Mr., <a href='#Page_87'>87</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Vaughan, Rev. Dr., <a href='#Page_647'>647</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Venice, <a href='#Page_258'>258</a>, <a href='#Page_267'>267</a>, <a href='#Page_365'>365</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Verona, <a href='#Page_365'>365</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Vestiges of Creation, <a href='#Page_194'>194</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Vesuvius, <a href='#Page_226'>226</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Victor Emmanuel, <a href='#Page_368'>368</a>, <a href='#Page_388'>388</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Villari, Madame, <a href='#Page_269'>269</a>, <a href='#Page_381'>381</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Virchow, Dr., <a href='#Page_634'>634</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Vivisection (Movement against), chapter xx.</li> - <li class='c035'>Vogt, Carl, <a href='#Page_490'>490</a>, <a href='#Page_663'>663</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Voltaire, <a href='#Page_94'>94</a>, <a href='#Page_97'>97</a></li> - <li class='center'>W</li> - <li class='c035'>Waddy, Mr., <a href='#Page_673'>673</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Wakeley, Dr., <a href='#Page_673'>673</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Walker, Dr., <a href='#Page_635'>635</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Warburton, Elliot, <a href='#Page_183'>183</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Ward, Mrs. Humphry, <a href='#Page_524'>524</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Warren, Mr., <a href='#Page_464'>464</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Waterford, Marquis of, <a href='#Page_12'>12</a>, <a href='#Page_23'>23</a>, <a href='#Page_174'>174</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Watson, William, <a href='#Page_558'>558</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Watts, Dr., <a href='#Page_37'>37</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Watts, G. F., <a href='#Page_456'>456</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Weber, Baron, <a href='#Page_661'>661</a>, <a href='#Page_671'>671</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Webster, Mrs., <a href='#Page_577'>577</a>, <a href='#Page_586'>586</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Wedgwood, Mr. H., <a href='#Page_646'>646</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Wedgwood, Miss Julia, <a href='#Page_578'>578</a>, <a href='#Page_646'>646</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Weiss, Mr., <a href='#Page_375'>375</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Wellborne, <a href='#Page_7'>7</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Welldon, Mr., <a href='#Page_677'>677</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Wellesley, <a href='#Page_20'>20</a>, <a href='#Page_209'>209</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Wellington, Duke of, <a href='#Page_629'>629</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Weston, <a href='#Page_20'>20</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Whately, Archbishop, <a href='#Page_196'>196</a></li> - <li class='c035'>White, Blanco, <a href='#Page_97'>97</a></li> - <li class='c035'>White, Rev. H., <a href='#Page_532'>532</a></li> - <li class='c035'>White, Mrs., <a href='#Page_662'>662</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Wicksteed, Rev. P., <a href='#Page_524'>524</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Wilberforce, Canon, <a href='#Page_671'>671</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Wilhelm, Emperor, <a href='#Page_366'>366</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Willard, Miss, <a href='#Page_607'>607</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Williams & Norgate, Messrs., <a href='#Page_422'>422</a>, <a href='#Page_471'>471</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Wilmot, Sir Eardley, <a href='#Page_669'>669</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Windeyer, W. C., <a href='#Page_334'>334</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Winchester, Bishop of, <a href='#Page_629'>629</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Winkworth, Misses, <a href='#Page_580'>580</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Wilson, Miss Dorothy, <a href='#Page_214'>214</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Wister, Mrs., <a href='#Page_499'>499</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Wollstoncraft, Mary, <a href='#Page_466'>466</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Wood, Colonel Sir Evelyn, <a href='#Page_629'>629</a>, <a href='#Page_635'>635</a>, <a href='#Page_648'>648</a>, <a href='#Page_650'>650</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Woolman, John, <a href='#Page_619'>619</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Workhouses, <a href='#Page_286'>286</a>, chapter xi.