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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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