</li> - <li class='c035'>Wynne-Finch, Mr., <a href='#Page_500'>500</a></li> - <li class='center'>Y</li> - <li class='c035'>Yates, Mrs. Richard Vaughan, <a href='#Page_699'>699</a>, <em>seq.</em></li> - <li class='c035'>Yeo, Professor, <a href='#Page_674'>674</a></li> - <li class='center'>Z</li> - <li class='c035'>Zachly, <a href='#Page_244'>244</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Zola, <a href='#Page_369'>369</a></li> - <li class='c035'>Zoophilist, <a href='#Page_670'>670</a>, <a href='#Page_680'>680</a>, <a href='#Page_682'>682</a></li> -</ul> - -<hr class='c036' /> -<div class='footnote' id='f1'> -<p class='c007'><a href='#r1'>1</a>. With respect to the Letters and Extracts from Letters to myself -and to Miss Elliot, from the late Master of Balliol,—(to be found -Vol. I., pp. 316, 317, 349, 350, 351, 352, 353, and 354),—I beg to -record that I have received the very kind permission of Mr. Jowett’s -Executors for their publication.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f2'> -<p class='c007'><a href='#r2'>2</a>. It is always amusing to me to read the complacent arguments -of despisers of women when they think to prove the inevitable -mental inferiority of my sex by specifying the smaller circumference -of our heads. On this line of logic an elephant should be -twice as wise as a man. But in my case, as it happens, their -argument leans the wrong way, for my head is larger than those -of most of my countrymen,—Doctors included. As measured -carefully with proper instruments by a skilled phrenologist (the -late Major Noel) the dimensions are as follows:—Circumference, -twenty-three and a quarter inches; greatest height from external -orifice of ear to summit of crown, 6²⁄₈ inches. On the other hand -dear Mrs. Somerville’s little head, which held three times as much -as mine has ever done, was below the average of that of women. -So much for that argument!</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f3'> -<p class='c007'><a href='#r3'>3</a>. The aphorism so often applied to little girls, that “it is better -to be good than pretty,” may, with greater hope of success, be -applied to family names; but I fear mine is neither imposing nor -sonorous. I may say of it (as I remarked to the charming Teresa -Doria when she ridiculed the Swiss for their <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">mesquin</span></i> names, all -ending in “<em>in</em>”), “Everybody cannot have the luck to be able to -sign themselves Doria <i><span lang="la" xml:lang="la">nata</span></i> Durazzo!” Nevertheless “Cobbe” is -a very old name (Leuricus Cobbe held lands in Suffolk, <i><span lang="la" xml:lang="la">vide</span></i> -Domesday), and it is curiously wide-spread as a word in most -Aryan languages, signifying either the <em>head</em> (literal or metaphorical), -or a head-shaped object. I am no philologist, and I -dare say my examples offend against some “law,” and therefore -cannot be admitted; but it is at least odd that we should find -Latin, “<i><span lang="la" xml:lang="la">Caput</span></i>;” Italian, <i><span lang="it" xml:lang="it">Capo</span></i>; Spanish, <i><span lang="es" xml:lang="es">Cabo</span></i>; Saxon, <i><span lang="ang" xml:lang="ang">Cop</span></i>; -German, <i><span lang="de" xml:lang="de">Kopf</span></i>. Then we have, as derivates from the physical -head, <em>Cape</em>, <em>Capstan</em>, <em>Cap</em>, <em>Cope</em>, <em>Copse</em> or <em>Coppice</em>, <em>Coping Stone</em>, -<em>Copped</em>, <em>Cup</em>, <em>Cupola</em>, <em>Cub</em>, <em>Cubicle</em>, <em>Kobbold</em>, <em>Gobbo</em>; and from -the metaphorical Head or Chief, <em>Captain</em>, <em>Capital</em>, <em>Capitation</em>, -<em>Capitulate</em>, &c. And again, we have a multitude of names for -objects obviously signifying head-shaped, <em>e.g.</em>, <em>Cob-horse</em>, <em>Cob-nut</em>, -<em>Cob-gull</em>, <em>Cob-herring</em>, <em>Cob-swan</em>, <em>Cob-coal</em>, <em>Cob-iron</em>, <em>Cob-wall</em>; a -<em>Cock</em> (of hay), according to Johnson, properly a “<em>Cop</em>” of hay; the -<em>Cobb</em> (or Headland) at Lyme Regis, &c., &c.; the Kobbé fiord in -Norway, &c.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f4'> -<p class='c007'><a href='#r4'>4</a>. As such things as mythical pedigrees are not <em>altogether</em> unknown -in the world, I beg to say that I have myself noted the above -from Harleian MS. in British Museum 1473 and 1139. Also in -the College of Arms, G. 16, p. 74, and C. 19, p. 104.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f5'> -<p class='c007'><a href='#r5'>5</a>. Wife of Thomas Cobbe’s half-brother.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f6'> -<p class='c007'><a href='#r6'>6</a>. Lady Huntingdon was doubly connected with Thomas Cobbe. -She was his first cousin, daughter of his maternal aunt Selina -Countess of Ferrers, and mother of his sister-in-law, Elizabeth -Countess of Moira. The pictures of Dorothy Levinge, and of her -father; of Lady Ferrers; and of Lord Moira and his wife, all of -which hang in the halls at Newbridge, made me as a child, think -of them as familiar people. Unfortunately the portrait of chief -interest, that of Lady Huntingdon, is missing in the series.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f7'> -<p class='c007'><a href='#r7'>7</a>. Pronounced “Lock Nay.”</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f8'> -<p class='c007'><a href='#r8'>8</a>. Part of the following description of my own and my mother’s -school appeared some years ago in a periodical, now, I believe, -extinct.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f9'> -<p class='c007'><a href='#r9'>9</a>. “It is a fact of Consciousness to which all experience bears -witness and which it is the duty of the philosopher to admit and -account for, instead of disguising or mutilating it to suit the -demands of a system, that there are certain truths which when -once acquired, no matter how, it is impossible by any effort of -thought to conceive as reversed or reversible.”—Mansel’s <cite>Metaphysics</cite>, -p. 248.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f10'> -<p class='c007'><a href='#r10'>10</a>. We should now say <em>Altruism</em>.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f11'> -<p class='c007'><a href='#r11'>11</a>. I am thankful to believe that he would be no longer accorded -such a rank in 1890 as in 1850!</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f12'> -<p class='c007'><a href='#r12'>12</a>. Mr. Hutton, whose exceedingly interesting and brilliant <cite>Life -of the Marquess of Wellesley</cite> (in the “<cite>Rulers of India</cite>” series) -includes an account of the whole campaign, has been so kind as -to endeavour to identify this Frenchman for me, and tells me -that in a note to Wellington’s <cite>Despatches</cite>, Vol. II., p. 323, it is -given as <em>Dupont</em>; Wellington speaking of him as commanding a -“brigade of infantry.” My father certainly spoke of him or -some other Frenchman as commanding Scindias’ artillery. -Mr. Hutton has also been good enough to refer me to Grant -Duff’s <cite>History of the Mahrattas</cite>, Vol. III., p. 240, with regard to -the number of British troops engaged at Assaye. He (Mr. Grant -Duff) says the handful of British troops did not exceed 4,500 as -my father also estimated them.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f13'> -<p class='c007'><a href='#r13'>13</a>. The mistake recorded in these little verses was made by a -daughter of Louis Philippe when visiting her uncle, the Grand -Duke of Lucca. The incident was narrated to me by the -sculpturess, Mdlle. Felicie Fauveau, attendant on the Duchesse de -Berri.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f14'> -<p class='c007'><a href='#r14'>14</a>. See General Sleeman’s <em>India</em>.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f15'> -<p class='c007'><a href='#r15'>15</a>. The Proteus Anguinus.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f16'> -<p class='c007'><a href='#r16'>16</a>. Miss Elliot and I had begun it a year sooner, as stated above.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f17'> -<p class='c007'><a href='#r17'>17</a>. Mr. Jowett referred to Dean Elliot’s purchases of some fine -old pictures.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f18'> -<p class='c007'><a href='#r18'>18</a>. </p> -<div class='lg-container-b c018'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“Then, soul of my soul! I shall meet thee again,</div> - <div class='line'>And with God be the rest!”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f19'> -<p class='c007'><a href='#r19'>19</a>. This refers to an afternoon party we gave to witness poor Mr. -Bishop’s interesting thought-reading performances. He was -wonderfully successful throughout, and the company, which -consisted of about 30 clever men and women, were unanimous in -applauding his art, of whatever nature it may have been. I may -add that after my guests were departed, when I took out -my cheque-book and begged to know his fee, Mr. Bishop -positively refused to accept any remuneration whatever for the -charming entertainment he had given us. The tragic circumstances -of the death of this unhappy young man will be remembered. He -either died, or fell into a deathlike trance, at a supper party in -New York, in 1889; and within <em>four hours</em> of his real (or apparent) -decease, three medical men who had been supping with him, dissected -his brain. One doctor who conducted this autopsy alleged -that Bishop had been extremely anxious that his brain should be -examined <i><span lang="la" xml:lang="la">post mortem</span></i>, but his mother asserted on the contrary, -that he had a peculiar horror of dissection, and had left directions -that no <i><span lang="la" xml:lang="la">post mortem</span></i> should be held on his remains. It was also -stated that he had a card in his pocket warning those who might find -him at any time in a trance, to beware of burying him before signs -of dissolution should be visible. In a leading article on the subject -in the <cite>Liverpool Daily Post</cite>, May 21st, 1889, it is stated that by the -laws of the United States “it is distinctly enacted that no dissection -shall take place without the fiat of the coroner, or at the -request of the relatives of the deceased; so that some explanation -of the anxiety which induced so manifest a breach of both laws and -custom is eminently desirable. A second examination of the body -at the instance of the coroner, has revealed the fact that all the -organs were in a healthy state, and that it was impossible to ascribe -death to any specific cause or to say whether Mr. Bishop were -alive or dead at the time of the first autopsy.” Both wife and -mother believed he was “murdered;” and ordered that word to be -engraved on his coffin. His mother had herself experienced a -cataleptic trance of six days’ duration, during the whole of which -she was fully conscious. The three doctors were proceeded against -by her and the widow, and were put under bonds of £500 each; -but, as the experts alleged that it was impossible to decide the cause -of death, the case eventually dropped. Whether it were one of -“<em>Human Vivisection</em>” or not, can never now be known. If the -three physicians who performed the autopsy on Mr. Bishop did -not commit a murder of appalling barbarity on the helpless companion -of their supper-table, they certainly <em>risked</em> incurring that -guilt with unparalleled levity and callousness.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f20'> -<p class='c007'><a href='#r20'>20</a>. A statue of Miss Hosmer exhibited in London, purchased by an -American gentleman for £1,000.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f21'> -<p class='c007'><a href='#r21'>21</a>. Not quite so good a story as that of another American child -who, having been naughty and punished, was sent up to her room -by her mother and told to ask for forgiveness. On returning -downstairs the mother asked her whether she had done as she -had directed? “Oh yes! Mama,” answered the child, “<em>And God -said to me, Pray don’t mention it, Miss Perkins!</em>”</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f22'> -<p class='c007'><a href='#r22'>22</a>. See Spenser—The “West” District of London was the one -which elected Miss Garrett for the School Board.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f23'> -<p class='c007'><a href='#r23'>23</a>. Sir W. Harcourt interrupted Mr. Russell when speaking of -Vivisections before students, by the assertion—</p> - -<p class='c007'>“Under the Act demonstrations were forbidden.”—<cite>Times</cite>, -April 5th, 1883.</p> - -<p class='c007'>In the Act in question—39 & 40 Vict., c. 77, Clause 3, Sect. 1—are -these words, “Experiments <em>may be performed</em> ... by -a person giving illustrations of lectures,” &c., &c. By the Returns -issued from Sir W. Harcourt’s own (Home) Office in the previous -year, <em>sixteen</em> persons had been registered as holding certificates -permitting experiments in illustration of lectures. It seems to me -a shocking feature of modern politics that an outrageous falsehood—or -must we call it mistake?—of this kind is allowed to serve its -purpose at the moment but the author never apologizes for it -afterwards.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f24'> -<p class='c007'><a href='#r24'>24</a>. Most of the following letters were lent by me to Mr. Walrond -when he was preparing the biography of Dean Stanley, and in -returning them he said that he had kept copies of them, and -meant to include them in his book. The present Editor not -having used them, I feel myself at liberty to print them here.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f25'> -<p class='c007'><a href='#r25'>25</a>. We had many good stories floating about in Rome at that -time and he was always ready to enjoy them, but one, I think, told -me by the painter Penry Williams, would not have tickled him as -it did us heretics. The Pope, it seems, offered one of his Cardinals -(whose reputation was far from immaculate) a pinch of snuff. -The Cardinal replied more facetiously than respectfully “<i><span lang="it" xml:lang="it">Non ho -questo vizio, Santo Padre</span></i>.” Pius IX. observed quietly, snapping his -snuffbox, “<i><span lang="it" xml:lang="it">Se vizio fosse, l’avreste</span></i>” (If it had been a vice you would -have had it)!</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f26'> -<p class='c007'><a href='#r26'>26</a>. Curiously enough I have had occasion to repeat this remark -this Spring (1894) in a controversy in the columns of the -<cite>Catholic Times</cite>.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f27'> -<p class='c007'><a href='#r27'>27</a>. I had talked to him of our Ragged School at Bristol.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f28'> -<p class='c007'><a href='#r28'>28</a>. When our Bill was debated in Parliament in 1883, Mr. -Gladstone left us, totally unaided, to the mercies (not tender) of Sir -William Harcourt, who interrupted Mr. George Russell’s speech -in support of our Bill by the remark that the demonstrations to -students, to which he referred, were forbidden by the Vivisection -Act. <em>Sixteen</em> certificates granting permission for the performance -of such experiments in demonstration to students passed through -his own office that year!</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f29'> -<p class='c007'><a href='#r29'>29</a>. This opinion of the great <em>Philanthropist</em> deserves to be remembered -with those of the many thinkers who have reached the -same conclusion from other sides.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f30'> -<p class='c007'><a href='#r30'>30</a>. The General Secretary, then, and, I am happy to say, still,—of -the Victoria Street Society.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f31'> -<p class='c007'><a href='#r31'>31</a>. The lines to which Lord Shaftesbury refers—“Best in the -Lord” (since included in many collections) begin with the words:</p> - -<div class='lg-container-b c018'> - <div class='linegroup'> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>“God draws a cloud over each gleaming morn.</div> - <div class='line'>Wouldst thou ask, why?</div> - <div class='line'>It is because all noblest things are born</div> - <div class='line'>In agony.</div> - </div> - <div class='group'> - <div class='line'>Only upon some Cross of pain or woe</div> - <div class='line'>God’s Son may lie.</div> - <div class='line'>Each soul redeemed from self and sin must know</div> - <div class='line'>Its Calvary.”</div> - </div> - </div> -</div> - -<p class='c007'>Lord Shaftesbury entirely understood the point of view from which -I regarded that sacred spot.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f32'> -<p class='c007'><a href='#r32'>32</a>. Here is what Dr. Russell Reynolds, F.R.S., said in 1881 in an -address to the Medical Society of University College:—“There -is meddling and muddling of a most disreputable sort, and the -patients” (he is speaking of women) “grow sick of it, and give it -all up and get well; or they go from bad to worse.”... -“Physicians have coined names for trifling maladies, if they have -not invented them, and have set fashions of disease. They have -treated or maltreated their patients by endless examinations, -applications, and the like, and this sometimes for months, sometimes -for years, and then, when by some accident the patient has -been removed from their care, she has become quite well and -there has been no more need for caustic,” &c., &c.</p> - -<p class='c007'>And here is what Dr. Clifford Allbut said in the Gulstonian -Lecture for 1884 at the Royal College of Physicians. After -admitting that women feel more pain than men, he mentioned the -“<em>morbid chains</em>,” the “<em>mental abasement</em>,” into which fall “the flock -of women who lie under the wand of the Gynæcologist” (specialist -of women’s diseases); “the women who are <em>caged up in London -back drawing-rooms</em>, and visited almost daily; their brave and -active spirits broken under a <em>false</em> (!!) <em>belief in the presence of a -secret and over-mastering local malady</em>; and the best years of their -lives honoured only by a distressful victory over pain.” (Italics -mine.)—<cite>Medical Press</cite>, March 19th, 1884.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f33'> -<p class='c007'><a href='#r33'>33</a>. The certificate (A) dispensing with Anæsthetics was doubtless -inserted after Lord Shaftesbury saw the Bill.</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f34'> -<p class='c007'><a href='#r34'>34</a>. Mr. Cartwright, speaking in the House of Commons, April 4th, -1883, in reply to Mr. R. T. Reid, said: “The hon. member should -have said something about the prosecution of Dr. Ferrier for having -evaded the Act. He does not do that. He has wisely given the -go-by to it, for that prosecution lamentably failed, altogether broke -down. The charge brought against Dr. Ferrier was that he -operated without a licence and infringed the law by doing those -things to which the hon. and learned member referred; but the -charge was not supported by one tittle of evidence.”</p> -</div> -<div class='footnote' id='f35'> -<p class='c007'><a href='#r35'>35</a>. Many persons have supposed that I am still concerned with -the management of that journal; but, except as an occasional -contributor, such is not the case. The credit of the editorship for -the last ten years (which I consider to be great) rests entirely with -Mr. Bryan.</p> -</div> - -<div class='pbb'> - <hr class='pb c004' /> -</div> -<div class='tnotes x-ebookmaker'> - -<div class='chapter ph2'> - -<div class='nf-center-c0'> -<div class='nf-center c001'> - <div>TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES</div> - </div> -</div> - -</div> - - <ol class='ol_1 c003'> - <li>P. <a href='#t169'>169</a>, changed “but really achieved” to “but rarely achieved”. - - </li> - <li>P. <a href='#t277'>277</a>, changed “straight on end” to “straight on in”. - - </li> - <li>P. <a href='#t319'>319</a>, changed “bought forth fruit” to “brought forth fruit”. - - </li> - <li>P. <a href='#t354'>354</a>, changed “thoughts, I don’t” to “thoughts, I won’t”. - - </li> - <li>Corrected the issues identified in the Errata. - - </li> - <li>Silently corrected obvious typographical errors and variations in spelling. - - </li> - <li>Retained archaic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings as printed. - - </li> - <li>Re-indexed foot-notes using numbers and collected together at the end of the last - chapter. - </li> - </ol> - -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin-top:4em'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIFE OF FRANCES POWER COBBE AS TOLD BY HERSELF ***</div> -<div style='text-align:left'> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -Updated editions will replace the previous one—the old editions will -be renamed. -</div> - -<div style='display:block; margin:1em 0'> -Creating the works from print editions not protected by U.S. copyright -law means that no one owns a United States copyright in these works, -so the Foundation (and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United -States without permission and without paying copyright -royalties. 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